Duplicate Payment Amex

galwhosaves1

I recently paid for a service with an Amex via chip & pin. This was two separate transactions of around £3000 and £250. When i got home i realized there was an additional duplicate pending payment for each of the transactions. I waited until this transaction was approved before contacting the merchant. They said there was no duplicate payment their side and the issue must be with amex. I then contacted amex to figure out what had done on and they started a dispute process to reclaim the duplicate payments. The merchant are still claiming the duplicate is not on their side but is on Amex's and are threatening to take me to small claims. I have paid for the service twice so i know I'm not in the wrong. What rights do i have and am i right in the process i am taking which is claiming money back via Amex? 

DullGreyGuy

galwhosaves1 said:

I recently paid for a service with an Amex via chip & pin. This was two separate transactions of around £3000 and £250. When i got home i realized there was an additional duplicate pending payment for each of the transactions. I waited until this transaction was approved before contacting the merchant.

I suspect you are just using the wrong terminology but the cycle of card payments is that the merchant requests authorisation which, if approved, is what creates the pending payment and then they ask for collection that transforms it from a pending to an actually paid payment. 

Approval is what creates the pending payment but you state you waited for it to be approved so suspect you mean collected. I assume you have two pairs of paid transactions rather than one pair of paid and one pair of pending?

Hopefully @born_again will be along shortly to tell you what you need to ask for to help the merchant trace the payment. 

galwhosaves1

Thank you - yes it's hard to explain. 

Yes - I have two pairs of paid transactions - x2 for £3000 and x2 for £250. The merchant are adamant the problem is with Amex and not on them hence they are threatening with small claims if i don't drop the dispute on them through Amex. 

born_again

So how many times did you enter your PIN?
Was there any issues making the payment? Such as paper run out. Which makes many retailers think the payment has not gone through 🤣which it has.

It is possible that this is a merchant bank error (retailers) that they know nothing about & someone has run the days tapes twice.
Happens more often then many think.

You can ask retailer for the acquirer reference number (ARN) of the transaction at their end. Along with the amounts & time of transaction. 
Give that to AMEX & they will be able to see exactly where the error is from.

But never known a error like this that is the fault of the card company as the only processing they do is based on transactions received from retailer via their merchant bank/payment processer.
Although no insight on AMEX internal process. 

galwhosaves1

I entered the pin once for the £3000 and then the £250 was a contactless payment, hence why I'm confused how both payments were duplicated. The POS system used was Zettle which is referenced in the two duplicate transactions only- which probably has something to do with it. 

I'll try this with the retailer and see if we can get anywhere, but they are adamant it's on Amex so I'm not optimistic they will be co-operative. 

 Yes- this is exactly what Amex said, that they have only process transactions based on what has been sent to them.