Shoppers at Wal-Mart and other chains were unable to use their gift cards much of Dec. 26. While Wal-Mart apologized to customers, it laid the blame squarely on the shoulders of its technology partner.

Shoppers at Wal-Mart and other chains were unable to use their gift cards much of Dec. 26. While Wal-Mart apologized to customers, it laid the blame squarely on the shoulders of its technology partner.

On Dec. 27, Wal-Mart issued an unattributed statement explaining that, "Early yesterday afternoon, we discovered that several retailers, including Wal-Mart, were experiencing sporadic issues with gift card verifications due to processing errors with our third-party verifiers systems. This delayed the processing of a small percentage of our gift card transactions, and the issue was resolved yesterday afternoon. We apologize for this inconvenience to our customers."

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