Undercharged but money later taken?

joek101

Hi,

I recently made a purchase in a shop for some clothes and although the value of the goods was £54, the shop assistant put £45 into the chip and pin machine and so undercharged me. I didnt even notice myself at the time, but realised when i got home and the receipt didnt match the debit card receipt from the machine. It wasn't much money and they shouldn't have made the error so tough luck i thought, my gain.

Anyway about a month later a transaction appeared on my current account for the extra £9. Is this right? I thought that I authorised the transaction in the shop for £45 using the chip and pin device, can they claim the extra £9 without me authorising an additional payment? This doesn't seem right to me?

Just wondering what the actual law is on this.

In any case its unlikely i'd dispute it as i was prepared to pay the full amount anyway for the goods, i just feel like this doesnt seem right?

Thanks

geordie_joe

I'm sure there will be people who come in and put you down, saying you are trying to get away with paying less than you should. But I hope some people will see the real point of the post.

jonesMUFCforever

Can I start then?
Your purchases came to £54 - a human mistake meant you were charged £45 and you thought you could get away with it. If you had - good luck to you - but surely you cannot complain when they correct their error (and no more).
What if you had purchased goods worth £45 and paid £54 in error - could they in that circumstance keep the difference>?? I think not.

Valli

The problem here though is the fact that more money was taken later.
Customer authorises £45.00
£45.00 deducted.
Unauthorised further deduction of an additional £9.00?
I would contact my bank - the additional £9 should have been asked for, surely. Not just taken. Suppose they had made a second mistake and taken £900?

MissOptimistic

I agree, the £9 had not been authorised, surely the shop cannot tap into your account for the extra money?
It reminds me of a couple of years ago when i wrote a cheque for £9 for school dinners and £900 left my bank account! - It took me ages to get the money back - I was really mad about it

geordie_joe

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

Can I start then?

Be my guest.

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

Your purchases came to £54 - a human mistake meant you were charged £45 and you thought you could get away with it. If you had - good luck to you - but surely you cannot complain when they correct their error (and no more).

You missed the point.

The point is......The OP handed over their debit card details to a company in payment for goods/services. The company took the payment, and I don't care if it was the right amount or not, but at a later date they took more money from the card.

Does this mean that once someone has your debit card details they can take whatever they want from the card whenever they want??

The OP authorised one payment and the company was able to take two!!!

Does this mean that whenever you give your card details you are not authorising that one payment, but giving the company authorisation to take whatever they want from your account..

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

What if you had purchased goods worth £45 and paid £54 in error - could they in that circumstance keep the difference>?? I think not.

No, but could the OP then take the money out of the company's account without the company authorising the transaction.

The post wasn't about paying the correct amount, it was about a company taking money from the OP's account without authorisation!!

ispartacus75

Im gonna throw a slightly different slant on this.

The OP offered to pay the vendor £54 for goods. As shops operate on an 'invitation to treat' they had the right to reject her offer. Instead they actually accepted an offer of £45 which was the actual amount paid. That is where the contract terminates. If it were to go to court I would be very confident that the OP would get her money back.

So the contract was completed with the transfer of £45. The vendor then charged the OP another £9 without offering anything in return. And more to the OP's actual point, the second payment was not authorized. This, as far as I can understand, is against the law.

Now the OP has said that they arent really too bothered as they were prepared to pay the advertised price for the goods but the bigger issue is the unauthorized use of the OP's card. How did they process this second payment? Did the watch the OP enter their pin? They wouldnt have had stuff like the 3 digit security code etc to process a payment without the OP being there.

I think there has been a serious issue of fraud here and it needs looking into.

And to all the posters saying that the OP was wrong for paying under the advertised price, have none of you ever gone into Dixons or the like and asked for a better deal than the advertised price, or asked for a warranty to be thrown in cheap?

PZH

joek101 wrote:

...but realised when i got home and the receipt didnt match the debit card receipt from the machine.

ispartacus75 wrote: »

Im gonna throw a slightly different slant on this.

The OP offered to pay the vendor £54 for goods. As shops operate on an 'invitation to treat' they had the right to reject her offer. Instead they actually accepted an offer of £45 which was the actual amount paid. That is where the contract terminates. If it were to go to court I would be very confident that the OP would get her money back.

So the contract was completed with the transfer of £45. The vendor then charged the OP another £9 without offering anything in return. And more to the OP's actual point, the second payment was not authorized. This, as far as I can understand, is against the law.

But, the shop RECEIPT stated the correct amount - the lower amount was deducted in error at the time of purchase.

Don't think this could this have gone through as a "Card holder not present" payment - you don't need to enter the PIN - BUT you do need to quote the 3-digit security code though.

Having said that - I personally would be annoyed if the remainder of the cost was taken without at least informing me ( I wouldn't have a problem paying the correct amount though )

Valli

I am pleased that most people are keeping on the serious issue here - that of a further amount taken without authorisation. Should the OP get clarification on this from the bank I would be interested to know, because this is a serious issue at a time when shops are refusing to continue to accept cheques - either we give them access to our bank accounts or withdraw and use cash.
Banks are encouraging us to use cash cards. We need to have peace of mind about this and to know that we have control of our money. Like many people I do not keep excess cash in my current account. An incident like this could force me into an unauthorised overdraft with all the problems and expenses that entails.

joek101

Thanks for everyones replys, and for the majority who have seen the point of the post.

Its a difficult situation as I'm annoyed about them heping themselves to money from my account, but at the same time I've now paid whats fair and what i was prepared to pay anyway. Therefore I can imagine if i raised the issue with the bank the conversation would inevitably come to the conclusion, u bought goods for £54 and you've paid £54 whats the problem, we can only investigate this if the amount the shop took was more than the goods you paid for. And then if i push it and say the payment wasn't authorised etc then I'm gonna get into a situation where I'm looking like a total cheapskate trying to squirm my way out of paying £9, which isn't what I'm doing.

I think I'll probably write a letter to the bank and see what the say. As others have said, what is to stop me purchasing something from another vendor and them then going and helping themselves to whatever they wanted without authoristation.

Valli

Please will you let us know the outcome then...most posters have, as you acknowledge, cotttoned on to the real issue here. I hadn't realised that the PDQ amount (or whatever machine they used) and the receipt amount didn't match nevertheless your authorisatiion was for the £45 not the receipted amount of £54 and - if you're getting on in years and need, like me, to wear glasses for reading it is easy to see how you would have missed it - I expect the cashier verbally confirmed the amount, as they do, and you assumed that was the keyed in amount.
Some of those keypad machines, with their little guards, are not easy to read - hell, I sometimes can't read the number keys.
I, for one, will be double checking the PDQ amount with the till amount in future...

ETA don't let the bank fob you off with the fact that you eventually paid the correct amount when the additional £9 was taken. You authorised 1 transaction of £45; you didn't authorise the further transaction - that is the issue - yes you should have paid it but you should have been asked at which point you could have agreed it or disputed it. You weren't given that option. What proof did the bank have that you owed the retailer a further £9? Their word???