TESCO customers said they struggled to pay for shopping in store today due to a contactless payment glitch.
The supermarket’s website and app also crashed earlier in the afternoon, for the second time in a week, although it’s now back up and running.
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Shoppers said on Twitter that they had been unable to use contactless cards or smartphones to pay for shopping at Tesco stores.
In a tweet directed at Tesco, one customer said: “Buzzing, I’ve just walked around your Stretford store for an hour with a trolley full of groceries only for your contactless payment to not be working and I have to leave empty handed.
“Waste of my life. Some signs would be great.”
Another said: “My husband just abandoned our full trolley as were loads others. No way of paying!!”
“Queues beyond queues and no self check outs working,” a shopper said.
“People being shut out of the stores.”
Some also said there had been problems accessing Tesco Clubcard discounts.
“Went for all the options on the shelves with this as an incentive to get to the till to find the systems were down so had to pay full price for everything,” a customer said.
It wasn’t clear this afternoon whether the problems were affecting all Tesco stores.
The Sun has contacted Tesco for comment.
Meanwhile, according to the Downdetector website, 1,128 customers had reported Tesco outages this afternoon.
A Tesco spokesperson said: “We are aware that some customers briefly experienced intermittent issues with our website and app earlier this afternoon, which were quickly resolved.
“The site is now operating as normal.”
The supermarket’s website and app both crashed on Saturday due to a hacking attempt, with the outages running until Monday.
Tesco said the earlier outage followed someone trying to “interfere” with its systems, but no customer data was compromised.
It’s not clear what’s caused the latest problems but they’re not thought to be related to the hacking attempt.
Online shoppers are currently greeted by a virtual waiting room after the website and app crashed at around 1:45pm this afternoon.
A statement on the holding page said: “We’re busier than usual right now, so it may take a little longer to get onto our site. You don’t need to do anything as this page will update automatically.”
Customers took to social media to vent their frustration.
One shopper said: “Is there something wrong with your app? It seems to have logged me out, and won’t let me even load the sign-in screen.”
Another said: “What [is] wrong with your website now.
“I’ve got a collect slot, gets to checkout and moved in to a waiting room for the past hour!”
“Have I missed some huge announcement, but why am I in a waiting list to shop online with Tesco,” a customer wrote on Twitter.
“Unless everything is free right now, these queue times are obscene!”
What are your refund rights?
Tesco said you will be able to get a refund if you were forced to pay full price for items while Clubcard systems were down.
“If you take your receipt and Clubcard to the customer service desk within 14 days then the staff there will be able refund the amount that should have been discounted,” the company said in response to a customer complaint.
If you were affected by the earlier online outage, for example if you couldn’t amend your order, you can get a refund by refusing the unwanted items when they’re delivered.
You just need to hand them back to the Tesco delivery driver, or to store staff when using click & collect.
The supermarket will then arrange a refund to your payment card.
After delivery, unwanted products can be returned to any Tesco store, excluding express stores.
Just bring your delivery note and you’ll be offered a replacement or refund.
If you’re returning perishable food items, they must be within their use-by date.
The supermarket won’t accept “change of mind” refunds on certain products – such as toothbrushes – for health and hygiene reasons.
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