Arts venue left unable to take payments after Worldpay ‘error’

One of the UK’s largest multi-venue arts centres was left without any means to take payments for tickets after global banking company Worldpay switched off its services ‘in error’.

Lighthouse Poole says its payment system was turned off on 7 November without warning. Chief executive Elspeth McBain said Worldpay could not say how long it would take them to restore the service, but indicated it would be several days.

As a result, Lighthouse, with the help of its box office system partner Spektrix, took “rapid emergency action” to set up a new payment system via PayPal within four days, going live before Worldpay restored its service.

“This dreadful mistake meant that in the middle of a busy period Lighthouse was unable to trade, presenting a substantial risk to our business,” McBain said.

“I cannot understand how Worldpay was able to cut off a charity from its income with no warning, explanation, or information on how it might reactivate its account.

“Our client manager was on a day off and we were denied any communication with the compliance department that ordered the deactivation of our account.

“Even when Worldpay realised and admitted the mistake it took a weekend and another working day before the service was restored. In the meantime we had worked with our ticketing software provider Spektrix who were brilliant in integrating a new payments service very swiftly.”

In light of the experience, Lighthouse is warning Worldpay clients that such eventualities should be included in their risk register.

“This happened, through no fault of ours, during a routine review,” McBain said.

“And judging by the responses received from other organisations to our social media posts this is not the only time. Organisations in all sectors need to be aware of this.

“With the help of other partners and our wonderful colleagues, Lighthouse has been able to limit the impact on our business and that of our promoters, but it has been a real shocker that any business can be put at such risk.”

Customer information update

A spokesperson for Worldpay said: “As a policy, we do not provide comment on individual customers.

“In line with industry-wide regulatory requirements for all financial services firms to protect our customers, we are required to periodically update customer information.

“We take our regulatory obligations seriously and provide notices to our customers in advance to let them know when information is needed to help avoid disruptions to their services.

“We work diligently to engage with our customers to meet these requirements and avoid disruptions, often including multiple notices and attempts to contact them.”