Contactless Transaction Duality

NightSprite

Hi There,

I hope you are able to help out with a conundrum I'm having with a NatWest contactless debit card.

I have finance prediction sheet which tells me what I should have in my account and allows me to see where my money will be in advance. Lately I've been seeing a lot of instances where my sheet is telling me I have more in my account than my bank account is showing me, and I've noticed that most of the amounts that the two are off by amounts to what ever I've spent on the contactless, despite adding those transactions to my spending.

Does the contactless remove twice the amount from account before balancing the books a few days later?

jonesMUFCforever

Why not take money out of an ATM and pay cash?
Far less hassle IMO.

colsten

Contactless money certainly doesn't come out of your bank account twice. There must be another explanation for your discrepancies.

TheShape

Are you taking account of the delay for contactless payments leaving your account. If your prediction sheet assumes an immediate debit at the time of spending, is this what is causing the confusion?

molerat

It should generally be the other way round, more in the bank than on the spreadsheet as the majority of contactless transactions are off line and do not show up until actually debited.

Terry98

Contactless payments can take up to 4 days to show on my accounts whereas debit and credit card payments usually show as pending straight away.

20aday

I don't know if it's the case with NatWest but if you're using Apple/Android Pay via Lloyds Bank they show any pending contactless transactions regardless of the amount spent whereas using a physical card for less than £15 and it tends not to show.

datlex

OP my partner had a dual transaction on a contactless card so unfortunately it does happen (same amount taken twice within seconds) You should query duplicate transactions if you see them. Your bank should be able to see two transactions almost simultaneously going through.

Kim_13

I've had contactless transactions leave the account and a duplicate of that transaction show as pending, but the second never leaves the account. That's a credit card though.

It would bother me more if the available balance was wrong with a debit card; with a credit card, it's not my money being held and I just check none actually duplicate when I get the statement.

I stick to chip and pin when using a debit card.

NightSprite

TheShape wrote: »

Are you taking account of the delay for contactless payments leaving your account. If your prediction sheet assumes an immediate debit at the time of spending, is this what is causing the confusion?

Terry98 wrote: »

Contactless payments can take up to 4 days to show on my accounts whereas debit and credit card payments usually show as pending straight away.

The discrepancies in my sheets certainly can be caused by a delay at the bank processing the contactless payments. I didn't realise this was the case. Depending where I place the formula on the spreadsheet, it can read as being more in the bank than on the spreadsheet. I'm going to have to take this into account in future, I think.