NSW residents unable to spend Dine and Discover vouchers as Service NSW app crashes

NSW residents trying to spend the millions of dollars in unused Dine and Discover vouchers have hit a roadblock just hours from their expiry.

Floods of frustrated NSW residents have reported having difficulty spending their Dine and Discover vouchers before the cut off date due to an annoying technical issue.

With just hours before until the vouchers expire at 11.59pm Thursday, there is brewing concern that millions of dollars in vouchers will go unused.

Consumers who on Wednesday tried to pay for meals and activities were left disappointed when the Service NSW’s app displayed an error message in place of the $25 vouchers.

“Something went wrong. We’re unable to load your vouchers. Try again later,” the message read.

The NSW government last week encouraged residents in possession of the almost $300 million in unused vouchers to spend them before the June 30 cut-off.

About 12 million vouchers have yet to be used, and it seems unlikely that figure will go down in light of the technical troubles.

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Many NSW residents went out last night to spend their vouchers but were unable to. Picture: Twitter

Many claimed they went out with the specific intention of spending their vouchers only to be left having to dig into their own pockets when it came time to pay.

“Went to use our dine and discover voucher before they expires tomorrow. Service NSW owes me a pizza,” one woman wrote in a tweet.

@ServiceNSW is the App down or why are vouchers not working? #dineanddiscover#servicesnsw

— Teddy_Sesser (@Teddy_Sesser27) June 29, 2022

Went to use our dine and discover voucher before they expires tomorrow. @ServiceNSW owes me a pizza. pic.twitter.com/1giLoswaez

— Addie (Rade) (@Gamer_Rade) June 29, 2022

Well thanks so much to @ServiceNSW and @NSWgov for the dine and discover vouchers which we were UNABLE to download tonight. We still ate at the local spending our money and hope the NSW Government and Premier give loyal workers a well deserved pay adjustment! #epicfail

— Beth McMillan (@BurrawongGaian) June 29, 2022

“Anyone else’s Dine and Discover not working? Guess I’m paying full price,” another said.

“Social media going mental that no one can access their Dine and Discover vouchers. The app is not coping. Service NSW what are you doing about this please???” someone else wrote.

“Well thanks so much to Service NSW and NSW gov for the Dine and Discover vouchers which we were UNABLE to download tonight. We still ate at the local spending our money and hope the NSW Government and Premier give loyal workers a well deserved pay adjustment! #epicfail,” another tweet read.

Many suspected the high volume of people rushing to cash in their free money before time ran out may have caused the app to crash.

A Service NSW spokesperson told 7 News Wednesday evening the issue had been resolved, however many residents continued to report problems.

“The Service NSW vouchers database experienced an outage at 5.01pm. Service NSW investigated and resolved the issue by 6pm,” they said.

Some discovered a nifty workaround which involved logging into the Service NSW website instead of the app, and finding the code for the voucher that needed to be used.

Eligible businesses should be able to accept the codes when the app’s barcode feature is down.