Greggs apologized after IT failure forced stores to close

Greggs has closed its stores after an IT failure. Photo: Ioannis Alexopoulos/LNP

Greggs has apologized to customers after an IT glitch brought operations to hundreds of stores. cash registers from work and forced the company to close some stores.

The bakery chain said some of its stores experienced a “technical issue” on Wednesday morning, prompting an outpouring of complaints on social media.

Greggs said the issue has since been resolved and is reopening stores, adding: “The majority of affected stores are now able to accept card and cash payments again and we expect the issue to be fully resolved shortly.< /p>

«We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused our customers.»

It is unclear how many of the 2,450 stores Greggs operates were affected during this morning's technical problems, but customers were quick to lodge complaints with X, formerly known as Twitter.

One user X posted an image of a sign outside a Greggs store saying it would have to open later due to technical problems.

“What should I do? do?!?!» wrote one user. «Terrible start to the day,» said another.

Oh, babies: Greggs has told customers it cannot accept cash or card payments.Photo: Ioannis Alexopoulos/LNP

Stores in Manchester, London and Cardiff were affected, with some shoppers saying their local bakery was open but only accepting payments. cash.

The Greggs crash is the latest in a series of card payment problems for major brands over the past few weeks. Technical problems also affected Sainsbury's and Tesco stores over the weekend.

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Both supermarkets were forced to cancel home deliveries due to problems that were not thought to be related to each other.< /p>

An analysis by The Telegraph found that up to £9 million of Sainsbury's orders may have been affected on Saturday.

Sainsbury's chief executive Simon Roberts has written to affected customers promising to deposit a voucher into their online delivery account following the problems.

Meanwhile, Tesco said technical problems had forced it to cancel a small number of orders. Contactless payments at Sainsbury also failed.

Last Friday, McDonald's experienced technical problems as customers were unable to place orders due to a «third party configuration change.»

The fast food chain has problems with stores in the UK, Japan, China, Sweden and Australia .

Cyber ​​experts said it was “bizarre” to see outages happening so close together.

Adam Pilton, a cybersecurity consultant, warned that these problems should alert us: “addiction we bet on technology.»

There is no evidence that the technical problems in recent days were caused by cyber attacks.

But Mr. Pilton, who as a former detective investigated cyber crimes , A Dorset Police sergeant said businesses need to prepare for the worst.

Andrew Martin, founder of financial technology company SMEB, said the disruption had «shone new light on the continued importance of cash in modern society».

“This is the latest sign that the march to a completely cashless society is a bad idea,” he added.