Credit Card double-charged for Taxi in Spain.

Roy1234

Taking a taxi from a Spanish company to the airport recently, my MasterCard was double charged by the driver.  Arriving at the airport I asked him for a receipt.  Speaking no Spanish, I did not understand what he said, but over several minutes he applied my contactless MasterCard at least three times, before finally gesturing for me to insert it and enter the PIN.  I did get a kind of card receipt, I think more a card receipt than a journey one.

Anyway, I was uneasy about this, ringing the Bank immediately from the airport they confirmed the pending transaction had been applied twice.  They could not do much whilst 'pending' but this morning the two charges have become official.  The bank spoke of 15 calendar days before they could intervene, and that in that time I should attempt to get the firm to refund me.

I didn't call the taxi myself, the company I was visiting did, I have a card receipt which like the card's statement entry says 'LICENCIA' followed by a 5 digit number.  I had photographed the Taxi & number plate, being suspicious about what just happened.

My question is, is there anyway to find & contact the Taxi firm from the LICENCIA xxxxx reference?  As a last resort I could contact the Spanish company who called the Taxi, but for other reasons I'd prefer not to involve them if at all possible.

born_again

If the transactions have separate authorisation codes they are not duplicated.
How much are you talking about here?

Roy1234

born_again said:

If the transactions have separate authorisation codes they are not duplicated.
How much are you talking about here?

The transactions are completely identical as listed on my online statement.  The amount is about 22 euro/£20 after foreign transaction fee.

lincroft1710

For that amount of money, it is not worth pursuing. Yes, I know there's a principle involved and you shouldn't have been double charged, but you could spend an awful lot of time chasing this 

born_again

Roy1234 said:

born_again said:

If the transactions have separate authorisation codes they are not duplicated.
How much are you talking about here?

The transactions are completely identical as listed on my online statement.  The amount is about 22 euro/£20 after foreign transaction fee.

But you will not be able to see the auth code. That is something only your CC will be able to check.
Given them a call & see what they say. Ask nicely & they may refund one. 👍

Roy1234

born_again said:

Roy1234 said:

born_again said:

If the transactions have separate authorisation codes they are not duplicated.
How much are you talking about here?

The transactions are completely identical as listed on my online statement.  The amount is about 22 euro/£20 after foreign transaction fee.

But you will not be able to see the auth code. That is something only your CC will be able to check.
Given them a call & see what they say. Ask nicely & they may refund one. 👍

I contacted the Bank as suggested.  The two transactions, with identical time stamp, have different auth codes.  So the Taxi charged me twice, separately, which was my suspicion.  I have been unable to locate the Taxi firm via google, and the Bank's customer service man said they could not.  He also tried google, as I had, without success.

I queried him as to whether no database exists to uniquely identify merchants who debit credit cards, he said 'unfortunately there isn't one'.  Really?

I'm going to have to try identifying the Taxi firm via the company I visited, my last resort, as he said they may not pursue the dispute after 15 days if I haven't done so.  Meanwhile, do we believe firms debiting the MasterCard system really cannot be identified?

user1977

Roy1234 said:

born_again said:

Roy1234 said:

born_again said:

If the transactions have separate authorisation codes they are not duplicated.
How much are you talking about here?

The transactions are completely identical as listed on my online statement.  The amount is about 22 euro/£20 after foreign transaction fee.

But you will not be able to see the auth code. That is something only your CC will be able to check.
Given them a call & see what they say. Ask nicely & they may refund one. 👍

I'm going to have to try identifying the Taxi firm via the company I visited, my last resort

Can't you do it via the licensing authority if you have the taxi number?

Roy1234

user1977 - I have so far failed to find any such authority/list, but am still looking.  Anyone who knows more than me, please advise.

km1500

surely the simplest way here is to contact your bank and ask for a chargeback to your card for the unauthorized second transaction

Roy1234

km1500 said:

surely the simplest way here is to contact your bank and ask for a chargeback to your card for the unauthorized second transaction

As described earlier, I have contacted my bank three times.  They won't consider a chargeback until 15 days have passed AND I have contacted the as yet unidentified Taxi firm myself without success.

user1977

Roy1234 said:

user1977 - I have so far failed to find any such authority/list, but am still looking.  Anyone who knows more than me, please advise.

Might help if you told us where in Spain you're talking about.