Paypal And Target Down On Cyber Monday Due To Traffic [Updated]

Update: The Inquisitr was contacted with the following statement from PayPal.

“Earlier today, PayPal experienced a brief, intermittent interruption in our service. We have resolved the issue and customers can pay with PayPal on Cyber Monday.”

Are Paypal and Target down for Cyber Monday?

Cyber Monday is up and kicking — with some deals even starting as early as Sunday — but it seems two of the biggest sites people looked forward to this Cyber Monday failed to deliver: Paypal and Target.

Cyber Monday is a term for the Monday right after the world-renowned Thanksgiving holiday in the United States. Years have proven that the Monday right after Thanksgiving always gave online retailers more than 50 percent boost in their online sales. This is why in 2005, the term “Cyber Monday” was coined and is now celebrated by hundreds of online merchants all over the world. This year is Cyber Monday’s 10th year anniversary, which means the deals today are sure to spike off the charts.

However, while shoppers looked forward to this year’s Cyber Monday, it seems two of the biggest online websites that should be participating in today’s shopping craze are down.

International Business Times reports that a lot of Paypal users are reporting today that they are experiencing a wide variety of problems with Paypal. Some of these Paypal problems reported are trouble logging into accounts, opening the Paypal website itself, withdrawing funds, and making online transactions.

According to Down Detector, a site dedicated to detecting online websites’ service interruptions and reporting real-time overviews of the outages, Paypal started having issues at 8:36 a.m. EST today, just in time for the traffic of Cyber Monday. It seems Paypal wasn’t able to handle the traffic that Cyber Monday has poured on its systems. According to the site, 38 percent of the problems reported with Paypal were log-in problems, 37 percent were send payment problems, and 24 percent were website problems.

The site Is It Down Right Now, another online website dedicated to checking and reporting if certain websites are down, also received numerous reports today that they are having problems connecting to and making transactions with Paypal. According to the comments left on the site this Cyber Monday, it looks like it’s not only in the United States that Paypal is malfunctioning. Paypal users in Canada, Germany, and the U.K., to name a few, are also experiencing the same problems.

Laurie Lane Eveleigh says: “Site isn’t working properly in PEI, Canada All I get is my order summary, no other options.”

Korinna Imle writes: “No Paypal in germany at the moment :(”

Jane Stockingdale also posts: “Not working properly in UK right now. Been trying on and off for the past hour.”

Is It Down Right Now’s ping on the website, done 12:57 a.m. PDT (3:57 a.m. EST), also brought back a negative response.

Paypal’s malfunction this Cyber Monday proves to be a huge hassle for most online shoppers since aside from card transactions, Paypal is one of the widely-used ways of paying online. Thousands of deals up all over the globe for Cyber Monday, but Paypal users couldn’t process their orders. CNBC reached out to Paypal for a comment on the issue, but Paypal has yet to respond.

But apparently, Paypal is not the only one having traffic and system problems this Cyber Monday. Retail mogul Target is also having problems this Cyber Monday, Kare 11 reports.

Again most probably due to high traffic volumes today, Target’s online shopping site has failed many a shopper. A lot of people who tried to get into Target’s online shopping website were met with a maintenance sign that reads as follows.

“Please hold tight. So sorry but high traffic’s causing delays. If you wouldn’t mind holding, we’ll refresh automatically and get things going ASAP. Thank you for your patience!”

As of writing, a lot of people at Is It Down Right Now are still reporting that they couldn’t get in Target or couldn’t add items to their cart.

Lynn Webster complains: “WTH TARGET?!?! Put a bunch of stuff in my shopping bag last night after midnight and it would NOT give me the 15% off. How convenient that it’s crashed this morning. I hope they extend the shopping hours today because of it.”

Larry Wanvig writes: “Website up but still getting the following error ‘there is a line for this item, try to add to cart again’. Obviously they are not properly prepared for all the web traffic. It’s amazing a company as large as Target has an IT department who was not prepared!”

It seems both Target and Paypal have underestimated Cyber Monday and are unprepared for the high traffic that the celebration caused. Hopefully Paypal and Target fix their systems before the day and all the deals are gone.

[Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images]