Debit card payments taken as a job lot

yellowpinkie

Hi everyone I've just registered today to see if anybody has any advice on this situation.

Our local shop ( a small independent shop) took a job lot of debit card payments from all customers on chistmas eve, some stretching back months.

They've taken 10 from me in total, equalling £232, luckily this hasn't made me go overdrawn, but my son and many many other people in the community have gone o/d and are now facing charges etc.

Apparently there was a fault with their debit card machine.

Now I do understand that we've had the goods and we have to pay for them, and I understand that payments can be taken up to 6 months after the sale, I was just wondering if there's anything that can be done about the way the payments have been "stored up" and taken all at once leaving many people in the red.

Thanks in advance:)

stclair

I dont think there is its at the retailers discretion how they process there payments.

Regarding the people have been taken overdrawn its there responsibility to ensure the payments have debited there account.

Inactive

yellowpinkie wrote: »

Hi everyone I've just registered today to see if anybody has any advice on this situation.

Our local shop ( a small independent shop) took a job lot of debit card payments from all customers on chistmas eve, some stretching back months.

They've taken 10 from me in total, equalling £232, luckily this hasn't made me go overdrawn, but my son and many many other people in the community have gone o/d and are now facing charges etc.

Apparently there was a fault with their debit card machine.

Now I do understand that we've had the goods and we have to pay for them, and I understand that payments can be taken up to 6 months after the sale, I was just wondering if there's anything that can be done about the way the payments have been "stored up" and taken all at once leaving many people in the red.

Thanks in advance:)

The customers must have known that they had spent the money and that it had not been taken from their accounts.

It isn't the fault of the retailer that they cannot manage their own affairs.

yellowpinkie

I didn't realise that it wasn't being taken from mine, and I personally know of at least 7 other people that didn't realise either.

Thank you anyway

stclair

yellowpinkie wrote: »

I didn't realise that it wasn't being taken from mine, and I personally know of at least 7 other people that didn't realise either.

Thank you anyway

I would always recommend keeping a tab of all POS transactions and cross referencing them with your bank statement to ensure the funds have left the account.

opinions4u

yellowpinkie wrote: »

I didn't realise that it wasn't being taken from mine, and I personally know of at least 7 other people that didn't realise either.

While I appreciate that it's frustrating, and the timing is pretty unfortunate too, you are a fraudster's dream.

Banks provide statements for a reason. Retailers provide a slip of paper for debit card transactions for a reason. The concept of reconciling one with the other is fairly simple, fairly straight forward and one that I would guess 95% of the population are quite capable of doing if they can be bother.

It really is worth chucking all those pieces of paper in a drawer and digging them out once the statement comes just to check your financial position is accurate.

This way you would have known what was coming.

yellowpinkie

I do for online shopping - never really occurred to me to keep track of the smaller ones from the local shop, so I guess it's our own fault really.

Still, pretty crappy - at christmastime too!! oh well you live and learn, thank you again for replies.

Inactive

yellowpinkie wrote: »

I didn't realise that it wasn't being taken from mine, and I personally know of at least 7 other people that didn't realise either.

Thank you anyway

Well surely you must have known that you had spent the money and that it had not been taken from your account.

If not, then you need to learn how to budget more carefully.

Sorry if that sounds harsh, but you cannot blame the retailer for taking what is rightfully his/hers.

yellowpinkie

If you read my OP, I am not trying to blame the retailer. and no I didn't realise that the money hadn't left my account - I just assumed it had as it always has done, and are only small ammounts.

I'm not alone on this, most of our community have been affected.

But if it makes you feel better about yourself to be holier-than-thou then go right ahead. Sorry if that sounds harsh

Inactive

Of course there is a very safe way to avoid it happening in the first place, use old fashioned cash.

No budgeting required, once it has gone, it's gone.

Olipro

small shops tend to do this because they are charged on a per-batch basis for card authorisations... therefore, if they're not desperate for cash and want to save themselves some processing fees, they'll do something like what you've experienced.

There is nowt you or anyone can do about it, and in all honesty, it's your own responsibility to ensure that you don't spend money that's only available due to a fall-off. consider maintaining an account for card transactions and a separate one for everything else.