Thousands of Post Office branches across the UK were hit by a major IT outage on [date not specified in source], leaving customers unable to send letters or parcels. The postal firm, which operates more than 11,500 branches, experienced hours of disruption as staff turned customers away.
The Post Office confirmed the outage affected its entire estate and was not cyber-related, but did not specify the cause. According to Downdetector, the majority of reported issues were in London, Birmingham and Manchester.
Frustrated customers took to social media, with one saying they walked 25 minutes in flip flops only to be told the system was down. A sign at Brighton Post Office stated the branch was closed due to a system crash and unable to process any transactions.
A Post Office spokesperson said: “There was a major outage across the Post Office estate this afternoon. We are pleased to announce that service has now been restored to branches. This is not a cyber-related issue. We are aware of what has caused this outage. We apologise for any inconvenience caused to customers and the operators of our branches.”
The incident comes after Marks & Spencer lost around £300m earlier this year following a cyberattack that left shelves empty and online orders unfulfilled. In that case, customer data including names, email addresses, postal addresses and dates of birth was taken. Last week, three teenagers and a 20-year-old woman were arrested in connection with that attack.
