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Telstra says issue resolved after widespread ATM, eftpos outage

After an outage affecting eftpos and ATMs dragged on across most states this weekend, Telstra says the issue has finally been resolved, and has announced it will discuss compensation with its business customers on a “case-by-case basis”.

Telstra could not confirm how many terminals or businesses had been affected, but issues with banking services were reported on Friday and Saturday in every state and territory except the Northern Territory.

Earlier, Sam Hay, a restaurant owner in the Tasmanian city of Launceston, estimated he lost 25 per cent of his business during the outage on Friday.

“We were having to have people turned away at the door because as soon as they walked in we had to let them know that we didn’t have any eftpos,” he said.

“There’s no ATM anywhere close to our restaurant; they just couldn’t dine with us.”

Mr Hay said he had had issues with Telstra in the past.

“It’s really hard to conduct a business with the way that their service is at the moment,” he said.

“We’re in Tasmania as well, so the options are quite limited … it’s basically just Telstra or Telstra here.”

‘We were on hold for two hours’

In Sydney, Kimberley Ramsay was hosting an international cheerleading event at Olympic Park with 8000 spectators.

She said their eftpos machine stopped working as soon as they opened on Friday night.

“We sent them down to the ATMs and then the ATMs ran out of money,” she said.

“We had one lady who came in late, actually left her engagement ring with me so she could run in and watch her daughter and then go out and buy a ticket.

“We’ve literally had zero information. We were on hold for two hours last night and two-and-a-half hours this morning.”

Taxi passengers were also unable to use eftpos and could not process Cabcharge.

Taxi driver Kamal Rana said some potential passengers refused to get into his cab when they found out they could not pay by card.

“We’ve lost so much business — not only eftpos machine — because all the systems are all based on that Telstra thing and we were not getting any jobs or anything,” he said.

“It’s a hassle for us and for customers as well, because they need to get cash and go to an ATM machine.”

Passengers arriving at Sydney International Airport this morning were told they needed cash to use taxis.

Small business owners used social media to ask Telstra and banks for compensation for the outage.

https://twitter.com/impranavp/status/1058218462370119680

Earlier, Telstra said it was working to “re-establish connectivity through the replacement of faulty vendor equipment”.

“We are gradually reintroducing traffic to the link but there are devices that continue to be impacted,” Telstra’s statement read.

-ABC

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