For businesses of every size, payments with credit cards are the ultimate necessities. Therefore, whenever there is any outage in the function of the credit cards, the loss of revenue could be huge. The reasons why credit card payments fail can range from extensive power outages to technology failures to disruptions in internet services. The Visa Mastercard outage is one such circumstance that caused a major stir due to the payment failures from the Visa Mastercard.

There is a lot more that you must know about the Visa Mastercard outage and what you must do to deal with any credit card payment failure in general. In this article, I shall discuss all the things you need to do with reference to the Visa Mastercard outage. So, stay with me till the end to find out the things you need to do if such an outage happens further.

To Summarize….

• Visa had said that the extensive outage, which had affected customers in the United States, Europe, and other areas, happened due to a “hardware failure.” It was not the result of any unauthorized access.

• The cardholders could then use their Visa and Mastercard as the services were then functioning at “close to normal levels.”

• Pin and chip transactions were then affected. Nothing at all happened to the ATM withdrawals. Mastercard and American Express were offering normal services throughout. However, just a week later, Mastercard faced the same issue as its biggest rival, Visa. This is what resulted in the Visa Mastercard outage of 2018.

• The dissatisfied customers at the gas stations, supermarkets, and even abroad showed their frustrations on multiple social media platforms. There was very little information from the firm. It also affected the bank transactions.

Statement From Visa…

“Our goal is to ensure all Visa cards work reliably 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. We fell well short of this goal today, and we apologize to all of our partners and, most especially, to Visa cardholders.

Visa cardholders can now use their Visa cards as we are currently operating at close to normal levels.

The issue was the result of a hardware failure. We have no reason to believe this was associated with any unauthorized access or malicious event.”

Statement From Mastercard

“We are aware that some issues were experienced and have been working hard to resolve it. The situation has been fully resolved and all transactions are now working as normal. We are sorry for any inconvenience caused.”

Now, you know it is not impossible for your transactions to fail due to outages. Therefore, you must be aware of the dos and don’ts in such a condition.

Visa Mastercard Outage: What To Do During Credit Or Debit Card Outage 

For every single involved individual, disruptions in payment processing can be stressful. Whenever such an outage happens, there are some important steps that businesses as well as individuals, must take to communicate and troubleshoot the issue.

Determine The Cause 

Because these payment processing outages are not so frequent, the first step for anyone who is experiencing it would be to determine the root cause of the issue. Checking to see if there is any problem with the internet service provider is the best first step that you need to take in order to identify the disruption.

Wireless internet outages result in connectivity issues. You may easily solve them with a backup resolution like a DSL or a hard-wired internet connection. Most businesses use WiFi to operate; therefore, this is actually the best start to solve an issue as such.

Monitor Down Detector In Case of visa MasterCard outage 

Down Detector is an efficient source that has real-time notifications. It reports if there is an issue that is extensive with an internet service provider. It also reports if there is an issue with the payment processing company. Or credit card companies like MasterCard or Visa.

Checking to see if the issue is just limited to ISPs, payment processors, card issuers, or financial institutions is a necessary part of the process when you experience a payment process outage.

Accept Any Other Payment Alternatives 

Try accepting other forms of payment instead of sticking to credit or debit cards. You may also try to use payment methods like Venmo or Zelle.

Just make sure that these alternatives could require an operational internet and mobile connection. So, make sure you have all the trusted networks available.

Try Manual Processing For visa mastercard outage 

While they are not ideal, you may still use them if you have a manual credit card imprinter. However, you need to ensure that you are following all the important steps for imprinting the card details and getting the signature of the customer.

So, if you at all decide to implement it at the time of an outage, maintain a record of all the affected transactions during the outage. This will help you reconcile all the transactions when the credit card processor starts operating again.

Communication Is The Key 

If internet connectivity or power supply is not the cause behind the outage, it is an issue with the credit card company. If this is the case, you need to first make a call to customer support to find out the cause.

It is also important for businesses to get in touch with their customers in case there is an outage. For this, announcements made on social media are one of the best ways to reach out to customers.

While many brands may feel reluctant to get on social media to openly announce their inability to operate properly on a global scale, only communication is the best way to solve it without any chaos.

When companies provide immediate updates and communicate with the customers in case of an outage, it makes sure that the blame does not fall upon the company in the long run. Angry customers usually take it out on social media even before the official news comes out. As long as the brands are transparent, the rage of the customers lessens.

The Bottom Line 

The Visa Mastercard outage is one of the examples in that card processing outages may be less. However, they are not non-existing. They may happen at times and are pretty troublesome for the brands and the customers.

There are dos and don’ts that customers are to follow whenever such a scenario takes place. This will ensure minor trouble and less chaos on both ends.

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