Luxury Watch Company Faces Sales Losses Due to Barclays Outages
A leading luxury watch retailer has reported significant financial setbacks, potentially amounting to tens of thousands of pounds, due to recent banking outages affecting customers nationwide. Sam Rayner, co-founder of Chrono Hunter, an online platform for buying and selling luxury watches, revealed that numerous transactions were left unfinished as customers struggled to access their funds during a Barclays outage earlier this year.
In an interview with The i Paper, Rayner expressed his frustration, stating, “We experienced undue stress and considerable inconvenience due to the Barclays outage for several reasons. Firstly, our customers were unable to complete their purchases of luxury watches, as their funds had not been processed. Many customers holding Barclays accounts missed their salary deposits on payday, which hindered their ability to finalize transactions.”
He further elaborated on the impact of the outages on the company’s employees. “A number of our staff members were also directly affected in various ways, particularly concerning their personal banking situations,” Rayner added. The financial impact on Chrono Hunter is estimated to be in the tens of thousands of pounds, as the watches sold on the platform range from £2,000 to £300,000, with an average transaction value around £8,000. The company offers an array of prestigious brands, including Rolex and Breitling.
Compensation and Ongoing Issues
In light of these issues, Barclays is expected to compensate customers for the recent IT outages that have hampered banking access. The bank has projected compensation payouts between £5 million and £7.5 million for “inconvenience or distress” caused by the service disruptions.
Rayner noted that some employees with Barclays accounts faced additional challenges during the outage, with reports of incorrect account balances and unexpected overdrafts. “When it came to addressing these issues, some employees reported wait times exceeding two hours to speak with customer service representatives. One individual was informed it would take nearly two weeks to resolve their banking issues. Shockingly, after a twelve-day period of silence, another employee was told that it would take an additional ten days to rectify the situation—totaling over three weeks of uncertainty!” he explained.
He also mentioned that several employees encountered numerous bills due on the first of the month, which further exacerbated their financial strain and almost jeopardized their credit ratings.
Barclays has not disclosed the exact number of customers affected by the outages but mentioned that they are actively working to identify all impacted clients. The Treasury Committee is currently investigating IT issues across all banks that limit or prevent customer access.
According to the Treasury Committee, the nine major banks and building societies they have contacted accumulated a staggering 803 hours of unplanned outages over the past two years. The banks have cited common causes for these IT failures, including problems with third-party suppliers, disruptions due to system changes, and internal software malfunctions.
A spokesperson for Barclays stated, “We welcome the opportunity to engage with the Treasury Select Committee and have responded in detail to their inquiries. Our top priority remains to support and serve our customers. We are diligently working to ensure the availability of all our services and sincerely apologize to those who have been affected by any service interruptions.”
