Duplicate payment taken from my bank account. How was this possible?

KevinM

Firstly, this is not a major problem, as the duplicate has been refunded, but I am more concerned as to how this was possible in the first place.

Quick resume of what happened.

On Dec 5th I made a £37.50 purcase at Clinton Cards high street shop, using my RBS VISA Debit card, using chip and PIN machine (and the card never left my sight).

No problem, all went through, and showing on my statement.

On Dec 23rd another £37.50 came out of my bank, from Clinton Cards, but before I noticed it, they had refunded it automatically on December 29th.

My question is, if I used chip and PIN to make the purchase, how could a duplicate payment have gone through two weeks later?

I always thought that providing no one else knows your PIN, then PIN protected cards are very safe.

Odd :think:

izools

KevinM wrote: »

Firstly, this is not a major problem, as the duplicate has been refunded, but I am more concerned as to how this was possible in the first place.

Quick resume of what happened.

On Dec 5th I made a £37.50 purcase at Clinton Cards high street shop, using my RBS VISA Debit card, using chip and PIN machine (and the card never left my sight).

No problem, all went through, and showing on my statement.

On Dec 23rd another £37.50 came out of my bank, from Clinton Cards, but before I noticed it, they had refunded it automatically on December 29th.

My question is, if I used chip and PIN to make the purchase, how could a duplicate payment have gone through two weeks later?

I always thought that providing no one else knows your PIN, then PIN protected cards are very safe.

Odd :think:

What you saw happen is fairly common; it's what is known as a "Duplicate Authorisation".

This is where due to some form of miscommunication between retailer>card merchant>bank; the amount you authorised was authorised twice.

You may have noticed that one of the transactions remained as a greyed out POS transaction on your online statement, whilst the other one turned into a non-shaded transaction with the retailer name?

This is because the amount never actually LEFT your account twice, it left only the once, but was authorised twice.

zppp

There was a problem with Lloyds as a merchant bank, and effected thousands of customers. Refunds were initiated centrally by the banks when they were notified of the error.

McKneff

Strangely enough, I had the same problem with Clinton Cards

£22.50 taken in November
and again in December and refunded 2 days later.

KevinM

izools wrote: »

What you saw happen is fairly common; it's what is known as a "Duplicate Authorisation".

This is because the amount never actually LEFT your account twice, it left only the once, but was authorised twice.

It definitely left my account twice, with a two week gap in between, as my account balance was reduced by £37.50 both times (not just my available funds, which would happen on a pre-authorisation), but my actual account balance.

Plus, the second time, it was refunded 6 days later, so that means it definitly left my account, and both debits and the one refund transactions are showing on my paper and online bank statements.

izools

I stand corrected! guess zppp knows what happened

Adya

I have had a duplicate transaction £15.91 taken initially and correctly on 4/12 and then again on the 23/12. I have contacted Clintons who advised the refund was due to be done on the 24th and should take 5 days. I haven't received a refund so will be contacting my credit card company.

This is quite worrying this can happen in the first place!

Degenerate

zppp wrote: »

There was a problem with Lloyds as a merchant bank, and effected thousands of customers. Refunds were initiated centrally by the banks when they were notified of the error.

This sounds unrelated to that. The Lloyds issue was a single-day thing on 31/12/2010.