- One third of branches 'unable to handle transactions'
- Royal Mail expected to process 130million items today
Britain's 12,000 post offices were hit by a major computer glitch today which meant brought most counter services to a halt.
Chaos broke out at some branches after the Post Office's national computer crashed.
It is believed the problem was caused by the huge numbers of Christmas shoppers making demands on the system.
Customers at many branches were furious at being told they could not be served and hurled abuse at staff.
Millions of Post Office account holders were prevented from gaining access to their savings as card payments were affected.
The fault, which took effect at the start of the afternoon, developed in the Post Office's national computer, called Horizon, which controls all counter transactions.
Christmas shoppers were unable to tax their car, pay bills, or carry out most other tasks.
Customers were only able to buy stamps for cash or use Post-and-Go vending machines, which provide labels and stamps.
They were expecting to handle 130 million letters and parcel which is roughly double what they would get on an average Monday.
A Royal Mail spokeswoman said : 'I am afraid all post offices around Britain are affected by this network failure.'
Later, a spokesman said that around one third of branches had been unable to handle some types of transactions for an hour in total.
Kevin Gilliland, the Post Office’s network and sales director, said: 'We are very sorry for the inconvenience this problem has caused customers. We know how important the Post Office is to our customers at all times, but especially at Christmas.'
Busy: Royal Mail's Mount Pleasant sorting office in Farringdon, London.
A member of staff at a central London Post Office said earlier: 'It is total chaos. Customers have been waiting angrily, but there is nothing we can do.
'The Post-and-go machines can be used for certain functions, but they will quickly run out of supplies and they will also run out of change.
'We have been told the problem was caused by the huge demand on the computer for services at this time of year. It became overloaded.'
In July, all post offices were hit by a computer problem which meant account holders were unable to access savings through PIN pad machines.
SJ POST 