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Post Office hit by 'national' IT failure

The Post Office's IT systems have failed, with branches unable to deal with anything that requires a computer, according to a Post Office employee."It's national, when one computer goes down, they all go down," the employee told ZDNet UK on Thursday.
Written by Jack Clark, Contributor

The Post Office's IT systems have failed, with branches unable to deal with anything that requires a computer, according to a Post Office employee.

"It's national, when one computer goes down, they all go down," the employee told ZDNet UK on Thursday. "It's happened before."

Post Office IT failure sign

The Post Office has been hit by an IT failure, with signs at a branch in London warning that computers 'are down'. Image credit: Jack Clark

All the computers are linked, he said, on a visit to a London post office, which could only deal in cash and stamps due to the IT failure.

"SERVICE UPDATE: We currently have an issue affecting the systems in our branches," the Post Office wrote in a tweet at 12:58pm. "Sorry if this affects you, we will continue to update."

The Post Office gave a more complete acknowledgement later on Thursday afternoon. "The Post Office apologises to its customers for the inconvenience caused by a computer problem currently affecting the service at branches across the UK," Post Office spokeswoman Valerie Antoine, said. "We are doing everything we can to fix the problem as quickly as possible and restore a full service to all branches."

Post Office ATMs and Post & Go services in branches are unaffected, the Post Office said.

People took to Twitter to vent their frustration. "Post office chaos, systems are down," @JimmyA_ wrote at 12:49pm.

"Post Office network is down nationwide. No post accepted at desk if more than a stamp is needed. Just found out the hard way," @DavieMarshall wrote at 12:53pm.

Update: 4:33pm

The IT problem has been fixed, the Post Office said in a statement delivered to ZDNet UK at 4:25pm.

"Services have now fully been restored and customers are able to complete all transactions across the Post Office network," it said. "We are continuing to monitor the situation closely to make sure our services remain available as normal."

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