SagePay down *again*
- Thread starter sysops
- Start date
- Original Poster
- #5
Now look here you smug sounding git, I'm all for system redundancy, but payment gateways are a tricky one - it's not like having a fallback server.
Our systems, frontend and backend, are tightly integrated with our PSP - it's not just payments, but repeats, refund etc. This makes having a backup PSP far more complex than it first sounds.
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I
iboxsecurity
I think you took that the wrong way.
Nothing smug about it. I know full well about payment gateways (having worked on the backend systems for a very prominent provider in the past) and I agree about complexity.
I was simply stating I was unaware of so many sage pay issues especially as I spent 2hrs on the phone with a client today going over psp options.
Nothing smug about it. I know full well about payment gateways (having worked on the backend systems for a very prominent provider in the past) and I agree about complexity.
I was simply stating I was unaware of so many sage pay issues especially as I spent 2hrs on the phone with a client today going over psp options.
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SagePay's problems have been going on for ages. In my personal opinion since they were taken over by Sage everything has gone 'pear-shaped'. The amount of lost sales over the last three months is starting to hurt.
We really could do with a group of customers getting together and really tackling these guys. Is anyone aware of a representative group who can act with more force?
We really could do with a group of customers getting together and really tackling these guys. Is anyone aware of a representative group who can act with more force?
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- Original Poster
- #14
There must be other PSPs, right? Can we make a list, and compare?
Three hours downtime on the busiest day of the year, costing us £4k in sales so far, is just not acceptable.
If SagePay sent a special arse-kissing squad to my office I still wouldn't stay with them.
I am angry and I am leaving. The question is where to?
SecureTrading? Iridium?
(not PayPal, not Worldpay)
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- Original Poster
- #16
I've just been having an email conversation with the guys at Iridium, and I have to say I am really impressed. The fact that I was able to get a response from them tonight is itself pretty amazing. In addition, they've offered technical assistance to get us switched over first thing tomorrow morning.
I have a bad feeling about this downtime, it has the feel of a "we are switching to backup servers" problem.
I'll keep you updated.
I have a bad feeling about this downtime, it has the feel of a "we are switching to backup servers" problem.
I'll keep you updated.
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I would so love to hear of any decent alternatives. I'm off, I cannot take the pain anymore, I could have cried tonight with what we lost in sales.
Over the last 3 months they have been so, so poor. I'm starting with HSBC tomorrow who we have our Merchant with. I believe they do the whole lot.
Look forward to hear other suggestions.
Sx
Over the last 3 months they have been so, so poor. I'm starting with HSBC tomorrow who we have our Merchant with. I believe they do the whole lot.
Look forward to hear other suggestions.
Sx
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We use:
- BACS/cheque (manual payments): no/low fees so good for us but bad as a pain to track / deal with lost cheques, manual work required. We usually ask for BACS for larger payments to save fees.
- Paypal: we all know the pros and cons! Fees slightly lower than card payments, subscriptions a pain when they don't work for whatever reason
- Google Checkout: can be slow to send through payments, fees slightly more than Paypal (offhand we pay standard fees as we only have a handful of clients choose to use it)
- Sagepay: great except for silly changes they've done in the past and the random bursts of downtime. The new online interface is also a joke but I only use it once a month at most. Day-to-day it's fine, quick enough to process payments, no problems at all most of the time.
So on balance the total automation of Sagepay means it's the best and we've cajoled Barclays into giving us decent rates (it took FOUR calls over a period of weeks but we got a decent long-overdue discount!)
But surely you store order details so you can call up the client? It's not ideal but I don't see how a sale is lost - surely you could use something else as a backup. If it's cost you £5k or so in an hour I'd say it's definitely worth it - even just opening up a Google Checkout account.
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A
allsquare
I'm in exactly the same boat Sysops
I'm currently wading through the failed payment orders and it doesn't make pretty reading
Like yourself, even though we have the customer's contact details, there are simply too many to phone plus the fact that if someone wants to buy something on Monday evening then they will go elsewhere to purchase.
Luckily (if that's a word I can use this morning) we have PayPal installed, so they've made a few quid off us last night...
I'm currently wading through the failed payment orders and it doesn't make pretty reading
Like yourself, even though we have the customer's contact details, there are simply too many to phone plus the fact that if someone wants to buy something on Monday evening then they will go elsewhere to purchase.
Luckily (if that's a word I can use this morning) we have PayPal installed, so they've made a few quid off us last night...
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- Original Poster
- #27
Just had the usual message from the MD email.
Makes no difference, this time I'm leaving. After 10 years of using them, last night was the final straw. £6500 lost during that outage.
We pay these people hundreds of pounds a month. It's unacceptable that it went down in the first place. It's unacceptable that it stayed down for that long.
Instead of hiring more PR people to tweet platitudes, they should look at hiring some competent techs.
I am still fuming.
Makes no difference, this time I'm leaving. After 10 years of using them, last night was the final straw. £6500 lost during that outage.
We pay these people hundreds of pounds a month. It's unacceptable that it went down in the first place. It's unacceptable that it stayed down for that long.
Instead of hiring more PR people to tweet platitudes, they should look at hiring some competent techs.
I am still fuming.
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sysops - fully agree with what you say.
they have spent so much money building a crap new interface that has taken away functionality it's no wonder they continue to mess up when they are most needed - one of the busiest days of the year.
perhaps they have got as big as they can get. it appears to be a system infrastructure issue that just cannot handle the huge number of transactions.
coming out with some bullshit about an old error is plain ridiculous. The system goes down every year - without fail (forgive the pun) - on the busiest day of the year and I will lay a pound to a penny it will do so again next weekend and again next year costing sagepay businesses millions of pounds.
the system architecture probably needs a total rewrite from scratch now they have outgrown their originally small customer base. just 'plugging in' extra memory into their ZX81 isn't working.
they have spent so much money building a crap new interface that has taken away functionality it's no wonder they continue to mess up when they are most needed - one of the busiest days of the year.
perhaps they have got as big as they can get. it appears to be a system infrastructure issue that just cannot handle the huge number of transactions.
coming out with some bullshit about an old error is plain ridiculous. The system goes down every year - without fail (forgive the pun) - on the busiest day of the year and I will lay a pound to a penny it will do so again next weekend and again next year costing sagepay businesses millions of pounds.
the system architecture probably needs a total rewrite from scratch now they have outgrown their originally small customer base. just 'plugging in' extra memory into their ZX81 isn't working.
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sagepay are normally reliable.
I think the lesson here is to have 2 payment gateways so that you can switch when it appears problems are happening.
I think I shall get in touch with totalwebsolutions as a second gateway - I don't know how compatible the 2 solutions are - will I need to rewrite my database field names etc as I had to in the summer for sagepay's update?
I think the lesson here is to have 2 payment gateways so that you can switch when it appears problems are happening.
I think I shall get in touch with totalwebsolutions as a second gateway - I don't know how compatible the 2 solutions are - will I need to rewrite my database field names etc as I had to in the summer for sagepay's update?
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- Original Poster
- #34
Well, I'm not sure I agree there, certainly not reliable enough.
Look at it this way, we've had around 8 periods of down time greater than 10 minutes at a time this year so far. A couple of them have been much longer. Add to that all the problems with their bizarre new interface, and it starts to look like a pretty disastrous year.
We pay SagePay around £700 a month. I expect a reasonable level of service in return. If I was paying that much for a dedicated server (I don't - I pay a lot less than that), I would expect no more than a few periods of downtime, a few minutes at a time, over a 12 month period.
Sh!t happens, we all know that. But it seems that when it comes to SagePay, the volume of sh!t is large and increasing year on year.
And this is why I'm bailing, after 10 years. I don't know if the alternative is going to be better or worse, but after yesterday's monumental frakup, I'm willing to give it a go.
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ok... I take that back. sagepay are not as reliable as they should be.
Going back to what I wrote earlier. I think they have invested money in looking glossy and cool but their systems do not appear to have got any more solid than when they were a small independent.
That is a worry. It begs the question: Can their systems get any more reliable during busy periods. Have they maxxed out their system architecture? Is a total rewrite required to cope with their expansion.
We had to rewrite our customer database fields etc over the summer and I thought this whole process would have been the start of a new dawn but the same problems are appearing.
If I have 2 payment gateways will they both use the same fieldnames from our customer database and if not, is paypal or something else the solution.
Sysops
Going to Iridium may be a short-term fix but what happens if they experience problems? Surely 2 gateways has to be the answer.
Going back to what I wrote earlier. I think they have invested money in looking glossy and cool but their systems do not appear to have got any more solid than when they were a small independent.
That is a worry. It begs the question: Can their systems get any more reliable during busy periods. Have they maxxed out their system architecture? Is a total rewrite required to cope with their expansion.
We had to rewrite our customer database fields etc over the summer and I thought this whole process would have been the start of a new dawn but the same problems are appearing.
If I have 2 payment gateways will they both use the same fieldnames from our customer database and if not, is paypal or something else the solution.
Sysops
Going to Iridium may be a short-term fix but what happens if they experience problems? Surely 2 gateways has to be the answer.
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- Original Poster
- #36
I've mentioned this earlier in the thread, but I'll summarise. Two gateways is a very problematic setup when you have a system that is tightly integrated with our PSP, processing payments, refunds and repeats. It requires a great deal of extra development work from our end.
The fact is achieving a sensible level of uptime is not impossible. Given the revenue generated from merchants, there is plenty there for a respectable development budget, and a very good level of support.
I just don't think it's that much to ask.
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N
NuBlue
There is a thread here on the Saepay support forum which may be of interest (comparing alternatives to Sagepay):
https://support.sagepay.com/forum/Topic12585-26-1.aspx
We are with Sagepay too and have been for 6 years! When they were Protx they used to be excellent imho, but it is a catlaogue of problems at the moment, made worse by the 1 hour call queues and unanswered emails!
As Sysops has said, theproblem with miving is that it is so deeply embeded with our backend system that even the thought of moving brings me out in a cold sweat! But a business can only take so much of this....
https://support.sagepay.com/forum/Topic12585-26-1.aspx
We are with Sagepay too and have been for 6 years! When they were Protx they used to be excellent imho, but it is a catlaogue of problems at the moment, made worse by the 1 hour call queues and unanswered emails!
As Sysops has said, theproblem with miving is that it is so deeply embeded with our backend system that even the thought of moving brings me out in a cold sweat! But a business can only take so much of this....
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I was with SagePay for many years and had no problems as i was with Protx. when they got took over it all went a bit Pete Tong. Sagepay were processing transactions for all 7 of my businesses and they certainly let me down with all there problems. the problems continued one after the other. i would have thought i was a valued customer with the amount of business i was bringing their way, but i was wrong! the amount of downtime i experienced was just unnaceptable. For a business to survive you need to sales! and i could not process these sales. I was then advised and referred to a company called SecureHosting. This company has certainly delivered everything they promised. They have a fantastic team who are at the end of each phone call especially a lovely young lady called Alex and a chap called Rav who are a credit to the company.
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