A glitch stalled checkout lines at Target stores worldwide Saturday, reports the AP, exasperating shoppers and eating into sales at a prime time for retailers, the day before Father's Day. The roughly two-hour outage periodically prevented Target's cashiers from scanning merchandise or processing transactions as long lines formed in some stores. Self-checkout registers, usually the speediest of options, also weren't working at times. Target temporarily closed some stores, including one in San Francisco, rather than risk aggravating shoppers. "Our technology team worked quickly to identify and fix the issue, and we apologize for the inconvenience and frustration this caused," Target said. Before the company figured out was wrong, a Target employee was warning customers that they might not be able to check out as they entered a San Francisco store Saturday afternoon.
Sales were being completed after intermittent delays during the half-hour an AP reporter observed lines at the store. But some shoppers posting on Twitter Saturday painted a different picture as they vented about excruciatingly long lines but expressed sympathy for Target employees trying to cope with the situation. The meltdown hit Target at the worst time, given Saturdays are typically one of the busiest shopping days of the week. Target has been vexed by technology before, most notably in 2013 when malware installed in its checkout system exposed more than 40 million credit and debit card accounts. Target said customers have no reason to worry. "We can confirm that this was not a data breach or security-related issue, and no guest information was compromised at any time," Target said.
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