Airport Shopping Rip-off

albaby

This is a warning to anybody who, like me travels by plane ocassionaly for business or pleasure. I made a hop to Belfast on April 18th to 20th this year via Belfast City airport. Being a devoted husband I bought my wife a new handbag from ALPHA RETAIL on the airside for £46.00. My statement came a few days later and they had taken the payment 3 times?? I had to call them to ask what had happened. Now although they claim it was a glitch in their system, and I beleive them, if I had not called, they would not have called me so they would have been better off to the tune of £92.00 and my wife would have had a fairly expensive hand bag.

Check your diaries for travel anytime around then, and make sure that they haven't done the same to you and not notified you.:beer:

geordiescouse

I had a simillar thing happen when I flew with Airtours when they took the payment twice. The steward was really busy at the time and I think put the payment through twice in error (this was prior to chip and pin). I was made more cross by the fact that no one would accept responsibility and said that I had to find the air steward who orginally took the payment!!!!

Eventually the credit card company refunded the payment, but a lesson to everyone to check your credit card bills.

Inactive

Sorry to hear you story and glad it is sorted.


I never buy anything in Airports anymore, they are all over priced, unless buying genuine Duty Free stuff for outside of the EU.

Same applies to in-flight stuff.

mcwarre

I had the same thing happen. Did you fly from East Midlands perchance???

What really annoyed me was that my bank didn't give a stuff. They said it was authorised by chip and pin. The same amount at exactly the same time (to the second). They said that it was up to me to sort it. I made a theft report and they wouldn't take any notice. Lesson learned; if it was £1000 they would have debited it 3 times without me having any ability to reclaim it.

Three days later the retailer refunded me (automatically). I then changed banks. Wayne Kerrs............

emmsa76

The same happened to me when buying some holiday goodies at The Body Shop at Gatwick airport.When I checked my statement they had put the transaction through twice. Seems to be quite common at airports!!! :huh:
Phoned up credit card company, who believed me and refunded transaction. Mean while though I had to pay the bill so as not to in-cure interest charges, so I was out of pocket for a month. Not Good. Pays to check statements and check again. :exclamati

Sparkly

Had the same thing happen at Maplins. card company refunded without any hassle.

mcwarre

I think there is a difference between credit and debit cards with this. Credit card companies have a duty to refund you on certain issues. It seems that debit card ones don't.....

pisces72

I had a similar problem with WH Smith at Stansted. Luckily my bank investigated straight away and reversed the transaction.

LesD

Can some kind 'banking' person explain how this can happen with C&P? (I assume all airports are using C&P now?) I would have thought each transaction would have to be individually authorised?

What is unique about airports?

Inactive

LesD wrote: »

What is unique about airports?

Not sure, but there are far too many stated instances for it to be a coincidence, different airports as well.

Easy cure, don't buy at airports with a card.

Personally I never buy anything at airport rip - off prices.