UPDATE 1-Target hit by nationwide payment outage

Target Corp on Saturday said it was working on a problem that prevented customers in the United States from paying for their purchases. Media reports said the problem had hit Target stores across the country.

"Our teams are troubleshooting now and we apologize for the inconvenience, " the retailer tweeted http://bit.ly/2WKO1HY, adding that it would provide an update soon. Target did not give any reason for the outage and was not immediately reachable for further comment.

Customers took to Twitter to complain about the outage under the hashtag #targetdown with many users commending Target employees for handling the situation well. "The poor people @Target," a Twitter user with the handle @writeriowa wrote. "... I walked in, they apologized profusely, and handed me coupons. It's not the local employees' fault, so please, be patient and kind. #targetdown."

"To my fellow target employees, stay strong in this dark time. #targetdown," another user tweeted. A defect in a network device in June 2014 also caused problems with Target's payment processing systems, according to media reports. (Reporting by Ishita Chigilli Palli in Bengaluru Editing by Bill Trott)