Angry shoppers were left queuing at Asda stores across London and the rest of the UK today after tills and card machines broke.
Customers dumped trolleys and baskets as the supermarkets were only able to take cash in the nationwide system error.
The card payment shutdown lasted hours as Asda apologised to customers for the problem and said they were working to fix the error which caused the shutdown.
Frustrated customers who had gone to Asda to do their weekly shop took to social media to hit out at the company.
They called the system blackout “disastrous” and “a shopping trip from hell”.
One shopper, who went to the Asda store in Dagenham, said he left £250 worth of shopping behind dumped in a trolley because he could not pay by card and had no cash.
The east London Leyton Mills store was affected in the system blackout as well as stores in Mitcham, the Isle of Dogs and Dagenham.
Ivo Vybiral said on Twitter: “Asda in London #Leyton is collapsing! So many people shopping.”
Karen Orlans said: “Spent and hour and half shopping in a very busy Asda Leyton Mills, queued for 20 minutes and while still queueing tannoy announcement “no card payments ,cash only" not a happy shopper!!! But was offered a sweet out of a celebration tin.”
An Asda spokesperson said: “We are in the process of resolving a technical issue with our card payment system in stores. We're continuing to process payments as quickly as we can but apologise to our customers for the inconvenience this has caused.”
