Apple Pay Crashes Hard, Leaving Shoppers Stranded at Checkout

By HOAR Team 16 May, 2025 5 mins read 131 Views

God. Nothing quite like standing in line at the grocery store, cart full of stuff, only to have your phone flash "account services unavailable" when you try to pay. That's exactly what happened to thousands of us Apple Pay users this morning in what turned out to be a massive global outage.

I was actually trying to grab coffee before a meeting when my phone decided to betray me. Awkward doesn't begin to describe the feeling of holding up teh line while frantically tapping your phone against the reader over and over. The barista just gave me that look – you know the one – part pity, part "please just pay another way so I can serve the 12 people behind you."

The Moment Everything Went to Hell

The problems started erupting around 10am Pacific Time in the US, according to DownDetector (my go-to whenever something tech-related implodes). Within just 15 minutes, about 660 frustrated Americans had already reported issues. By 11:08am, that number exploded to nearly 3,000 people – all basically stranded at registers or unable to send money to friends.

Thankfully, the numbers started dropping after that peak. Down to 2,600 by 11:24am, and continuing to fall as the morning dragged on.

Most of us couldn't transfer money or make purchases. Some poor souls (about 9%) couldn't even get the app to function at all.

What's a Brit to do?

Our friends across the pond weren't spared either. UK users started reporting problems around 9:30am PT, though their experience was slightly different. While "only" about 600 Brits reported issues (compared to our 3,000), a whopping 92% of them couldn't make payments at all. Just 8% had trouble with the app itself.

Back in 2021, I experienced a similar outage while traveling in London. Spent 45 minutes trying to explain to a cab driver why my phone wouldn't pay him. Not my finest moment.

The Collective Meltdown

The comments section on DownDetector was... entertaining, to say the least.

"Won't let me pay my account. 'Account Services Unavailable'... Stupid time to be down, really," wrote one clearly frustrated person.

My personal favorite: "Service is temporarily unavailable... man I'm just trying to order food." I felt that in my soul.

And then there was the beautifully expressive: "Why is Apple Pay trippinggggg."

Listen. When you build your entire life around the convenience of tapping your phone to pay for everything, an outage like this feels like someone suddenly amputated your wallet. I've spent $4K on this iPhone, and this is what I get?

Nobody Was Safe

This wasn't just a US-UK problem. The digital payment apocalypse spread globally, with users in France, Canada, India, and Spain all reporting the same frustrating experience.

I texted my cousin in Montreal who confirmed: "Yep, tried to pay for lunch and looked like a complete idiot waving my phone around. Had to dig out a physical card like it's 2010 or something."

The whole situation reminds me of that time back in 2018 when AWS went down and half the internet disappeared. We're so dependent on these systems now that when they hiccup, our entire days get derailed.

I reached out to Apple for comment, but... you know how that goes. About as responsive as their payment system was today.

More updates will come as this story develops. In the meantime, maybe keep some actual cash on hand? Just a thought.

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