Card Error 30 December 2014 at 4:34PM edited 30 November -1 at 1:00AM in Budgeting & Bank Accounts 13 replies 1.4K views

jackjones01

Is this even possible? Im not sure if I believe the story or not.

http://www.itv.com/news/central/2014-12-30/shop-blunder-sees-father-charged-59-000-for-wrapping-paper/

PeacefulWaters

It's certainly possible.

reclusive46

The main reason this can happen is if the banks authorisation system gets very busy it'll go into an approve all transaction on valid cards mode. Unfortunately this can cause problems like this when a transaction is miskeyed. Errors can also happen when the transactions are being settled out at the end of the day and the amount changes.

System

He would have entered his PIN after seeing £59,400 on the screen.

colsten

This should be a very timely reminder that we need to actually check the amount before we tap in our PIN. I keep finding myself entering the PIN like a robot, without ever checking the amount half of the time. I haven't had any accident myself yet (touch wood), but this story has been a little bit of a reminder.

Also, having a second current account and/or a credit card or two as a fallback to your main spending vehicle seems mandatory ever since the major Natwest/RBS/Ulster IT meltdown in 2012. It's quite amazing how quickly people seem to have forgotten this fiasco, despite a number of much smaller ones having happened since as well.

Slighty amazing that everyone apart from the till operator and the account holder seems to be getting the blame for an unfortunate sequence of events which must have started with a stressed out till operator typing in a wrong amount, followed by the account holder rushing to enter his PIN.

Gram_Parsons

Mr Baker needs to get himself on here! He must have had about 7K in the account so assuming it was a Classic Plus he was getting no interest on the excess 5K. Tut tut.

Rebel_Cause

Doesn't the assistant say 'check the amount and enter your PIN' ?

reclusive46

Heng_Leng wrote: »

He would have entered his PIN after seeing £59,400 on the screen.

This wasn't necessarily the problem though. The authorisation and PIN verified amount could have been the correct amount but due to a batch out error at the end of the day the amount was changed.

I must admit though its very easy not to check the amount on PIN transactions.

One of my cards is a US chip and signature card and I've found many UK terminals now ask you to confirm the amount on the screen and press enter before the signature receipt prints out (The only problem is that some machine ask me to verify my own signature!!! I.e. Staples). You can't press enter for a couple of seconds though (it won't do anything), so it gives you a chance to check the amount. Maybe they should implement this on PIN transactions as well?

colsten

reclusive46 wrote: »

The authorisation and PIN verified amount could have been the correct amount but due to a batch out error at the end of the day the amount was changed.

Surely this could only happen if there was deliberate fraudulent activity on behalf of the retailer? And no retailer who is authorised to operate POS terminals would even contemplate such a mindless fraud?

reclusive46

colsten wrote: »

Surely this could only happen if there was deliberate fraudulent activity on behalf of the retailer? And no retailer who is authorised to operate POS terminals would even contemplate such a mindless fraud?

No, it can happen accidentally in a couple of ways. A corrupted file or Each transaction is manually batched out (not unusual on some old systems) and instead of the cashier or technican at HQ pressing enter to batch it out they knocked the number 0 a couple of times without realising. So many more ways for it to happen its scary really.

colsten

reclusive46 wrote: »

No, it can happen accidentally in a couple of ways. A corrupted file or Each transaction is manually batched out (not unusual on some old systems) and instead of the cashier or technican at HQ pressing enter to batch it out they knocked the number 0 a couple of times without realising. So many more ways for it to happen its scary really.

Hmh, all sounds very unlikely as in the last 25-30 years or so, I have not heard of a similar case. Even if I have led a very sheltered life (which I have many witnesses for that I did not, lol) and should really have heard about many more similar cases, I would suggest it is a miniscule percentage of the centillions (10 to the power of 303) transactions that have been processed over the last few decades.

So no need to panic. Just run a VISA and a Mastercard CC at a low utilisation but with a generous limit each, and you can easily survive any freak occurrence on your usually well dispositioned current account. Nothing scary really.