Several online retailers and the payment systems they use have buckled under the pressure of Black Friday.<\/p>\n
Takealot.com briefly displayed a \u201cwebsite under maintenance\u201d message this morning and shoppers are reporting that their credit card payments are being declined.<\/p>\n
Raru has sent a notification to its clients to inform them it is experiencing high traffic on credit card transactions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you cannot process your payment, change your payment method on your order to [Electronic Fund Transfer] and send us the proof of payment,\u201d said Raru.<\/p>\n
Stores are directing clients to their banks for answers, and ABSA contact centre told us the problem appears to be with the authentication systems of card merchants \u2013 such as 3DSecure and Verified by Visa.<\/p>\n
According to MasterCard, however, its systems are up and running.<\/p>\n
\u201cMasterCard systems are up and running as per usual and are not experiencing any issues,\u201d the company told MyBroadband.<\/p>\n
A Visa representative was not immediately available for comment.<\/p>\n
PayFast MD and founder Jonathan Smit said that by\u00a010:00, they\u00a0had processed about 80% of the transaction volume of other busy days \u2013 pay day, for example \u2013 and about 100% of comparable value.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo there is definitely increased volume and people are also spending more than they normally would,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur systems have not experienced any downtime today. We planned for Black Friday based on experience from comparable busy days and expect to process 50-100% more volume today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Where problems have occurred is with 3D Secure authentication and selected banks who have been struggling with the load, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBankservAfrica manages the 3D Secure system on behalf of most of the banks \u2013 all payment providers and merchants are reliant on them for this function.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe systems governing the process have been intermittently unavailable or slow to respond to authentication requests. Selected banks have also struggled with their part in the authentication process.\u201d<\/p>\n
This article originally appeared\u00a0on MyBroadband<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0and is republished with permission.<\/p>\n Battling with your Black Friday shopping? Here’s what’s causing the problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":226,"featured_media":111949,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_enabled":true,"_sma_x_custom_text":"","_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[31,1197,17586,1807,2163],"class_list":["post-111947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-active","tag-black-friday","tag-down","tag-online","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/226"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111947"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111951,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111947\/revisions\/111951"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Now read:\u00a0The best Black Friday TV deals in South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"