Marks & Spencer confirms major service is STILL down following contactless payments chaos
Marks & Spencer has confirmed one of its major services is still down after a glitch with its contactless payments sparked chaos during the Easter break.
The high street giant was forced to apologise after furious shoppers demanded answers over the bank holiday weekend payments blunder, which left some customers claiming they had to abandon full weekly shops at the till.
The issue with the contactless payment has today been fixed. But Marks & Spencers has admitted the misery for some customers may not yet be over.
The retailer has today warned its click-and-collect orders are still facing 'issues' that the supermarket chain is attempting to fix.
After one customer demanded an update, a spokeswoman for M&S wrote on X: 'Hi Molly, we're working with our teams to get this resolved as quickly as possible but currently don't have a timeframe on when this will be. If you're worried about collecting your order late, please pop us a DM with your order number so we can look into it further.'
In another comment, an M&S official added: 'We're sorry about the issues over the weekend.
The contactless payment issue over the Easter bank holiday weekend was the second major IT glitch suffered by the retailer in the past year.
Earlier in May, the department store chain saw both its website and app taken offline for several hours following a third-party service failure.
A spokeswoman for M&S said the issues were still on going but that the company was seeking to fix them as quickly as possible
The technical gaffe over the Easter weekend left customers furious, with many taking to social media to vent their anger.
One person wrote: 'Went to @marksandspencer did a full food shop only to be told that I can't use contactless, had to walk away from a whole food shop. Heading to Waitrose now instead.'
Another wrote: '@marksandspencer hello, we were in store earlier and couldn't use gift cards or contactless to pay. Has this now be resolved?'
Others suggested that contactless payments have been down since Saturday. There are also several tweets from Saturday reporting contactless was down.
One warned: 'Popped into the Harrow store today to collect some food items after the gym, so didn't have my physical bank card with me … you know what I am going to say, but your contactless systems and also collection kiosks have been out of service for at least 48hrs.'
Another wrote: '@marksandspencer I've tried to return some clothing to the Camden store and have been told that your WiFi has been down company wide since Saturday so I can't return them.'
A third said: 'In a queue with 10 customers at @marksandspencer, I was the only person remaining when they announced that their contactless service was not working on their card machine.
'Welcome to a world where they will stop you from using facilities whenever they want. Cash.'
Several shoppers have demanded answers, with M&S saying there are 'technical issues'
A fourth claimed: 'When you drive 20 minutes for breakfast at the cafe but there's a company wide issue, contactless isn't working and they decide to close the cafe.'
A fifth fumed: 'Bexleyheath store system has been since Saturday and can't process returns, apply pay or contactless. Why is there no communication from the team.'
Responding to a customer on X this past weekend, a representative for M&S said: 'I'm really sorry to hear about the poor experience you had - I completely understand your frustration.
'We've had a nationwide issue with contactless payments in store and our software engineers are working hard to resolve this as quickly as possible.'
At 4.30pm on Easter Monday, customers were still reporting issues with contactless payments. The glitch has since been resolved.
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