Internet service providers are working to address internet outages that are affecting credit card transactions and ATM machines on one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

The main disruptions appear to be with Logic and Northrock while Fortknox, Link Bermuda(formerly Cable and Wireless) and TBI have confirmed their services have not been affected.

The outages, believed to be Island wide, come at a time when shoppers are frantically trying to purchase their last minute Christmas gifts.

Logic, part of the KeyTech umbrella company, has said it is aware of the disruption and is working to resolve it as soon as possible.

The company has left a recorded a message for callers saying: “Logic is currently experiencing technical difficulties that may affect your internet connectivity and our engineers are working to resolve the issue at the moment and we expect service to be restored shortly.”

Callers are then given the option to leave a voicemail so they can be notified when the outage is resolved.

One irate businessman said: ”How both Northrock and Logic have managed to go down on the busiest day of year – so that half the businesses in town have no credit card machines running, email is dead, bank ATMs not spitting out cash... Fortunately we have jury rigged through Google and dial in modems, but this is devastating to the economy...

”It’s dawning on me that internet is an essential service and there should be penalties for failure to deliver, especially when provider licenses are restricted.”

Sail On said one of its two Washington Mall stores had been unable to accept credit cards since this morning but staff were able to process sales in its other store just 100 yards away.

A staff member said: “We are not affected that much as they can call us and we can run it through in the other store. The girls can just run down with the credit cards they are just 100 yards away. It’s been non-stop here which his great.”

Brown & Co are understood to have experienced problems on Saturday.

A Hamilton business owner said she had experienced an array of Internet-related problems saying the services had been on and off for several days. She said: “We are sitting here today on Christmas Eve and we are not able to do any work as the internet is down. For many retailers businesses today is the last day to make money. My question is, are we open for business? No we are not.”

It is understood that there may also be some issues with BTC.