Crowds descend on bankrupt Intetoys to spend gift cards

Crowds of people descended on Intertoys stores throughout the Netherlands over the weekend. As the toy store chain was declared bankrupt on Thursday, Sunday was the last chance customers had to spend their unused gift cards. Customers faced delays both on Saturday and Sunday due to technical problems caused by the crowds, ANP reports.

On Saturday the stores were hit by technical issues, resulting in customers ending up in long lines in some stores. On that day there were "situations where customers did not behave properly", a spokesperson said to the news wire. A store in Wezep had to be closed after visitors threw things at cashiers, spat on them and stole items. Some employees were in tears behind the cash registers.

Intertoys reported on Saturday that the technical problems were caused by a DDoS attack, but the spokesperson denied this on Sunday. "KPN told us that there was an overloaded line and that the gift cards could not be processed", the spokesperson said to ANP.

The stores also faced some technical issues on Sunday. As a result, a number of stores couldn't open. How many branches remained closed is unclear. While Sunday was also very busy, it was a good day for trading and no major incidents were reported, the spokesperson said.

Despite the bankruptcy, the Intertoys stores will remain open for the time being at the request of the bankruptcy administrators. They are still trying to achieve a restart for the toy store chain.