Stranded customers furious at Westpac payment system fail and ANZ app problems

Furious customers stranded in shops are lashing out at Westpac and ANZ on social media saying they are unable to pay for their goods.

Angry customers and business owners are taking aim at Westpac and ANZ, saying their payment system has dropped out on one of the year’s busiest shopping days.

Customers were stranded inside shops with no means to pay for their Boxing Day sale finds or being forced to pay with cash.

Outage-checking website Down Detector shows there has been a sudden surge in customers reporting problems accessing the payment system from about midday today.

The same website shows the ANZ App has crashed on one of the busiest days of the year for banking transactions — with customers unable to access their funds.

Down Detector shows hundreds of customers reported problems with the app at around 10am on Boxing Day.

⚠️ UPDATE: Good news, the ANZ App is slowly coming back online for most of our customers. Thanks for your patience and we're very sorry again for all the inconvenience caused. Enjoy the rest of Boxing Day.

— ANZ Australia (@ANZ_AU) 26 December 2018

Furious customers hit out at the outages on social media.

“Westpac’s payment processing is down. No ETA on restoration. Phone dude told me to try again in an hour,” wrote one disgruntled customer on social media.

Thai is chaos! Trying to run a food outlet in a good court with no eftpos! Thanks a tonne @westpac

— Shannon Plant (@WeveAllGotToEat) December 26, 2018

Boxing Day and @Westpac eftpos is down. Can’t be good for the sales

— Jordan Meade (@JordanMeade) December 26, 2018

#boxingday #BoxingDaySales @westpac @anz systems down and shoppers being asked to pay cash instead of card. Eftpos is down.

— John Isaac (@John1saac) December 26, 2018

“What is happening with Westpac!!! We have a grocery store and none of our eftpos is working customers are leaving!” wrote a business owner.

One shopper tweeted to Westpac saying all its systems were down and customers were being asked to pay cash instead of card.

“We are currently aware of the issue and our team is working to get this resolved ASAP,” a spokesman for the bank responded on Twitter.

A Westpac spokeswoman told news.com.au yesterday afternoon the problem was now under control and all systems should be back to normal.

She said the outage lasted one hour — from 11.59am to 12.58pm (AEST).

ANZ customer have had trouble accessing their app. Picture: 3AW

“We want to sincerely apologise to customers,” she said. “It’s a terrible day for this to happen.”

ANZ has also copped hammering on social media.

“App still not working. Makes it hard to shop for the sales,” wrote one customer.

“Just tried to log in to the app but it won’t recognise my fingerprint or my pin code,” wrote another.

One customer told 3AW his app shows an error message which reads: “Something went wrong, please try again later”.

The outages coudn’t have come at a worse time. Picture: AAP Image/Dylan Coker

“I waited about 20 minutes on the phone and they said it’s down nation-wide,” Jan said.

“They don’t know when it’s going to be back up and running.”

Both crashes come as more than half of Australia expected to be on the hunt for sales today — causing roads in major cities to become gridlocked.

December 26 is still the nation’s supreme shopping event, despite November’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday offering large discounts.

News.com.au has approached ANZ for comment.

— more to come

Originally published as Stranded customers furious at Westpac payment system fail and ANZ app problems