Supermarkets and drugstores massively affected: card payments impossible - purchases often only with cash

Created: 05/26/2022, 06:50

By: Stella Henrich

Those who wanted to pay with the card at the cash registers of markets yesterday were put off.

The terminals went on strike.

The disruption continued as of Wednesday morning.

• Customers report massive disruptions when paying with card readers in supermarkets and discounters.

• While only a few disruptions were reported to the portal, especially between midnight and 3 a.m., the number increased again significantly in the early hours of the morning.

• Tip for consumers: It is advisable to take cash with you as an alternative means of payment for shopping.

Update from May 25, 2:40 p.m .:

Commerzbank customers continue to report missing receipts.

So complained user Dirk K. on

three hours ago that he still had no child benefit in his account.

And Jasmin L. is still waiting for her salary to be paid.

Online customer Nina cannot make any debits either.

The commercial bank's online banking seems to continue to be massively disrupted.

On May 20, the bank tweeted that routine work in its data center could cause disruptions "at short notice" and apologized in advance to its customers.

Update from May 25, 1:30 p.m .:

The nationwide disruptions apparently continue.

Users in the social networks are still reporting problems with online banking, paying at card terminals with an EC or bank card.

Apparently only certain card readers are affected, which can read the payment data but cannot forward it.

The software provider Huth, which equips gas stations with card readers, is also affected.

Also the reader type H5000 from the manufacturer Verifone.

Network operators and technical service providers are working intensively on troubleshooting, the Association of German Banks reports on request.

First report from May 25, 9.25 a.m .:

There were disruptions in cashless payment transactions on Tuesday.

Supermarkets, discounters and retailers throughout Germany were affected.

Dealers report this via social networks.

Customers could not pay with an EC or bank card or with a credit card at the checkout.

The disruption lasted until Wednesday morning.

There are also numerous reports of problems with card payments from providers on the

- from Commerzbank, Visa and Sparkasse to the Volks- and Raiffeisenbanken.

Unfortunately, I couldn't pay with the Klarna Visa credit card at the gas station.

EC card worked.

Seymen Cabadag, post on Disqus.com

Another user reported via Facebook that only a certain type of card reader is affected.

confirms this

in a Twitter post and names the manufacturer Verifone as the cause of the problem without naming the exact background.

The card reader is said to be one of the best-selling terminals in Germany.

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Supermarkets around Aldi, Lidl, Rewe massively affected: card payments impossible - purchase only with cash

The consumer retail chain from Dresden also wrote on Facebook about a nationwide failure of card payments in supermarkets.

According to information from

, branches of Netto Marken-Discount, Edeka and individual Rewe branches are particularly affected.

But there are also isolated failures at Aldi Süd, Aldi Nord, Rossmann and dm.

A look at the website

disturbances.de suggests that the fault has not yet been resolved.

While only a few disruptions were reported to the portal, especially between midnight and 3 a.m., the number increased again significantly in the early hours of the morning.

With such a card reader, customers can “normally” easily pay at the checkout.

(Iconic image) © K. Schmitt/imago

If you still want to try your luck paying by card at the checkout during the day, you should definitely have cash with you.

Or when entering the store, clarify whether card payments are possible.

This saves you trouble and long queues.

Petrol stations also attach stickers to the dispensers in the event of device failures.

Customers keep complaining about problems when paying at checkout terminals or about failures in the mobile Internet.

It was not until the beginning of May that Vodafone users complained about nationwide disruptions to the fixed network and the Internet.

Tens of thousands of WhatsApp users were recently affected by a disruption that lasted for hours until the messenger service worked again.