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dm logo (at a market in Frankfurt am Main): Markets apparently closed due to software errors
Photo:
Ralph Peters / IMAGO
In several cities in Germany, customers of the drugstore chain dm apparently stood in front of closed branches on Tuesday morning.
As the “Bild” newspaper reports, markets in Berlin, Rendsburg and Leipzig were closed.
"There are currently problems with the tills in a number of dm stores due to a software error," Christoph Werner, chairman of the dm management board, was quoted as saying by email in response to a SPIEGEL inquiry.
"We have found the cause and assume that in the next few minutes we will be able to serve our customers nationwide again as usual," it continues.
However, a photo of a closed branch in Freiburg had been circulating on Twitter hours before.
On a banner in front of this market there was talk of a cash register failure, which is why it is currently not possible to collect customers.
"The specialist department is working flat out on a solution," it said.
According to "Bild" information, cash payments were no longer possible in the affected markets.
If this is the case, the disruption at dm would be far more serious than the problems that a few weeks ago at numerous supermarkets caused by a faulty card reader.
Because of this card payment was temporarily not possible, but paying with cash was.
The cause was a software error in a widely used card payment device
It was initially unclear how many dm markets were affected nationwide by the current disruption.
The company also did not say whether payment by card alone was not possible or whether the cash registers were not working at all.
Sol