Editor’s Note: It appears that the installation of new natural gas line in a small municipality in Switzerland accidentally cut one of the major data-links to Worldline, a Fintech company which handles in Italy and Europe the electronic communications for ATM Machines (called Bancomats in Italy) and most Bank Credit and Debit Cards, such as “American Express, Diners Club, Maestro, Mastercard, PayPal, Nexi, Visa. Nexi Payments” according to the report from La Stampa. Seeing that GooglePay is normally also linked to one or another of these Cards, it was also not working.

Other than La Stampa, most media outlets ignored the news, to prevent a rush of customers back to Cash payments. This disruption has caused numerous European companies to extend Black Friday sales until the problem is resolved, seeing that significant numbers of customers were prevented from taking advantage of the by-now-customary sales on the Friday after Thanksgiving (even though this day is not celebrated in Europe).