Authorize.Net Crashes, Uses Twitter for Merchant Alerts

July 6, 2009 Update: Authorize.net posted the details of the events following last Thursday night's fire, which brought its merchant services to a grinding halt. Authorize.net users can access the information from the "Announcements" menu in the authorize.net dashboard. The fast response Twitter account is still active and open to all Twitter users.

The first alert came by Twitter this morning at 5:00 am: Authorize.net, the largest service for accepting credit cards and e-checks through the Web, crashed. Millions of transactions and purchases came to a halt. Authorize.net's first response was to set up a new Twitter account to keep their users up to date on the recovery. Their first tweet posted at 11:00 AM EST with the dramatic news that a fire in the Seattle data center in Fisher's Place had brought Authorize.net down. Bing Travel is also down due to this fire.

As of this posting, Authorize.net is up and accepting transactions, albeit slowly, but some functions are still downincluding CIM, VPOS and api.authorize.net.

The new Twitter account is functioning as a real time customer service center. So far 55 tweets from Authorize.net and 2746 followers. Let's hope the other 235,000 merchants log on. Here's the latest:

• #authorizenet Sorry no ETA yet on CIM, VPOS or api.authorize.net.
• #authorizenet (cont.) Do not manually submit ARB transactions b/c you run the risk of your merchants being double billed.
• #authorizenet Authorize.Net Web site is back up, albeit pretty slow. Please be patient and continue to access the merchant interface

It appears Authorize.net staff are answering individual questions as well as posting updates. If you're an Authorize.net merchant, this is the place for help.

For all those who question the usefulness of Twitter, Authorize.net has used Twitter for emergency customer service. Timely, resourceful, and yes, 140 characters are sufficient.