My sister in Houston says ALL the credit card machines are down in Houston.

[bermudat]

Anyone in Houston aware of this?

[MontanaMama]

1. Holy crap. If true, this is a big deal.

The world runs on cards.

[pdxflyboy]

2. In Portland, OR right now....

No one can use their debit cards, only credit cards work. The clerk said it was an IT issue with the vendors, or something.

[MissB]

4. Well that is horrifying

Nice for a Friday afternoon.

Glad I did my shopping earlier today.

[highplainsdem]

3. I did several keyword searches on Twitter but haven't found anything on this.

[lpbk2713]

5. It could be something like a cut buried fiber cable in Podunk, Kansas.

These things are supposed to have redundancy but it doesn't always work.

Or ... it could be Iran getting even with Joe for his recent bombing run in Syria.

[highplainsdem]

6. Chick-fil-A had a nationwide outage with their payment vendor today:

https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/atlanta/chick-fil-a-experiences-nationwide-credit-card-processing-outage/MYZTNFYV2VEUZPB4W3SFYZNAVM/

[highplainsdem]

7. Here we go. Nationwide outage affecting lots of stores and restaurants:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/customers-are-reporting-credit-card-payment-crashes-at-restaurants-and-stores-across-the-us-including-chick-fil-a-and-ikea/ar-BB1e3Bmt

Fiserv, one of the leading payments providers in the US, told Insider that, "a widespread internet service provider outage has impacted multiple businesses today." Ann Cave, a company spokesperson, said in an email that, "Some Fiserv services that rely on internet connectivity were interrupted. The majority have been restored and we are fully focused on restoring the remainder." Fiserv declined to name its internet service provider.

Customers on Twitter reported outages at Ikea, Forever 21, McDonald's, and Popeyes, along with localities like a car wash and the Department of Motor Vehicles in New Jersey. Representatives from the businesses weren't immediately available for comment Friday.

Chick-fil-A's payment machines weren't working earlier in the day, leading it to give out free meals. Miami International Airport put out a statement warning customers of a county-wide outage with credit-card machines inside of taxis.

Customers called out Fiserv on Twitter. "Our credit card payment processing system is currently out of service," the Texas State Board of Public Accountancy tweeted. "The outage occurred with First Data/Fiserv, which is one of the largest payment processing systems in the country."

-snip-

[Klaralven]

12. Fiserv is one of the larger Merchant Processors

Merchant processors set up the connections to the retail stores card readers or cash register systems, and then forward the payment transactions to the Visa, Mastercard, etc. networks, which forward them to the card issuing financial institutions.

Its basically part of a data switching network that allows cards issued by any bank to be used at any merchant. In the past there were separate networks for credit cards and debit cards -- Pulse was the big debit card network in Houston. These day, I think most debit transactions go over the same network as credit card transactions. However, there are significant business agreement, usage fee, regulatory, and consumer protection differences between the two types of transaction.

PS - Pulse, after a merger with Tyme, is now owned by Discover.

[gldstwmn]

14. Fiserv had issues a few days ago too

Sorry I meant Fedwire.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

8. That seems odd.

ALL credit card machines? Everywhere in the entire city?

Perhaps this points to yet another need for redundancy and back-up systems.

I will add I'm glad I'm in the habit of paying cash for small purchases.

[qazplm135]

9. If someone truly wanted to cripple us

I think the last few weeks have reenforced how.

[Karadeniz]

10. Central TX... Grocery store down, now up...

[tibbir]

11. I live in Houston and this is partially true

I stopped at a fast food place to buy a drink and they had a sign that they were taking cash only. After I bought my drink, I went on to a restaurant and a grocery store and had no problems whatsoever.

[Yavin4]

13. Local McD's here in NYC was cash only.

But the Chase ATMs were working. Sounds like some sort of utility between the banks and the merchant is down.