Nidal Mkazi got a call at 1.30am on Wednesday from the employee working the night shift at his Brisbane convenience store to say the EFTPOS system was down and could not take payments.
EFTPOS machines in most retailers either connect to a store’s Wi-Fi network or use a SIM card to take payments.Mr Mkazi, who migrated from Jordan to Australia in 2007, said the problems with the EFTPOS system started about 1am , just before the telecommunications provider went dark at about 4am Sydney time.
“A few people have taken their frustrations out on me, but once they realised that it’s not my fault and I don’t work for Optus, they’ve been OK,” Mr Wood said.Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said it was too early to discuss compensation for businesses affected by the outage, but they should keep receipts of additional expenses incurred.
Airtasker reported that users were posting ads on the jobs website to help them find workarounds. One woman offered $150 for someone to buy and deliver a SIM card to her.