back to article Lush scrubs its card-processing servers squeaky clean

Lush, high street peddler of lotions and potions for the pampered, lost the ability to perform card transactions yesterday due to a bath bomb dropped in the server room. Or something like that. Stores such as the one at London's Victoria station apologised to punters desperate for a smell of the good life but lacking the …

  1. Korev Silver badge
    Joke

    I work in IT, what's soap?

    1. }{amis}{
      Joke

      what's soap?

      Its the stuff you knick from your mum to get the grips to go onto the motorbike!

      1. Semtex451
        Alien

        Re: what's soap?

        While we're at it, what's this "CASH" of which you speak?

      2. quxinot

        Re: what's soap?

        >Its the stuff you knick from your mum to get the grips to go onto the motorbike!<

        No, that's hairspray. It'll dry sticky so they don't twist around on you.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: what's soap?

          Or petrol, it melts enough of the rubber to glue the grip to the metal.

      3. Stoneshop
        Pirate

        Re: what's soap?

        It's what you use to get the blood off your hands when you want to approach the next luser without raising undue suspicion.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      A pain in the arse is what it is.

      1. Stoneshop
        Trollface

        A pain in the arse is what it is.

        You should bevel the corners then, and also wet it.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Pain in the @rse

        If soap is a pain in the@rse, you must be holding it wrong.....

        1. Sgt_Oddball

          Re: Pain in the @rse

          Only if you drop it in the showers....

    3. Sgt_Oddball

      Simple Object Access Protocol - its one of the many flavours of making API's happen. Though in this case they stopped serving SOAP and decided to take a REST....

      I'll get my coat (mines the one with the handwritten note explaining how annoying not having the icons in the mobile view is)

  2. OGShakes

    Simple Object Access Protocol

    This is what Soap is... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOAP

    Cash? No idea, did you mean Cache?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Simple Object Access Protocol

      I always thought that the supposedly simple object access protocol had a bad smell. Rather like the supposedly simple network access protocol V3, which fuelled my nightmares for several months.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Simple Object Access Protocol

      I had cash once... Then I got married.

  3. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

    Or, in my case..

    UK retailer specialising in handmade cosmetics ranging from soaps, shampoos, body creams

    ..and providing me with the inability to breathe unless I hold my breath when walking past the always-open Lush door..

    Feeling your airways slam shut at the stench of mixed smells coming from Lush isn't fun.

    1. Mark 85

      Re: Or, in my case..

      We have similar stores here in the US in malls. My personal belief is that those stores helped contribute to the decline of malls because the odors spread from one end to the other. Noxious they are.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Or, in my case..

        What better ingredient or smug, self-satisfying greenwashing than soap?

  4. Chris Gray 1
    Meh

    Here too

    We have them here in Canada as well. Nearest is about 20 blocks away. I don't know if they are affected as well, and I am *NOT* about to walk into one to find out!

    1. Aladdin Sane

      Re: Here too

      20 blocks is too close for comfort.

  5. Lee D Silver badge

    932 outlets, turnover of £995m, profits before tax £73.5m

    And they either a) employ an IT team who deploy systems where a stray single delete results in complete loss of central functionality (i.e. no backup, redundancy, failover, etc.), or b) can't get a credit card reader working by putting a 4G-backup router in each store (I'd say for 932 outlets, you could do it for about £200k max, with maybe £50-90k a year ongoing cost?)

    Seriously... I mean... things happen but is there really an excuse for that?

    Hell, I could argue a business case for the stores just "authorising" the card transaction anyway, but storing it for later batching when connectivity was restored. Nobody is going to notice that the transaction came out a few days later (shops do that to me all the time) and the cost of fraud over a normal day would be negligible compared to the loss of business without cards at all.

    Especially if you wouldn't have to go announcing over Twitter that things aren't working, but stores just carry on working silently and unknowingly the same as they always had.

    1. MiguelC Silver badge

      As if there ever was any relation between a company's turnover and/or profit and it IT department's competence*...

      *See "Banks" for reference.

    2. ElReg!comments!Pierre

      Well, the store doesn't perform the authorisation, the bank does. And there are pretty strict legal requirements for the anti-fraud systems. Not sure they could actually do what you're suggesting (the bank would probably squarely refuse).

      It is also entirely possible that the bank's auth system was at fault there. A, erm, friend of mine told me it kinda happened recently at the bank they are working with (not in the UK).

    3. katrinab Silver badge

      “Nobody is going to notice that the transaction came out a few days later”

      Inwould notice. Anyone with an account that supports instant notifications would notice. Monzo is probably the best known example, but there are loads of acco7nts that do this now.

  6. Aaiieeee
    Angel

    Is it anywhere near the cheese shop?

    I wonder if there is a collaboration opportunity here

  7. AlexGreyhead
    Coat

    TITSUP*

    * Total Inability To Smell Usual Purchases

    I'll get my coat...

  8. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

    Maybe the IT team decided to do some refactoring

    They successfully banished the smells in the code, but forgot that these were kinda fundamental to the Lush brand.

  9. sanmigueelbeer
    Pint

    ..and providing me with the inability to breathe unless I hold my breath when walking past the always-open Lush door..

    Amen, bro. Amen.

    (Here, have a beer.)

  10. Celeste Reinard

    Mummies Basement

    Having my TITSUP*, I did my homework... and read all listed above. And I wonder why you wonder why you are still living with your mum, in the basement no less. ... 'Beware of the man who doesn't care about money' is one coined frase, since 'Beware of the man who doesn't care about soap' goes without saying...

    Guys... you wonder why there are so few women around here? Or there usually is a screen between you and their delight? Tut tut tut...

    ~ ~ ~

    *Total Inability To Stand Unwashed P... No, that would be unkind... you poor devils, living with your mum and all... You do know it's a myth one could die from taking a bath. (I checked on snopes.com) Right?

    1. #define INFINITY -1

      Re: Mummies Basement

      Are you saying that you are a woman? I haven't really been paying attention or trying to deduce whether 'Anonymous Coward' even exists in our understanding of 'existence'... let alone being the worthy beneficiary of the pronoun 'man'.

    2. jake Silver badge

      Re: Mummies Basement

      I use soap. Unscented soap. Why would I shower with something that is likely to offend more people than good honest sweat? I never really understood that. What are the folks who use such products trying to hide AFTER they get clean? Does a clean human body actually smell bad to them, so they have a need to mask their own scent from themselves? Or have they just succumbed to marketing?

    3. Glen 1

      Re: Mummies Basement

      I am not understanding the not-quite-hate being directed at lush (as a store, not the current SNAFU)

      Even if it's not to your taste, it's products make for nice easy gifts.

      People here talk as if the whole "smellies" industry should be taken out and shot.

      1. jake Silver badge

        Re: Mummies Basement

        I take it, Glen 1, that you are one of the small sub-set of humanity who seems to think that afflicting your choice of scent on the rest of us is OK? Well, it's NOT. It's an invasion of personal space. If I wanted to smell a French whorehouse, I'd go to a French whorehouse. I don't want to smell one sitting next to me on the Tube ... or worse, an airplane.

        As for "nice easy gifts", you mean wasting your money on a convenience item in order to do your marketing invented duty by giving unwanted toiletries to friends and family who have absolutely no need or want of the product? Better to save your money. Or, if you insist on spending it, either give the cash to the intended victim, or donate it to charity in their name. Much better than wasting it on something that will only end up in a landfill, don't you think?

        1. Glen 1

          Re: Mummies Basement

          >that you are one of the small sub-set of humanity who seems to think that afflicting your choice of scent on the rest of us is OK?

          If you're close enough to tell, you're too close.

          I honestly don't think that people who use antiperspirants or deodorants are a small sub-set. At least in the west - maybe it's different where you live. The bath bombs smell strong *while they are being used*. I would struggle to tell if someone had used one that morning.

          Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of the "dousers", but that requires repeated and generous applications. Otherwise the smell just doesn't last that long.

    4. ElReg!comments!Pierre
      Pint

      Re: Mummies Basement

      Post probably best understood with an alcohol-to-blood ratio matching that of the poster, I suppose. My beverage stash is lacking at the moment, will work on that ASAP.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's the main ingredient in any TITSUP...

    So did they em' - Laugh or sullen, mate?

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