Harry Potter app spells trouble for firm following parents’ complaints
A firm has apologised after its popular Harry Potter-themed app crashed on Christmas Day.
Angry parents flooded Wow! Stuff, based in Wolverhampton Science Park, with complaints after its servers were brought down by an “extremely high volume of traffic”.
The app is used with a cloak that turns people invisible on camera, like Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak in the films.
The product can be bought for £29.99 on Amazon. Customers posted one star reviews on Google as parents vented their frustration.
Faye Evans wrote: “The invisibility cloak is my son’s main present and it won’t work! Fuming!
“The app keeps saying ‘something went wrong, try again’. Not good enough especially at this price.
“We are absolutely gutted. Spoilt our Christmas!”
Sam Jeffries wrote: “App doesn’t work, it comes up with constant errors.
“Very poor for an item that was so expensive.
“I will be taking it back to the shop. My advice is not to buy this product unless you want an expensive bit of cloth.”
Darren Dobson added: “Terrible. Cannot even register an account on Christmas Day.
“Might as well have given my little girl a tea towel to play with!”
Twitter users also flooded Wow! Stuff with complaints.
The cloak acts as a green screen and turns people invisible when seen through the app.
An advert for the product on Amazon says it takes 60 seconds or less to set up.
Customers are required to create an account with the app when first using it – but users also reported issues with that.
Wow! Stuff has issued an apology to customers.
CEO Richard North said the company had prepared for high demand at Christmas but said the product had also featured on an American TV show in the run-up to Christmas.
The US interest bought about unprecedented demand, with hundreds of thousands of customers testing out the product on Christmas, added Mr North.
He confirmed the app’s servers were back up and running. Mr North said: “We have just been focused on getting he product up and running.
“We knew we were going to have get a big rise in activations on Christmas Day.
“What we didn’t know was there was a TV show called The View in America, which it got featured on unexpectedly.
“This made the product go viral and sent it into the Best Sellers category among retailers.”
Mr North said the company will be responding to every customer who complained of problems of Christmas Day.
In a statement, Wow! Stuff said: “Unfortunately, due to the extremely high volume of traffic today (Christmas Day), our servers are experiencing problems.
“We are working on fixing this, and hope to resolve the situation as quickly as possible.
“We deeply apologise for this temporary loss of service, but please be assured your app will work correctly as soon as we fix the issue. In the meantime, we appreciate your patience.”
Mr North's daughter Josie later took to the company's Facebook page to defend her father saying he was 'heartbroken'.
She said: "The most important thing I can say is how sorry my Dad is that your cloak isn’t working immediately."
She added: "He was really focused that the cloak should match the original Harry Potter movie prop in exact and every detail which can be matched back to the original - and which many people might not know because it’s rarely disclosed.
"He is heartbroken that you cannot use the Invisibility function of the cloak straight away and he and his colleagues are working every second and won’t stop until the servers can accommodate the surge in the activation's."
In the latest update at around 8.30pm on Boxing Day, Wow! Stuff said the app should be fully up and running.
Anyone with any ongoing issues is asked to email: appsupport@wowstuff.com
