Posted as general awareness re yesterday's major glitch story in OZ

Cashless society glitch riles retailers
by Tim Boreham
The Weekend Australian
Feb 19-20

Retailers yesterday condemned the banks' EFTPOS service as overpriced and unreliable after a computer glitch at the ANZ shut down its 30,000 national retail links for three hours.

The bank's 1000 ATM terminals were also blacked out for up to four hours, the result of a 'hardware issue' at the bank's Mt. Waverley processing centre in Melbourne.

Retail Traders Association Victorian general manager Greg Porter said retailers were missing out on sales because of frequent EFTPOS crashes.

"It continually happens and all we seem to get is excuses," Mr Porter said.

"We are paying a significant amount of merchant and transaction fees and we don't seem to get a reliable service."

He said the association raised the reliability issue with six banks before Christmas, but only received 'fairly bland' replies from three of them.

The banks argue the overall reliability of their system is reasonable, given the huge volume of retail transactions.

ANZ spokesman Paul Edwards apologised to the retailers and ATM customers affected by the crash.

"We had to find the problem and, once identified, it takes quite a while to fix," he said.

"The unfortunate side effect is three to four hours of inconvenience to our customers."

Despite some reports of wider problems, the other major banks reported no glitches yesterday.

One ANZ customer who tried to use the bank's Southgate ATM in Melbourne was told by a call centre worker to use the branch instead.

However, the bank closed its Southgate outlet more than a year ago.

Mr. Edwards said any inconvenienced customers charged the @2.50 fee for over-the-counter transactions would be reimbursed if they contacted the bank.

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Comment:
The above is unlinked and I copied from page 5 of the newspaper today. You just got to love the bank's attitude. Many more closures of banks announced this week. Continuing very hot weather today.

Regards from OZ

-- Pieter (zaadz@icisp.net.au), February 18, 2000

Answers

Why Austrailia?

Looks like every y2k problem is concentrated there.

Poor guys!

-- pliney the younger (pliney@puget.sound.temp.inversion), February 18, 2000.

Hey Pieter - There was a time when I thought visiting Australia would be interesting, but after you're last 30-50 posts I'm quickly losing interest. Even as a doomer you're getting me down.

Someone grabbed a bottle of industrial strength Y2K and sprinkled Australia with it.

-- Guy Daley (guydaley@bwn.net), February 18, 2000.

Simple reason is that Australia went through the rollover first. Remember how the whole world watch ANZ for signs of trouble?

-- Squirrel Hunter (nuts@upina.cellrelaytower), February 18, 2000.

Guy,
She'll be all right mate.

It's 2.15 p.m. in the afternoon right now. A huge fire is ablaze over the hill in the pine plantation. I've been watching the fire fighter bombers. They look like little mosquitoes against the plume of smoke that'll go all the way to New Zealand I reckon. The wind is gusting strongly. Will post if this turns out the extra bad one. It's about 5 miles over the paddocks. Too close with the weather sizzling.

Australia is a great place. We're too casual. We let the big boys nobble us too readily. I post to point out some of the idiocy Down Under. Thanks for showing an interest in us. I think we've might have a wildfire now. Local TV doing spot alerts....

CYA

-- (zaadz@icisp.net.au), February 18, 2000.

Guy,
She'll be all right mate.

It's 2.15 p.m. in the afternoon right now. A huge fire is ablaze over the hill in the pine plantation. I've been watching the fire fighter bombers. They look like little mosquitoes against the plume of smoke that'll go all the way to New Zealand I reckon. The wind is gusting strongly. Will post if this turns out the extra bad one. It's about 5 miles over the paddocks. Too close with the weather sizzling.

Australia is a great place. We're too casual. We let the big boys nobble us too readily. I post to point out some of the idiocy Down Under. Thanks for showing an interest in us. I think we might have a wildfire. Local TV doing spot alerts updates....

CYA

-- Pieter (zaadz@icisp.net.au), February 18, 2000.

Pieter do you have multiple personalities? Hehe.

-- canthappen (n@ysayer.com), February 19, 2000.

canthappen,
No, I am all the same. Just manage to control and contain humour...Threatens to burts out anytime...Hit enter & submit though...oops!

Fire update

We're fighting a real dangerous one. Two fighters caught in blaze and evacuated to Adelaide for emergency treatment. Scanners say it's bad, we got wind coming with no actual control when it turns again.

Regards,

-- Pieter (zaadz@icisp.net.au), February 19, 2000.