Oasis fans were left furious on Monday when a major technical glitch at Westpac left many unable to buy pre-sale tickets for the band’s 2025 Australian tour.
Fanatics of the English rock group from Melbourne and Sydney who banked with Westpac missed out on early bird tickets because they could not access their money through the app or online banking.
They flocked to social media to slam the company over the ‘inconvenient’ outage, which was eventually fixed at 3.15pm – hours after pre-sale tickets opened for purchase.
Westpac apologized to customers on X, formerly known as Twitter, for the ‘interruption’ and thanked users ‘for your patience during this time’.
But Oasis fans were having none of it as they were left furious at having missed the pre-sale – which started at 12pm for the Melbourne dates at 2pm in Sydney.
‘Not good enough. Not the first time and I’m tired of the fake excuses,” raged one would-be event-goer.
“The inconvenience caused is not okay and the empty excuses are so insincere it makes me sick! Is Westpac going to make sure I get my Oasis tickets?! Missed because of the “difficult” problems!’
Another wrote: ‘It put me off getting Oasis tickets! Booked the tickets – went to my Westpac app to get my credit card details… Something’s not working… Something’s not working… Not happy.’
Oasis fans were left furious on Monday when a major technical glitch at Westpac left many unable to purchase pre-sale tickets for the band’s 2025 Australian tour. Pictured: Oasis frontmen Liam and Noel Gallagher
A third added: “Great day for Westpac banking Oasis fans,” while someone else on Facebook moaned: “Just as the Oasis tickets are coming out.”
When pre-sales opened on Monday, tickets for the Australian leg of Oasis’ reunion tour were selling for more than $300 each.
Fans took to X to express their frustrations, which they said was one of the most expensive ticket prices they have ever encountered.
Australian fans who registered for pre-sale tickets last week and received a special code from OpenStage could access pre-sales from Monday, October 14 at 12pm for the Melbourne concert dates, and from 2pm AEDT for the Sydney concert dates.
The pre-sale codes were allocated through a voting system and registrations are now closed.
General ticket sales for the four shows in Australia begin on Tuesday, October 15 at 10am in Melbourne and 12pm in Sydney.
Noel and Liam Gallagher will take to the stage at Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium on October 31 and November 1.
They will then head to Sydney to perform at Accor Stadium on November 7 and 8.
Melbourne and Sydney fanatics of the English rock group who banked with Westpac missed out on early bird tickets because they couldn’t access their money through the app or online banking
Amid the ticket chaos, the Westpac outage left thousands of Australians unable to access their money through the app or online banking.
More than 7,000 complaints were reported on the tech monitoring site Downdetector on Monday afternoon.
Westpac immediately acknowledged the issue and has since restored the app and website.
“We are aware that customers are experiencing difficulties accessing online and mobile banking,” the bank said in a statement when the outage occurred.
“Our teams are working to resolve the issue. We apologize for the inconvenience.’
Australians took to social media amid the outrage to complain about being unable to access their money because of the issue.
‘It happened right when everyone was going to lunch. “I had to transfer money because I was filtering everything through my main account, but I couldn’t make the transfer so I couldn’t get lunch,” one person said.
“I’m stuck at the gas station and I can’t pay, please hurry,” another added.
Fans flocked to social media to criticize the company for the ‘inconvenient’ glitch, which was eventually resolved at 3.15pm – hours after pre-sale tickets opened for purchase
Westpac apologized to customers on X, formerly known as Twitter, for the ‘interruption’ and thanked users ‘for your patience during this time’
Others pointed out that the incident highlighted the challenges associated with Australia’s shift to a cashless society.
Despite the increasing number of Australians opting for cash transactions both in stores and online, Swinburne University business professor Steve Worthington said cash will remain essential, especially in the face of such disruptions.
“Cash should not crash,” he told AAP earlier this year.
‘If the telecom breaks down or the banks’ IT systems break down, you will be left with peace of mind.’
A major technical glitch at Westpac caused its app and online banking to stop working for thousands of Australians, leaving them without access to their money
The outage comes just days after the bank ended cardless cash withdrawals, requiring customers to use a physical bank card to withdraw money from an ATM.
“As part of the ongoing review of our products and services, Westpac will no longer offer the cardless cash withdrawal feature,” Westpac announced.
The bank claimed the change was part of an ongoing review of its ‘products and services’.
It highlighted that customers can still withdraw cash from Westpac ATMs across Australia as long as they use their physical card, and cash transactions can also be made at branches across the country.
Westpac confirmed that cardless cash deposits would still be available to customers.
Some customers were outraged by the change, with many claiming that ending cardless cash withdrawals ‘seemed like a step backwards’.
‘Like many people, I no longer carry a physical card, so cardless cash is really my only option when I need cash unexpectedly. It seems like a step backwards,” one person wrote.
Westpac has announced it is shutting down its cardless cash withdrawal service
An Australian, who claimed to work at Westpac, explained that the service had been removed due to an “insanely high” number of fraud and scam incidents.
‘I work for Westpac at branch level and the reason we removed them is because the number of fraud and scam incidents that occurred using this capability was insanely high. Like 1,000 in the last month,” they claimed.
‘Moreover, there are actually only about 4,000 cardless cash withdrawals per week nationally, which is a drop in the ocean for the total number of bank transactions.
‘It’s just too much hassle to have to administer fraud and scams at branch level and too many people who abuse other people’s internet banking to get the SMS code to withdraw money.’