PayPal.com resumes operations after four-day service disruption

The problem came after a monthly coding update was made last Friday.

By Todd R. Weiss

October 13, 2004 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - Four days after its online payment Web site was slowed and only intermittently available to users because of a coding problem, PayPal.com began recovering last night and was once again available to its customers.
In an update on the service problems posted on its site early this morning, San Jose-based PayPal Inc., which is owned by online auction vendor eBay Inc., said its technicians had finally solved the problem. The exact nature of the repair wasn't announced.
"We have made good progress in restoring the PayPal site functionality," the statement said. "Most members are now able to perform all site activities. Should you encounter any errors, please try again."
Sara Bettencourt, a PayPal spokeswoman, said in an e-mail late last night that the site's performance had "improved significantly" after the repairs were made, "allowing most users to transact without incident. We're monitoring the situation closely throughout the night and will update the community as soon as we have new information."
Many of PayPal's users had been having problems logging into and using the site since Friday, when a monthly code update went awry, drastically dropping the performance of the site and causing time-out errors and other problems (see story).
PayPal and eBay technical support personnel worked around the clock since Friday to resolve the problems. Details about the coding error weren't disclosed.
The impact of the four-day service disruption isn't known, but many eBay.com buyers and sellers were inconvenienced because they couldn't make or collect payments for items sold in online auctions and stores.
PayPal.com has about 50 million user accounts, including about 15.5 million that are active, according to the company.

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