M&S ‘cyber Incident’

[user1471427667]

Hi,
not sure what is going with M&S. Firstly, last week they were wrongly advertising 15% off everything but when you got to checkout it didn’t go through and just called it a ‘glitch’. Then, I went into store on Monday and while queuing at checkout I heard the cashier explain that all their tills were offline and they were unable to honour any sparks online offers. As I had a 20% off voucher for some trousers, I decided to wait and order them online instead, thinking it was just a problem with my local store.
I placed an order online on Wednesday for 3 items, my money was debited from my card as usual and I was sent an email with order details saying my items would be ready to collect in storeon Saturday - all good.
As I’m checking my order this morning, I see the items haven’t even been despatched yet. Then this afternoon, I see the following message on the website ( I was unaware of this and wonder why, if they knew this on Tuesday, did they take my money for my order on Wednesday?)
I also realise, I cancelled another order last week and I’ve yet to receive a refund ( usually get them within 48hrs)

Yes. Would feel more reassured if I’d had an email saying don’t worry, your order is delayed but on its way for example.
As it is I had to find out while checking the website to see just a general message saying they knew about this on Tuesday. So don’t know whether to just wait for order or cancel it and wait for refund or waste hours on the phone trying to get through to someone

@Workingonthehighway do you know if staff discount is working? My DH works in one of their depots so isn't involved with the shops.

I’m actually going to take screenshots of both my wednesday order and my cancelled order from last week which I’m still waiting for a refund from.
Just in case my account ‘disappears’ or can’t be accessed for some reason

Sorry, don’t know. Would guess not if other discounts aren’t going through automatically ( like sparks discounts. Etc). Maybe if he can show proof he is staff member they will do it manually

I posted about this a few days ago.... I've had non stop spam sibce they got attacked. Emails and calls.

I’m due a refund that was supposedly issued on the 8th. Has not appeared in my PayPal account yet.

The 8th! Thats ages ago.
PayPal does take longer though. Had an M&S account for years and always get refunds credited within 48hours - one of the reasons I like buying from them ( or was!)

@user1471427667 It is a long time! I’ve had to escalate it to a PayPal case as I’m just going round in circles. It does make me wonder just how long things have been going on.

As someone who works in the area I’m watching the M&S incident with interest - it’ll be studied in years to come by cyber security folks.
I feel incredibly sorry for all the staff, especially the IT guys who won’t have slept for at least a week! I’m also expecting to see senior tech/operations heads roll in the aftermath.
@user1471427667 you will get your refunds/orders eventually but at this point they will be swamped and have nowhere near enough staff to cope. If you really need your cash back I’d suggest going via your bank/credit card provider.

iI think I’ll wait it out. I’m annoyed they knew about this and yet stil accepted orders after they knew. Also strange that not everyone received emails telling them about the problem.
Things happen, but it’s how you deal with them that really matters . Not sure M&S (top people) have done everything they could for their customers.

I placed an online order at 1.38pm today? Was it paused afterwards? Otherwise I’m not sure how I’ve managed that 😅 delivery date is saying 7th May, which is obviously longer than usual but not an issue as long as it arrives.

I checked my order around lunchtime - 1ish today and nothing was mentioned about a problem. I just thought it was odd that my order that I placed on Wednesday and scheduled to pick up in store tomorrow was still showing as ‘waiting to be despatched’. Then I checked again around 4pm and got the notice that I posted in my OP informing customers about cyber attack.
I just think they should have paused online orders from the moment they knew about attack ( which according to their own statement was Tuesday)

@Crunchymum I don't know, I assume the mail is genuine. I did check the headers and they seem OK.

It’s not containing any dodgy links to click on, so I’d assume genuine.Good to be aware of this though

On Wednesday they probably didn't realise the scale of the issue. It takes a while to work out where an issue comes from and most online retailers keep their payment services quite separate (to reduce the risk of them going wrong and make issues easier to diagnose).

some customers had an email earlier in the week from CEO saying there was a problem and could be delays .If I’d received one of those about the refund I was waiting for from last week, it would have stopped me placing an order on Wednesday ..
This has been handled badly

I agree but ad per PP above, they probably didn’t know the full extent of the issues, these incidents evolve very rapidly and they will still be finding things out unfortunately.

They’ve shut down international orders.

They are posting pretty regular updates on their social media channels.

For those saying they should’ve stopped orders sooner, that is an absolute last resort for a retailer and not a decision they would’ve taken lightly. Sounds as though they were hoping to have the issue sorted pretty quickly and get on top of the backlog but have had to admit defeat and switch off orders.

It's very annoying as I had the email but it did not say there was an issue with gift vouchers. I do lots of online surveys and take a third in Paypal, a third Amazon and a third M&S vouchers so never pay any way other than vouchers there. We went to the shop today and the total came to £55, went to pay using my vouchers and it wouldn't go through. Staff member said they couldn't accept them currently so we said we didn't want it and left everything there.
She said they are spending half their time putting items back on the shelves because of issues with payments. I feel sorry for the staff in store.

Sort of it was working on self checkout yesterday but not the other tills it's hit or miss

Do you think that's connected? My email associated with sparks has been inundated with spam all week

M&S (as well as other big businesses) have multiple systems/platforms that they use daily, just because one gets hacked it doesn't mean all get hacked. So far passwords and banking aren't affected otherwise you wouldn't be able to log into your account or pay by chip n pin - contactless is on a different system and i believe the banks have blocked it for safety reasons.

Nobody got their knickers in a twist when Morrisons distribution network got hacked a few months ago, along with 2 other supermarkets that used it. Or when the large banks go down due to IT failures (ie hacked).

The company said it also reported the incident to the National Cyber Security Centre which told the BBC it was "working with Marks and Spencer to support their response to a cyber incident".

The National Crime Agency told the BBC its officers were "working alongside partners in the NCSC to better understand the incident and support the company".
From BBC article yesterday.

@Theunamedcat as an insider do you know when the issue with gift vouchers will be sorted? I have let all friends and family who take their rewards as M&S know of the issue so they don't waste their time shopping only to be disappointed at the till so it would be good to update them. Thanks.

It can happen to any big system. If it happens to the NHS, will you refuse to use that again too? 😂