Strange fraudulent transactions

Bunyip_2

I recently purchased some food in a take-away in Oxford.  I have occasionally done this over the last few years, always the same product for the same amount of money (£7.50).  I was just checking my latest credit card statement and the transaction for this on 15/3 was £19.00.  I went looking for my receipt and could only find the till receipt (which shows £7.50) - I now remember that something strange happened when I paid for the food and I had to re-insert the card into the machine (my card is not contactless).  The shop assistant didn't offer me a receipt and when I asked him for one all he gave me was the till receipt.  My wife's statement for March shows a transaction at the store for £19 (once again she only buys the same product) earlier on in the month.  Unfortunately she can't find the receipt.  Two questions - (1) could this be fraud of some sort (rather than the obvious not checking the value on the card machine - I am pretty sure that I would have noticed £19)?  (2) any ideas on how to get refunded the overcharge?

(I realise in the current climate this is fairly inconsequential, but if this is fraud then lots of people are being ripped off - especially visitors to Oxford who put it down to bad luck).

Thanks in advance for any advice.

eskbanker

My strong suspicion would be that if you and/or your wife were to pursue this with the card provider, they'd provide evidence that you each authorised payments of £19 via chip & PIN.  That may indeed differ from the till value, so if you're minded to do so, you could take that apparent overcharge up with the shop....

born_again

Do they have a separate till and card machine?
If yes, then it sounds like they are putting £7.50 on the till & entering £19.00 on the card machine. Then you are not noticing the amount. Could be they hold their hand over the amount.
If not, then I'm at a loss, as the amount you approve (with pin) is the amount charged to card. It can not be altered afterwards.

Only other thing you could do if statement does not show how transaction was made is to ask card provider how it was processed. Pin or Card not present. 
Pin you have no chance of a refund. CNP then you would need it to be dealt with as fraud.

Bunyip_2

Well this is embarrassing - I have found the problem.  The transactions are downloaded from Aquacard into Moneydance (accounts package) via a CSV file.  The retailer in question has its address details shown as:  Business_name, 19 Street.  All other businesses have a space between the business name and address, but no comma.  The CSV file has then loaded the Business_name into the transaction description, the "19 Street" into the amount (and appears to have discarded everything after the number - hence the £19.00) and the amount has been displaced into another column that has not loaded into Moneydance.

Thank you to those that have responded to my post - your replies are appreciated.

eskbanker

Bunyip_2 said:

I was just checking my latest credit card statement and the transaction for this on 15/3 was £19.00. 
[...]
My wife's statement for March shows a transaction at the store for £19

So neither of these comments was actually true then, you weren't looking at statements at all....