Ron Howells
A WEB server that was set up to allow the sale of commercial bonds by the Valencia City Council crashed with minutes of going live.
The commercial bond sale promoted by the Valencia City Council and Chamber collapsed within minutes of going live at 9:00 am on Tuesday, October 2.
Bond sales were liquidated in a very short space of time- much to the despair of those who carried on trying throughout the day to make their purchases. Such was the expectation generated by the initiative that in the first batch of bonds, released at the beginning of October, eleven thousand units were sold in just one week.
The scheme was such a great success that the excitement generated in the days prior to this second call caused the demand to exceed expectations and overloaded the server (supplied by Camara Valencia).
Bonds are priced at €50, with the city adding the extra €50, making a total bond price of €100, thereby doubling up the value of the investment- hence the interest.
Potential buyers crammed into the town hall to try to complete their purchases manually. However, on their arrival, they soon discovered that the website was still unavailable. This led to angry and frustrated customers venting their anger at staff- who, as it turned out, were just as incapable of accessing the site as anyone else.
An announcement, made at midday, said that the system would be back online at 4:00 pm.
The network soon became quickly saturated- making it impossible to secure any bonds. Finally, at about 5:30 pm, the requests began to be processed, triggering much excitement in the gathered crowd.
However, to the complete anger and despair of those who did not succeed, in just a few minutes, the service stalled again.
According to witnesses, the air turned red in the town hall as users were alerted to the message on the council website that read: “the sale of vouchers has been closed”.
Due to the demand, and the problems encountered, further bond issues are expected- please check back on the Olive Press website for updates on this article.
