Barclaycard drops offline
It can get you anywhere - 'cept on its website
Posted in Management, 5th October 2009 14:08 GMT
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Barclaycard's UK website has been unavailable for most of the day and the company isn't sure when it's coming back.
The company apologised to frustrated customers but said it was too soon to say what had gone wrong. The website went down this morning and is still unavailable at 3.00pm.
The last time we reported problems - which hit Barclays Bank too - was almost exactly this time last year. That was a two-day outage which created more problems which then led to an overloaded site.
Barclaycard's spokesman recommended the credit card company's call centres for customers with urgent queries. Presumably its own staff have some access to its systems.
Or as Barclaycard put it, "Our contact centre advisors are currently advising customer on alternative ways to access our online servicing system and dealing with new customer enquiries."®
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COMMENTS
Access
> Presumably its own staff have some access to its systems.
Hah! They probably have at least 10 systems to access in order to provide a "single view of the customer", no single sign-on so plenty of passwords to stick under the keyboard, and multiple cutting and pasting of data from one screen to another as the standard data integration mechanism.
The web site is usually just an illusion that systems are integrated - that integration probably only happens within Apache just as the page is transmitted.
Keeping a steady online presence
Despite having web traffic problems in the past, Barclays still seems to be having problems preventing downtime. Customers who have experienced an outage once will be understandably frustrated. As a result, the bank will have to work especially hard to regain trust from those who have experienced difficulties for a second time. A stable online presence will significantly improve customer confidence that Barclays can offer a safe and secure online banking environment.
Graham Moore, e-retail Specialist, Zeus Technology
Verified by Visa is worse
No surprise there then.
Their verified by Visa scheme is even worse. Even after I looked up the password I hadn't had to use for six months their website crashed taking the insurace company website with it. Phoning them took 12 minutes to get a response. I could literally have driven to Northampton and seen them in person quicker...
Eventually I managed to get through paying for insurance when the card went throught without verify by visa interfering. I am changing accounts to get rid of Visa's inept security precautions as soon as I can find a bank that doesn't use it...
Mines the one with cut-up Barclaycard in it.
what a surprise....NOT!
...this is exactly what happens when your systems are run by the lowest bidder!! I'm sure some VP in head office has calculated that customers might moan, but heh, they'll stay put.....
....not me! I moved my busines elsewhere the last time this happened. Never looked back either!
only harry knows how it works
Obviously the bloke that knows how everything works has took his holidays and everyone else is off sick or walking around with their hands in their pockets.
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