Undercharged on my credit card

cbseager · 15 May 2006 at 11:55AM

I recently purchased an item costing £1500 from a high street store using my credit card. When i got home and looked at my receipts my store receipt showed £1500 paid but my credit card transaction was for £150.
Now I know my concience is telling me to contact the store and offer the £1350 owed to them, but if I dont go to them what sort of come back do they have on me?
Any feedback would be much appreciated.
Chris.

Thefunkygibbons · 15 May 2006 at 11:59AM

I believe the law is that you can ignore errors if you reasonably believe that the transaction was complete

In this case, I do not believe that you can reasonably claim that you thought it complete

I would expect that the retailer will spot their error within this week and either contact you or put through the balance as cardholder not present

Astaroth · 15 May 2006 at 12:30PM

I dont know about this specific type of incident but certainly if someone deposites money into your account by accident and you realise it isnt for you but withdraw it/ spend it/ refuse to give it back then it would legally be theft. Therefore if you refused to allow them to take the extra payment after they realise the mistake it would be illegal.

If you have a duty to tell them in the first place I dont know - the fact that you know the transaction is erroneous means that you know the transaction isnt complete but where that leaves you I am not sure.

Depending on the size of the business it could take a month or two for it to come to light and then for £1350 it may or may not be worth their investigating the source of the problem.

King_Of_Fools · 15 May 2006 at 1:32PM

Was the original purchase made electronically or by an old-fashioned carbon-paper slip?

It seems odd that an electronic transfer would go wrong like this but a non-electronic transfer would have had to be entered manually by the credit card company so somebody could have typed one too few zeros!

Either way, it will eventually turn-up in an audit and the outstanding amount will be correctly applied to your account but that may take a couple of months so you will have to pay it.

GlennTheBaker · 15 May 2006 at 2:05PM

Stick the £1350 in an instant access savings account and earn a few quid interest on it until the error is discovered, as it inevitably will be.

kingkano · 15 May 2006 at 2:12PM

I dont know about this specific type of incident but certainly if someone deposites money into your account by accident and you realise it isnt for you but withdraw it/ spend it/ refuse to give it back then it would legally be theft. Therefore if you refused to allow them to take the extra payment after they realise the mistake it would be illegal.

Sorry - but that cannot be right?? If it is I am gonna go giving people money so that I can have them up on criminal charges!!! I am pretty sure that at the best you could sue them under civil law not criminal....

nomoneytoday · 15 May 2006 at 2:23PM

GlennTheBaker wrote:

Stick the £1350 in an instant access savings account and earn a few quid interest on it until the error is discovered, as it inevitably will be.

ditto

.

Astaroth · 15 May 2006 at 5:09PM

kingkano wrote:

Sorry - but that cannot be right?? If it is I am gonna go giving people money so that I can have them up on criminal charges!!! I am pretty sure that at the best you could sue them under civil law not criminal....

It isnt the receiving of the money that is criminal it is the knowingly taking it/ spending it (and then refusing to give it back)

If you know something isnt yours and take it it is theft - be that a TV in a shop or £5000 in your bank account.

Most people claim ignorance, they didnt realise the £5000 wasnt theirs and so are given a reasonable period to pay it back - though how believable that someone who has been overdrawn for the last 10 years and is only on in a min wage can be when they suddenly see a £5k jump in their balance is another question

I previously worked for a catalogue company and occasionally peoples payments would be paid into the wrong account and the person took the money out of the account before we could recover it then refused to give it back. We would take them to court twice - firstly under the civil courts to recover our money and then under criminal courts to get them their just deserves.

Money_Saver · 15 May 2006 at 5:47PM

Ssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh !! :rotfl:

They may realise when they do their end of day/week transactions, and may do as someone mentioned claim the rest of the money via "customer not present", I would put it into an e-saver account until/if you hear.

Bossyboots · 15 May 2006 at 6:18PM

I don't believe there is a criminal element to refusing to pay the balance.

When this happened to me, I got a letter from the company concerned pointing out the error (which I hadn't noticed as it too was a decimal place error and I had only skimmed my statement at that point) and asking me to allow the balance to be taken. They supplied a form for me to sign allowing the transaction. This was before the days of "cardholder not present" transactions though so I would guess they will simply take it on that basis as others have suggested.

King_Of_Fools · 15 May 2006 at 8:32PM

Bossyboots wrote:

When this happened to me, I got a letter from the company concerned pointing out the error (which I hadn't noticed as it too was a decimal place error and I had only skimmed my statement at that point) and asking me to allow the balance to be taken. They supplied a form for me to sign allowing the transaction. This was before the days of "cardholder not present" transactions though so I would guess they will simply take it on that basis as others have suggested.

There is no need to do a "cardholder not present" transaction. The OP has authorised the £1500 transaction and the company can rightly claim that amount from the credit card company under the original transaction.

Undercharged on my credit card

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