Sunoco Network Crashes

Affected 4,900 company-op stations, but not independent locations Feb. 09, 2011

PHILADELPHIA -- Customers wanting to buy gasoline and other items at Sunoco Inc. convenience stores were forced to use cash for several hours on Monday after a network crash made it impossible to use credit cards, reported The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.The problem affected Sunoco's approximately 4,900 company-owned and -operated c-stores from Maine to Florida and from the East Coast to Indiana, company spokesperson Joe McGinn told the newspaper. Sunoco stores that are independently owned and operated were not affected, the report added.

Sunoco is the sole provider [image-nocss] of fuel along the Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware turnpikes as well as the Atlantic City Expressway. It is one of the companies that provide services along the Governor Thomas E. Dewey Thruway in New York.

A Pennsylvania Turnpike spokesperson told the Tribune-Review that the only problem reported to officials was at the Sideling Hill Plaza between Breezewood and Fort Littleton, where the station could only accept cash transactions for about two hours.

There was no immediate word on what caused the system to crash about 4:15 p.m., said McGinn, who would not identify the network provider. He said the system was back in operation by 7:45 p.m.

"Any customer who continues to experience issues at a specific store should give us a call so we can address it," he said. "We certainly apologize to all our customers for the inconvenience."

McGinn said technicians wanted to get the problem corrected before trying to determine what caused the crash. "We'll do a forensic audit to determine what happened and make sure it doesn't happen again," he said.

At a Sunoco station in Pittsburgh, after the card processing system failed, employees of the store posted signs on the front door and on registers indicating that only cash transactions were being accepted, the paper said. An "out of order" sign was placed on the Citizens Bank ATM machine inside the store, it added. They later placed signs on the pumps after a number of customers continued to pull up and attempt to use their cards.

Neil Shah, 31, who owns a Sunoco A Plus in Lawrenceville, Pa., said he was not aware the corporate-owned stores were experiencing problems. "We're not connected to same system," Shah told the paper. "I'd say about 49% of our sales are paid for with a debit or credit card. I'm glad we didn't have to turn anybody away. I don't think anybody would want to lose that much business."

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