More ructions over cricket system

By Bronwen Kausch for Dimension Data South Africa
Johannesburg, 17 Jul 2002

Misunderstanding over the contracts for the payment gateway used in the ticketing process for the 2003 Cricket World Cup is adding to the furore surrounding the international sporting event.

Dimension Data has used the Iveri gateway and Nedcor as the facilitating bank to process the ticket payments. However, electronic payment solutions company Virtual Card Services (VCS) says it firmly believed it was to be responsible for the transaction process.

In a statement distancing itself from what it called the "World Cup ticket fiasco", VCS MD Gordon Ashby said: "We were not responsible for the fiasco. We had 125 terminals ready to handle a huge anticipated demand. When, shortly after tickets went on sale, we had received not a single transaction to process, I telephoned DiData to alert them and find out what was going on.

"I was referred to a project manager, who informed me that, without ever having communicated its decision to us, DiData had elected to go with another service provider."

VCS announced in November last year that it had been awarded the contract for processing credit and debit cards for the new ticketing system developed by DiData for the United Cricket Board.

Ashby says VCS processed around 5 500 ticket payments for the domestic cricket season as part of its partnership with DiData.

However, DiData told ITWeb yesterday it had not entered into any binding agreement with VCS.

"Dimension Data is surprised at VCS`s allegations as we have had no interaction with the company for the last couple of months. A trial relationship existed between VCS and Dimension Data in February and March of this year but no contract was ever negotiated or concluded," says the local IT giant.

Ashby says VCS uses Standard Bank as its facilitating institution and adds that the bank had also set up facilities in the belief that it would be handling the payments.

"I want to stress to our clients who were under the impression that we were handling the payments gateway that we were not involved and that any problems experienced with the system had nothing to do with us," says Ashby.