Visa card payments are being declined across Europe

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There are numerous reports that Visa card payments are experiencing problems in the UK and across Europe. Cards are being declined and payments are generally, but seemingly not universally, unreliable. Chip and Pin is apparently suffering severe problems but others are reporting that contactless is proving more successful.

But there is no confirmed information about the scale of the problem, exactly who is affected and whether a resolution is in sight. And it does seem, from an anecdotal sweep of online comment, that the situation is deteriorating but that’s speculation. And it is certainly Europe wide with media in Ireland and Spain also reporting problems.

In a largely unilluminating comment to Reuters, they said:

Visa is currently experiencing a service disruption. This incident is preventing some Visa transactions in Europe from being processed.We are investigating the cause and working as quickly as possible to resolve the situation.
– Visa

Clearly offline retailers are experiencing problems and it has been reported that a number of supermarkets are no longer accepting cards at all and that seems to be continuing into the evening. But what is less clear is whether this is impacting online payments. Have you had any reports?

As far as we can see there are no public comments from the marketplaces or payment services at time of writing about Visa card payments. And the problem when it comes to paying online is that it is not publicly visible and shopper will likely just walk away from the checkout, rather than making a report to you as a merchant or a service they were using. Let us us know what you’ve been hearing about any problems with online payments today or tonight.

4 Responses

  1. I have been declined in two different cities in Italy today. Citi visa cannot see the decline and they are not aware of the problem so they cannot help.

  2. I setup an Amazon seller account that was immediately limited due to this problem. Even though Visa fixed the issue my new account was still unusable on Saturday night so I closed the account. I’m glad this happened as it gave me an insight into how poor Amazon are so I dodged that bullet.

  3. I was declined in two locations. Visa could not see the declined transactions so they could not fix the problem. Their customer service was not aware of any problem.

  4. I had my Amazon account temporarily closed down as I had requested a disbursement whilst this was happening. This is due to Amazon putting a “Test load” of £1 prior to disbursement each time. Seller Support apparently had no knowledge of this. I informed them to read any news site they chose and even passed on links to show it was not my card that was at issue. Eventually the card authorised and 24 hours later I was able to disburse again. Scary that Amazon didn’t even have any knowledge of the issue though – considering they probably had a few million less transactions that day.

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