After a cracking game between Senegal and Uruguay last night at Wembley Stadium, in the first round of the Olympic men's football, I rather fancied some caffeine and saturated fat. Heading bar-wards, I was presented with the biggest queue I've ever seen and a Tannoy announcement that made me giggle.
"We're very sorry to announce that Visa payments are not currently working in the stadium and we can only accept cash," said the nice lady (I'm paraphrasing, but that was her gist). Visa, of course, is the only accepted credit card at any Olympic venue. Doh!
After an hour's wait, I ponied up a crumpled old tenner for two cups of coffee, a Coke and a tub of Pringles (the Olympics has made me much more health-conscious), and got back to my seat just in time for the dirge of God Save the Queen. Team Gee Bee went on to win 3-1, with the octogenarian Ryan Giggs rolling back the years to score his first ever international tournament goal.
Today, Visa ducked a bullet as Wembley took the blame. "During Sunday's Olympic Football fixtures, the Stadium experienced some IT issues which prevented the processing of card payments," a Wembley spokesperson said in a statement. "Wembley owns the IT infrastructure within the stadium and the problem was related to this, and not to Visa's systems.
"Wembley Stadium sincerely apologises to fans who were inconvenienced due to this problem. Wembley also appreciates the support we are receiving from Visa to rectify the problem."
I didn't need any cash myself but there were rumours that the Visa cash points weren't working either, so if you didn't have any of the folding stuff you were bang out of luck. Not even the Olympic athletes and their Visa-packing Samsung Galaxy S3s could get a mozzarella pizza with doughballs.
My colleague Rich had a much more uplifting experience at Friday's opening ceremony. Go read his account of the tech on display, it's ace.
Were you left starving by this latest Olympic shambles? Have you had trouble paying for stuff at other Olympic venues? Leave credit (or debit) where it's due -- in the comments, or on our cashless Facebook page.
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flyingacedude 30 July, 2012 18:52
I'm going to Wembley next week to watch the football final, I have a Galaxy S3 and a Visa card. What is it that I have to do to pay for things using my phone?
I know It would probably be easier to just pay the conventional way but I'm the sort of idiot that likes to boast that I have used things before other people.
Marc Crane 31 July, 2012 09:47
While I can understand understand infrastructure buckling under the strain a bit, the whole "Visa Only" thing is frankly ridiculous. What about those people who only have Mastercard or Amex? As a retailer, even here in Norfolk we got letters from our Merchant services to say our card terminals would be updated to make the most of the "influx of tourists using different cards" during the Olympics, adding things like Diner's Club etc. Now I can't see many Olympic-bound tourists heading to our incestuous backwaters, but if they do, we can apparently give them a better choice of how to pay than the Olympic Stadium retailers.
Natasha Lomas 31 July, 2012 13:23
@flyingacedude You can't currently pay with your S3 -- because while the S3 has NFC you also need an NFC SIM and a Visa-approved payment app. Unless you have a French SIM it's pretty unlikely your SIM has NFC. In any case there are no Visa payment apps in the wild yet in the UK. Visa has created a trial app which is sitting on the S3 phones Samsung gave to Olympic athletes. Everyone else has to wait for banks to get their act together and launch mobile NFC payment apps. Hopefully this won't be too long