Mobile Payments Troubles Strike TransLink

Mobile payments can be a wonderfully convenient system for handling bills and taking care of all those little expenses that crop up throughout the day. Sometimes, though, mobile payments don’t always work out the way their users hope. That much is clear in a recent mobile payments trouble on the TransLink public transportation system in the UK, who, as of Wednesday, was down for three consecutive days with no end in sight.

The company behind the mLink system, which takes mobile payments for TransLink, says that the problem is actually being seen throughout the UK. Some had speculated that it had something to do with the arrival of Belfast’s new Glider buses, but that’s not the case. Early reports suggested that it was an issue of “supplier capacity”, which made sense given subsequent reports.

Worse, word from Simon Hunter—TransLink’s ticketing manager, who subsequently apologized to the riders involved—says that the problems were striking primarily at peak times, or exactly when you don’t want to see problems in your mobile payments tool. Hunter also noted that anyone who had been double-charged would receive refunds, and without having to fill out any forms to get said refunds. Indeed, some took to social media specifically to note that problems always seemed to hit in the morning, yet get almost magically ironed out later in the day when traffic declined.

Bad news, of course, all around; the last thing any mobile payments system needs is mechanical failure. It just serves to remind people that they can still use cash and there’s really no reason to stop. It hurts the entire cause of mobile payments, and considering how well mobile payments are—or perhaps were—doing in the UK, this isn’t something that will help. The notion that this is a capacity problem seems valid; the idea that the network they’re using might have gotten jammed up with traffic and reduced to a crawling mess is valid in most any wireless network, so outside perspectives would readily jump to an overburdened network as a possible cause.

It also serves to underscore the importance of having a backup on hand. Mobile payments are wonderfully convenient, but carrying a few extra bucks in your sock or an interior jacket pocket for emergencies will likely not go amiss either.