Unauthorised Card Payment

AnthonyBR

Hi, new poster, so hope this is in the correct section! I purchased online a coffee table on Monday for £199 from Dwell. I accidentally ordered 2 tables in error, paying a total of £398. I rang Dwell customer services who said, no problem, they would refund £199. I then looked at my Barclays balance to find it was less than I thought, so called Barclays. They advised there had been two separate transactions. The initial transaction for £398, then a second transaction for a further £199 to Dwell! When I asked Dwell why they had done this, they responded by saying they hadn't & it must be Barclays. Barclays of course have said this is nonsense. Therefore, Dwell have without my consent, used my card for a second transaction which I did not authorise. Can an online company do this? Many thanks.

visidigi

This first will be an authorisation - you asked to cancel one table - so they have ignored the authorisation and re-entered the transaction as a single table.

They haven't yet taken the money, just ring fenced it. The authorisation will expire and you will get the £398 back.

Regards

M

AnthonyBR

Hi, thanks for your reply, much appreciated. Are they allowed to take a second transaction an hour later without my consent?

LABMAN

They've cancelled the wrong first order which you admit you messed up. They then put through the correct order as you requested.

AnthonyBR

So, they have taken 2 lots of payments at a total of £646! Which is now unavailable for 7 days at the bank. Surely, they had the original £447, so why not just refund the £199 instead of recharging an additional £199. Thanks.

peachyprice

Because the charges aren't transactions, they are pre-authorizations, they can't refund a pre-authorization, only not collect it.

unholyangel

AnthonyBR wrote: »

So, they have taken 2 lots of payments at a total of £646! Which is now unavailable for 7 days at the bank. Surely, they had the original £447, so why not just refund the £199 instead of recharging an additional £199. Thanks.

I think you need to check your figures. In your OP you say one amount of £398 + an additional payment of £199 - which gives a total of £597.

If it is ringfenced (your bank should be able to tell you whether this is the case), your bank will release the funds after dwell contact them and confirm they won't be completing that payment.

It could also be that dwell have mistakenly processed the £199 as a payment rather than a credit. If dwell think they have only taken one payment of £199 (rather than thinking they have issued a refund for the £199) then it likely has been pre-auth ringfenced.

AnthonyBR

Hi, thanks. I think you are correct. Barclays are saying there are two transactions therefore funds are not available for one week on both. The 2nd transaction for £199 must have been taken as an additional payment rather than a refund.


All this aside, how can a company process any debit card transaction without authorisation?
Do they have my card details (I thought only the bank had this)?
And, if they have my card details, how can they be allowed to process a second charge without my approval?


Thanks again!

unholyangel

AnthonyBR wrote: »

Hi, thanks. I think you are correct. Barclays are saying there are two transactions therefore funds are not available for one week on both. The 2nd transaction for £199 must have been taken as an additional payment rather than a refund.


All this aside, how can a company process any debit card transaction without authorisation?
Do they have my card details (I thought only the bank had this)?
And, if they have my card details, how can they be allowed to process a second charge without my approval?


Thanks again!

That can't be answered in a straight forward manner imo.

As for storing details, they likely will store some details (for auditing/tax/anti-laundering purposes) but if memory serves, they are never supposed to store your CVV number.

In normal circumstances where a unauthorised payment is taken you would contact your bank. However given these particular circumstances (£398 was the authorised one so cant recall that, and recalling the £199 only puts you back to square one) Id keep on at dwell just now - sending them a redacted copy of my bank statement showing their transactions if required. Especially if they have taken another £199 instead of refunding, perhaps even ask them for a goodwill gesture (discount off your order perhaps?).

ARandomMiser

This was explained to me a few years back by one of my developers. I am probably going to explain this totaly wrong (the old memory isn't as good as it once was) and things may have changed over the years but it has something to do with the use '0C' (charge) transactions and '0N' (cancellation) transactions.

Some software will only issue '0C' transactions so (and this is pure speculation), on their system they took the original order and issues a request for funds using a '0C' transaction. You then fixed the order so on their system they amended the previous order by cancelling a line and re-adding it. The system would have detected that payment has not been taken so it didn't issue a '0N' transaction but it reissued a '0C' for the correct amount (using a different authorisation number)..

This is an inherent problem in systems that do not take payments immediately and is partly down to the banks making things more difficult than they have to and accounting systems that do not understand all the intricacies of the rules necessary to cancel and recreate orders. I am led to believe that some banks don;t even handle '0N' transactions properly and they just let the authorisation die after a few days.

I think we just have to accept that it is a limitation to the system and may inconvenience us until such times as it can be effectively fixed. Remember it used to takes days to transfer money between accounts, now it takes seconds ....... maybe somewhere down the line we will see similar.

AnthonyBR

Thanks everyone, the more I have investigated this, the more I think it is highlighting a problem. According to Barclays, they have said "it's an issue they are seeing more & more".


I just cannot understand how any company can take two separate payments when I only put through one payment {without having my full card information}. Barclays have escalated and will respond soon. I have also emailed Dwell asking for escalation & a clear response to what has happened.


Thanks again!