Had to pay twice - duplicate transaction

distraction

Hello everyone.

Yesterday, I decided to go and do some out of town shopping and had to fill up at a Tesco petrol station.

I paid with contactless, which the cashier claimed had caused her screen to 'freeze' with a claim that the transaction did not go through (no error displayed for me, no failed transaction receipt), and I was asked to pay a second time using chip and pin. I honestly felt there was some bad acting here - I didn't believe it.

Obviously, I now have two pending payments reserved from my account.

Even more bizarrely, the transactions are shown as TESC0 PFS (yes, thats a zero in there) with associated phone number of 01992808506 (which does not connect when called or appear to have any trace that I can find)

Tesco CS have been as helpful as a chocolate teapot, and quite frankly, I don't believe contactless causing computers to freeze, with associated bad acting, is a common occurrence. And on any website replacing letters with numbers is hiding something, and is guilty until proven innocent....

This doesn't match with what I see at my usual Tesco PFS, can anyone shed any light on this mystery?

[Deleted User]

If the other one didn’t “go through” then it should just disappear.

If both go through raise a chargeback on one of them.

Barny1979

Maybe wait a couple of days to see if the payments actually leave your account first?

A4445

I had an issue recently I paid my AMEX bill on my Nationwide account it was showing pending twice. I called Nationwide and it was a error it just disappeared. It could have been an issue if you didn’t have enough funds as it came off the available balance.

Ergates

distraction wrote: »

Hello everyone.

Yesterday, I decided to go and do some out of town shopping and had to fill up at a Tesco petrol station.

I paid with contactless, which the cashier claimed had caused her screen to 'freeze' with a claim that the transaction did not go through (no error displayed for me, no failed transaction receipt), and I was asked to pay a second time using chip and pin. I honestly felt there was some bad acting here - I didn't believe it.

Obviously, I now have two pending payments reserved from my account.

Even more bizarrely, the transactions are shown as TESC0 PFS (yes, thats a zero in there) with associated phone number of 01992808506 (which does not connect when called or appear to have any trace that I can find)

Tesco CS have been as helpful as a chocolate teapot, and quite frankly, I don't believe contactless causing computers to freeze, with associated bad acting, is a common occurrence. And on any website replacing letters with numbers is hiding something, and is guilty until proven innocent....

This doesn't match with what I see at my usual Tesco PFS, can anyone shed any light on this mystery?

It is extremely unlikely that the cashier had somehow installed a secondary (false) payment system linked to the till's card terminal. That would be a massive undertaking and almost impossible to hide from other staff.

It is equally unlikely the Tesco is involved in some kind of scam where they charge customers twice - given how easy that would be for the customer to spot and rectify.

On the other hand, tills do sometimes crash. Sometimes this happens during a payment, and sometimes this *does* result in a customer being charged twice (often it doesn't, and sometimes it results in a customer not being charged at all).

Likelihood of this being "bad acting": vanishingly small.
Likelihood of this being either a technical or human error: Very high

*If* both pending transactions are posted (this will probably have to wait until Monday if this happened today), then getting a chargeback against one of them will be very simple as it'll be blindingly obvious it's a duplicate (Which, is why this is very unlikely to be intentional fraud).

Barny1979

Ergates wrote: »

It is extremely unlikely that the cashier had somehow installed a secondary (false) payment system linked to the till's card terminal. That would be a massive undertaking and almost impossible to hide from other staff.

It is equally unlikely the Tesco is involved in some kind of scam where they charge customers twice - given how easy that would be for the customer to spot and rectify.

On the other hand, tills do sometimes crash. Sometimes this happens during a payment, and sometimes this *does* result in a customer being charged twice (often it doesn't, and sometimes it results in a customer not being charged at all).

Likelihood of this being "bad acting": vanishingly small.
Likelihood of this being either a technical or human error: Very high

*If* both pending transactions are posted (this will probably have to wait until Monday if this happened today), then getting a chargeback against one of them will be very simple as it'll be blindingly obvious it's a duplicate (Which, is why this is very unlikely to be intentional fraud).

But surely that £29.99 they've skimmed off the card will mean they will be able to run away from Tesc0 and escape to that long lost island?!

eskbanker

Barny1979 wrote: »

But surely that £29.99 they've skimmed off the card will mean they will be able to run away from Tesc0 and escape to that long lost island?!

The island of M4110rc4 perhaps, or maybe even the 53ych31135?

Fingerbobs

By way of adding nothing useful to the conversation at all, I've seen letter 'O's replaced by zeros a few times in merchant names, as well as various other spelling and other mistakes. Often the mistakes are corrected when the transaction converts from pending to confirmed. Frequently, the merchant name shown on a pending transation is completely different from the merchant name shown after the transaction converts, which I've always thought a bit weird.

boo_star

Ergates wrote: »

It is extremely unlikely that the cashier had somehow installed a secondary (false) payment system linked to the till's card terminal. That would be a massive undertaking and almost impossible to hide from other staff.

It is equally unlikely the Tesco is involved in some kind of scam where they charge customers twice - given how easy that would be for the customer to spot and rectify.

On the other hand, tills do sometimes crash. Sometimes this happens during a payment, and sometimes this *does* result in a customer being charged twice (often it doesn't, and sometimes it results in a customer not being charged at all).

Likelihood of this being "bad acting": vanishingly small.
Likelihood of this being either a technical or human error: Very high

*If* both pending transactions are posted (this will probably have to wait until Monday if this happened today), then getting a chargeback against one of them will be very simple as it'll be blindingly obvious it's a duplicate (Which, is why this is very unlikely to be intentional fraud).

Why let facts get in the way of a good conspiracy theory?