On January 28, users who tried to use services of I-Box payment terminals discovered, that the money they’ve sent via I-Box didn’t reach accounts of service providers. Considering the fact, that lots of money go through these payment terminals, including the replenishment of mobile phone credits and repayment of bank loans, people began to panic.

Unable to reach the company by phone, people decided to check it on Internet. As it turned out, company’s web-site ibox.com.ua was also offline.

In their official statement “IBox” Company reported that the payment system failed and works on it would last from January 28 to February 7. Pavel Vakulovsky, the Director of Department of the partner network development, informed the media that this failure happend due to the technical works on increasing the processing capacity of the system.

Starting from January 29, the majority of service providers, including the majority of mobile operators, as well as companies “Volya” and «WebMoney Ukraine”, notified their customers about encountered difficulties. They asked their users not to use I-Box services. Customers, whose payments were not processed, were recommended to keep their payment receipts. Unfortunately, in most cases, due to the lack of paper in the machines, users could not get such checks.

People were promised, that all transferred funds would be credited to the providers’ accounts in full amount after the system recovery, but anyway users were not happy about such a malfunction.

A news story on Ukrainian TV Channel “1+1″, in which incompetent journalists called in general all payment terminals as “I-Box” and showed the terminal of EasySoft payment system, added more fuel to the fire. As a result, people became afraid of all the “boxes” and it immediately affected the profits of all market participants. In their turn, owners of the EasySoft think that TV people have to answer for the damage to the company’s reputation.

In general, despite the high visibility of the I-Box brand on the market, most market participants are quite skeptical of this payment system.

The official version of the modernization of the system processing causes a lot of doubt. Why such a critical failure in the process of renewal applied not only to the payment processing server, but also the official company’s website, along with the company’s phone numbers? Why couldn’t the company warn the users and partners about the upcoming works in advance? Bankruptcy of the company and its sale are among the most debated versions of the current events. Last fall there were rumors about problems of the company with the tax inspection.

As it is known, I-Box Company belongs to Alfa Group, together with Alfa-Bank. This is a bit encouraging for the fact that there is someone to guarantee refunds to IBox terminals users. At the same time, according to one of the discussed versions, the parent group of companies decided to get rid of an unprofitable branch and sold it to one of the leading players in the market of payment systems. Despite the rumors, most officials keep silence. So, users affected by the failure, can only hope and wait for February 8.

Finally, we would like to ask you to be careful and not use I-Box payment terminals at least until February, the 8th. You could use alternative methods of payment instead. At the same time, do not be afraid to use all other payment terminals. Temporary problems of one company have no effect on the whole friendly and helpful service, represented by a large number of other responsible companies in Ukraine.

Source: http://internetua.com

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