Anyone trying to pay a Barclaycard bill from an Apple Mac in the last six weeks or so, has run into a small problem. The site won't take their money.

A frustrated journalistic comrade-in-arms, and long time Mac fan contacted El Reg with the news. During his conversations with customer services he discovered that 'less than' 100 people had complained to Barclaycard about the lack of access.

It seems, he says, as though the site stopped working as soon as Barclaycard changed its logo. Most odd, he said, because logos can't break browsers, surely?

Is this a case of corporate branding gone mad? We felt it was in the public interest to find out, and got on the phone to their press office.

El Reg: Hi, It seems people using Macs can't pay their bills on your site anymore. What's going on?

Barclaycard spokesman: I'm sure there isn't a problem. Hold on, I'll check with the online people.

*Pause*

Barclaycard spokesman: You are right. We don't support Macs.

El Reg: Oh. Why not?

Barclaycard spokesman: Company policy.

El Reg: So it is has always been Barclaycards policy that it doesn't support Macs? That is odd, because my contact has been able to pay bills online before, but since you introduced your new logo he hasn't been able to.

Barclaycard spokesman: It is certainly our policy at the moment. I don't know about other timescales.

El Reg: Could you check?

Barclaycard spokesman: Please hold.

*Pause*

Barclaycard spokesman: Right. Well, we upgraded to support a new version of Windows about four to six weeks ago. That coincided with the new logo. And ever since, we have not supported Macs, so there have been a few problems.

We are working to fix it as soon as we can though, and it'll be days or weeks, not months before it is fixed.

El Reg: That's great. Can you tell me more about your upgrade? Which change in Windows are you talking about?

Barclaycard spokesman: Netscape 7.

*Pause*

El Reg: Ok thanks. Thanks for your time.

We are not quite sure how much light we've been able to shed on this one. Let's recap: Barclaycard current policy is that it doesn't support Macs. It never has, except that it did. And it should be fixed soon. But it isn't to do with the logo, its all because of Netscape 7.

Clear as mud. ®

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