Can anyone help me track down a mystery charge on my CC.

vacheron

Hi all. 

I am turning to the community to see if anyone can shed light on a current charge on our credit card that we are failing to track down. 

On the 5th of march a £45 payment was taken from my wife's credit card on our joint Sainsburys account. The description was simply listed as "N TYNESIDE AIP". My wife has no recollection of authorising any payment for this amount, but recognises all the other charges that were made that day, so has a good idea of where she was and what she was doing that day.

We live in North Tyneside, so thought this may have been a local government payment, so we rang the CC Company who confirmed that the description was simply "Government Service - Newcastle" with no further details. 
I have rang North Tyneside Council, but they have no record of any payments being made or requested from us. 
This leaves me with the question of, where can I go next to try and find out who this charge was from, ar has anyone else seen any "AIP" charges on their bills which they recognise and which may point us in the right direction?

(Google has turned up nothing of any use)

penners324

Call the credit card company and dispute it?

eddddy

Did the bank say if it was 'Chip and PIN' or 'Card/Customer not present' (i.e. online, phone etc)?

If it's 'chip and pin' you would have a hard time disputing it.


FWIW, google comes up with Archaeological Investigations Project (AIP) in North Tyneside, which seems to be associated with local museums, which are owned by local councils (i.e. Local Government).  Could it be an exhibition visit, museum visit, museum gift shop, museum cafe...? 

BooJewels

It's not one of those unfathomable toll bridges is it, where you have up to midnight on the day of using it to pay and if you don't, you get a steep penalty?  Not sure how that would get as far as your credit card, unless you'd used it previously.

ETA:  Or - just had another thought - do you have a garden waste wheelie bin that you pay for?  I just renewed the one at my father's property and that was around £40-ish and he'd got a letter saying they'd tried to auto-renew it but the payment was rejected, as we had closed the card as he was no longer using it.  So we paid manually on their web site, but that shows as a payment to the local authority.

born_again

Might be worth giving the council a ring. 
Any payments to that council? Gym, swimming lessons or such along that lines. Or even a parking fine.

glider3560

Was it an online payment to the council?

If you go to https://my.northtyneside.gov.uk/category/106/pay-your-council-tax then click "Pay your council tax online", the web address of the next page has AIP in the URL.

eskbanker

born_again said:

Might be worth giving the council a ring.

Ahem....

vacheron said:

I have rang North Tyneside Council, but they have no record of any payments being made or requested from us.

vacheron

Thanks everyone for the responses. Sorry for my slow response, it seems I don't get automatic notifications with the new forum any more, I'll need to look in to that (edit: I think i've sorted that now!)

penners324 I have raised it as a dispute for now, and they said if I work out what it is to call them and they can cancel it.

eddddy They didn't say if it was chip and pin, my wife was out on her own that day, so no museum visits, and if we go as a family I tend to pay so it would have been against my card number.

BooJewels the only toll bridge or tunnel in north tyneside is the Tyne Tunnel and we have permits on the cars which we top up with my card number, I also always top up by £100 and they have the common decency to put "Tyne Tunnel Permits" in the description!  
They did try charging for garden waste about 6 years ago, but they relented and it has been free ever since. Also, the council have no record of any payments from us since 2016 (which were building inspection / control charges for our extension)

born_again we rang the council and they have no record of any payment demands, we thought it could be a parking fine, but they would have to contact us to identify the driver and how would they have my wife's credit card details?
We looked into booking our local swimming pool for a pool party for my sons 8th birthday (which coronavirus scuppered) but we didn't book anything at the time as we didn't know what date was best. He also has swimming lessons there, but these are £59 per course and that payment is listed seperately.

glider3560 thanks for the AIP heads up, very interesting, no idea how you found that, but congratulations! our council tax is paid by direct debit since 2010 and the latest payment is there and correct, also, no idea how they would have my wifes CC number as all previous payments to the council were made by me on my cards / accounts.

eskbanker thanks for pointing that out for me. 

The plot thickens!

LABMAN

https://ip.e-paycapita.com/AIP/itemSelectionPage.do?link=showItemSelectionPage&siteId=071&languageCode=EN&source=AIP

timn48

@vacheron did you get to the bottom of this, I've just noticed several payments coming out of my account to the same payee (N TYNESIDE AIP) for £2.30 and wondering what they are before I contact NTC or my bank, thanks!

[Deleted User]

timn48 said:

@vacheron did you get to the bottom of this, I've just noticed several payments coming out of my account to the same payee (N TYNESIDE AIP) for £2.30 and wondering what they are before I contact NTC or my bank, thanks!

Parking? 
Coffee in a council run building?