Verifone is experiencing a UK outage on its card machines.

Furious customers caught out with no cash and no update from the company took to Twitter to complain.

One user said: “Poor show Verifone. Another lengthy outage that suggests no resilience in your network. And the worst is a complete lack of communication.”

One advised: “Anyone planning on going out tonight take cash.”

Another said: “That's awkward. Waitrose credit card payment system has crashed across their entire network of stores.

“A lot of shoppers around me in Oxford Street store who didn't have cash couldn't make their purchase.”

A taxi driver is unable to work because of the problem.

He said: “Seeing as I have to take card payments by law as a London cabbie, your system failure means I can’t work.

“It’d be a good idea if you waived your excessive commissions this week.”

Phoenix Theatre in London said: “To all of our customers coming for tonight’s performance.

“Please be aware we are only able to accept cash payments due to a data service problem with Verifone and card machines through the UK. 

“Anyone wishing to purchase drinks we do have the app you can use.”

Verifone released a statement which said: "Earlier today, we experienced a service outage that affected connectivity to our Wynid gateway in France, and Ocius gateway in the UK.

"Services are now back to normal, and both data centres are now receiving transactions. Our engineers are continuing their investigation to determine the root cause of the outage. We apologise for the disruption caused.”