Nationwide contactless credit card charged another bill to me!

Fortyfoot

I was recently in a Morrison's supermarket cafe, I bought a meal but was also charged for the bill of the person behind me at the till!

Be careful.

I have contacted Morrisons ok but failed to contact Nationwide as

" We're sorry.
We seem to be experiencing some technical problems."

Fortyfoot

amfan

Is that Nationwide's fault or the fault of the checkout person not clearing down the previous bill? You're unclear as to how the mistake came to be.

tykesi

What's this got to do with Credit Files & Ratings? Needs to be moved to a more appropriate board!

AndyPix

Im Skeptical

seashore22

How do you know it's the meal from the person behind you?

You didn't notice that it was double the price of the food you were buying?

You said something at the time?

You have the receipt?

Why would we need to be careful? I think you just need to be more careful in future.

SnowTiger

A similar story here:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5681416.

seashore22

If this is true it's a different story. The op says he was also charged for the meal behind. So charged double or charged twice? Who knows.

The other thread was codswallop.

JuicyJesus

I'd be amazed if this wasn't the fault of the person running the till.

Nilrem

JuicyJesus wrote: »

I'd be amazed if this wasn't the fault of the person running the till.

Aye as it authorises and takes payment when the contactless card is presented for the current/outstanding transaction.
From what I understand of the technology it creates a one time use authentication token for the card for that one transaction (I suspect based off something like an encrypted combination of card, terminal, time, and amount).

Which means that by the time the person behind comes along and their bill is rung up the ops contactless payment would already have been finalised.
The only way you could get charged for their bill would be if the operator rang it up as part of the same transaction.

On the other hand if the person in front's bill hasn't been closed off by payment because the operator made a mistake (or indeed entered the ops items twice* or had the pad register it twice)

Basically there is no technical way for the contacless card to have been at fault that I'm aware of (or at least no way that wouldn't also have applied to any other card transaction**), it's far more probable to be a mistake on the part of the till operator.


*pretty easy to do with a lot of modern tills used in restaurants and fast food places that have idiot proof pads (one button per item for common meals).

**My mother once ended up with a card payment (chip and pin I think) going through twice at a supermarket, they sorted it out very quickly as it was (from memory) showing the exact same amount, at the same till about a second apart.

JuicyJesus

There's also the fact that contactless cards simply cannot be read, as a matter of basic physics, by antennae the size of those in contactless terminals from any more than a few centimetres away.

So either OP was waving their card over the terminal, or the till operator messed up.

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

I’ll get me lead lined y fronts!