LivingSocial Has Been Offline for More Than 24 Hours

As if continuous quarterly losses, tactless Halloween decorations, and having its customers’ information stolen wasn’t bad enough, LivingSocial is now struggling just to keep its website online. The DC-based online merchant has been down since noon Tuesday, but perhaps almost as rough for the company, people are only beginning to notice now.

“We can let you know now that it is the result of an internal issue, and there is nothing to indicate that this was the result of any external factors,” the company writes in a blog post. “Also, there is nothing that leads us to think that any consumer or merchant data, or financial information has been compromised.”

LivingSocial was embarrassed in April when hackers breached the company’s security and ripped off 50 million customers’ information. The company attributed part of its $26 million third-quarter loss to the breach.

The company did not return Washingtonian’s phone calls, but a LivingSocial spokeswoman told the Washington Post that it is “too soon to tell” how big an impact the ongoing service outage will take on its sales.

Since its site went down, cutting off its ability to sell discounted goods and vacation packages, LivingSocial has suspended its email campaigns. Users who navigate to its website will find a colorful doodle of robots and monsters tinkering with pipes and gears.

Benjamin Freed

Staff Writer

Benjamin Freed joined Washingtonian in August 2013 and covers politics, business, and media. He was previously the editor of DCist and has also written for Washington City Paper, the New York Times, the New Republic, Slate, and BuzzFeed. He lives in Adams Morgan.