Credit Card Declined, Payment still Taken

CAJDavidson

I purchased some items around 3 months ago for the value of £170.00, at the time of payment my card got declined, I did not realise this however and neither did the shop assistant, and I left the shop with the goods.

Now 3 months down the line they have taken payment from my Credit Card, is that allowed? Is there anything I can do about this, why did they wait 3 months to take the payment and where were my card details in the meantime?

I spoke to my Credit Card company and they said I should speak to the shop about this.

bengal-stripe

You've got the goods and the shop got the money (somewhat late). Where is the problem?

You owe the money for six years. Would you have preferred the shop taking you to court?

CAJDavidson

My point is, how have they kept my card details for 3 months and then charged my card? Where are the details stored? Is it secure? What is to stop them taking another payment, seemingly whenever they want?

[Deleted User]

The fact that you haven't bought anything else. So it would be charged back if they process another transaction.

meer53

You have the goods, you owe the money. Why didn't you contact the shop when you weren't debited ? Did you think you'd got away without paying ? There's nothing you can do about it.

chanz4

think the op wanted it for free

fozmcfc

I'm sure, I have read on these forums, that if payment isn't taken in a certain amount of time, the company need to contact you to say we have realised we haven't taken the money and therefore we will be taking it on this date.

This is so that people don't suddenly get a huge payment taken out and it sends them overdrawn, overlimits etc....

As others have said though the company has 6 years to claim payment, but whether they should have just taken it with no warning after 3 months, is something someone else maybe able to answer.

End of the day though, you've had the goods, they now have the money, so that should be that.

Ben8282

CAJDavidson wrote: »

My point is, how have they kept my card details for 3 months and then charged my card? Where are the details stored? Is it secure? What is to stop them taking another payment, seemingly whenever they want?

The only people who could possibly answer this are the shop.

Do you still have the 'declined' receipt? You could try disputing the charge on the grounds that it was declined. Produce the declined receipt and say you paid cash when the card was declined if you want to be dishonest. You may get away with this as the shop would both have to prove you did not and admit that their incompetant assistant had let you leave the shop with the goods without paying.

In fact, if you have a till receipt for the payment of the goods in addition to the declined credit card receipt, I'm not sure that you actually owe the shop any money at all. Your credit card was declined. You paid for the goods in cash. You have a receipt.

Does your credit card statement show a transaction date in addition to a date entered (on the account) for this charge. If yes and the transaction date is wrong, you could try disputing the charge on the grounds that you did not make any transaction on that date and the only time you have ever attempted to use your card in that shop was on xxx date when the transaction was declined.

If the shop realised many weeks later that you had obtained goods without paying for them they should have contacted you and asked you to pay although it should not have taken them 3 months to realise that the till was £170 short. You have never given them any authority to make any further attempts to charge your card.

I am also a bit puzzled if a chip/pin terminal was used for the original transaction how the shop managed to obtain sufficient information for them to be able to attempt to debit your card 3 months later. They would not have a record of either your pin or the 3 digit security number on the back of your card nor should they have access to your full card number. They should only be able to see the last 4 digits of the card number on their copy of the receipt.

Are you sure that the original charge was actually declined?

There is a very big difference between the billing of a charge being delayed, which used to happen quite often in the days of manual charge forms especially with international transactions, and a shop subsequently billing a card at a later date and without authorization for a transaction which was declined, which is illegal. The fact that you owe them the money does not entitle them to take it in such a manner.

I'm sure that there is a time limit on debiting transactions to a credit card. I don't know how long exactly, but remember if you write a cheque it can be presented for payment up to 6 months from the date written on it, so a credit card charge would be at least that. You cannot really have any valid complaint at the billing of a charge being delayed; you are being given extended interest-free credit.

agrinnall

I'm sorry but I don't believe the original story. How can both the OP and the shop assistant not notice that the payment was declined? In my experience it comes up as declined on the terminal and prints it on the shop and customer receipt.

lvm

Was this a small independant shop or some high street retailer? If the latter, why not write a letter of complaint and inform them you are seeking £x for the inconvenience they have caused? They might be nice enough give you something. If not, you're not out of pocket anyway so have no losses.

lvm

agrinnall wrote: »

I'm sorry but I don't believe the original story. How can both the OP and the shop assistant not notice that the payment was declined? In my experience it comes up as declined on the terminal and prints it on the shop and customer receipt.

It does happen - although very rarely. I work for a large fashion retailer and used to work in the stores and it's not as difficult as it sounds. Probably some new member of staff getting confused. We have names and addresses of all customers though so on the odd occassion this happens we write to them to tell them they owe us money. Surprisingly most people actually will pay, thinking they've done something wrong...