“Really frustrating”: Thousands of businesses turn away card payments because of Tyro terminal outage

Thousands of small business owners are facing ongoing frustration over a continuing service outage at payment tech company Tyro, which has prevented them from being able to accept card payments for a full week.

Businesses took to social media to express their outrage over the now seven-day outage, which hit businesses during their peak summer trading period.

According to the Australian Financial Review, up to 10,000 EFTPOS terminals have been down since the outage began last week.

Rosewood Farm owner Iming Chan was one such customer. He says he has not been able to process any card payments since last Wednesday.

“It has become really frustrating, to the point that we waited for three days before we realised that we needed to do something ourselves,” Chan tells SmartCompany.

“Every single day you hold out hope that there’s going to be a resolution that obviously never arrived,” he says.

Chan operates a five-acre farm near Geelong that offers cat boarding and canine hydrotherapy services, that is, water-based rehabilitation for injured dogs.

After lodging multiple complaints with Tyro, an authorised contractor collected his two Tyro machines yesterday, he says.

“He couldn’t tell me when they would be returned, which is obviously the standard statement, to say as soon as possible,” he adds.

After three days of asking customers to make direct electronic payments instead of card payments, Chan took matters into his own hands and bought a Square payment machine from Officeworks.

“The only reason why we went to Tyro late last year was because we introduced a brand new point-of-sale system because our businesses is growing, and unfortunately that software didn’t work with Square,” he explains.

On an average day, Chan says he processes about $5,000 in card payments.

Tyro actively engaged with frustrated customers via its Facebook page and has been releasing regular updates on its service status webpage.

“Our sincere apologies for the disruption being caused. Please know we are working around the clock to get you a functioning terminal,” the company said in a statement on Monday.

It also said the expected waiting time for customers to receive their fixed Tyro machines will be between two and four days.

On January 7, the ASX-listed company announced to its shareholders that there were connectivity issues with respect to ‘a limited number’ of its terminals.

“Tyro is working closely with our terminal supplier, Worldline, who are assisting in the resolution effort,” the company said in its ASX announcement.

SmartComany has contacted Tyro but did not receive a response prior to publication.