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This w/e I am "debanked" (now resolved after a 90 hours' wait and many calls. Complaint underway)
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But again, who defines "excessive time"? As I said above, if the store is flagged as having dodgy transactions or a lot of fraud etc who determines how long is excessive? The government should not be micromanaging private business like setting minimum staffing numbers or when their fraud team work, let business get on with making profit instead of trying to force yet more pointless burden and costs on them for no good reason.
Sam Vimes' Boots Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness:
People are rich because they spend less money. A poor man buys $10 boots that last a season or two before he's walking in wet shoes and has to buy another pair. A rich man buys $50 boots that are made better and give him 10 years of dry feet. The poor man has spent $100 over those 10 years and still has wet feet.
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If the store is dodgy, I should not have to suffer for it.
Besides, the transaction was blocked, so I am not even sure why the card was blocked.
But even accepting all that, I cannot believe it that it takes from sat pm to wed lunch time to flick a switch (and no, it has never happened to me before), and even if it does take that long, you would expect the back to be in touch, but there was zero communication as to what was going on.
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I'm sorry for your experience. It's horrible, we were victims of a sophisticated fraud to the tune of £13000, ten years ago. The bank didn't contact us, just froze the accounts. The onus was on us to prove we hadn't committed fraud. No contact for days, it was only when I went to draw cash from a building society that the cashier there told me how it worked in "strictest confidence" and I pointed out to the bank that we had never needed to and would never use a payday loan company, around which the fraud centred. 8 long days later they unfroze everything and we did get a little compensation as our mortgage payment had bounced and we were charged. Seems not a lot has changed...
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It doesn't surprise me that the majority of people fail to check the total price before handing over / inserting / touching their card to at the payment terminal. It wouldn't surprise me if they didn't even check their receipt when they get one. I think there has been research showing something like 40% of shoppers have fallen victim to being overcharged in the past even when paying by cash. The proportion was higher for those using contactless, but not vastly so.
I always do check as I want to know the amount I am paying. I've not had a problem seeing the total being charged, but maybe I live a sheltered life as the only example I have where this isn't possible is public transport. Portable readers I have used display the total on the screen where you'd be asked for your PIN in a Chip & PIN transaction.
Even if paying with a contactless card, my understanding is that it will ask you to revert to a Chip & PIN transaction occasionally. You won't necessarily know whether this is just routine or there is an error taking the total above the contactless limit. So the contactless limit is no panacea.
This must have been just as much an issue before contactless payments existed for those who do not check how much they are going to be charged when slotting in their card.
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It doesn't surprise me that the majority of people fail to check the total price before handing over / inserting / touching their card to at the payment terminal. It wouldn't surprise me if they didn't even check their receipt when they get one. I think there has been research showing something like 40% of shoppers have fallen victim to being overcharged in the past even when paying by cash. The proportion was higher for those using contactless, but not vastly so.
When paying by cash you might be overcharged but it's unlikely to be much, if you hand over a tenner for something that cost £8.13 and don't bother checking your change you can be certain you aren't going to be overcharged by more than a couple of £. Not £5100 like the OP.
I always do check as I want to know the amount I am paying. I've not had a problem seeing the total being charged, but maybe I live a sheltered life as the only example I have where this isn't possible is public transport.
So presumably you don't use your card on public transport?
Portable readers I have used display the total on the screen where you'd be asked for your PIN in a Chip & PIN transaction.
And if you have to enter the PIN, you'll almost invariably have the device screen with the amount clearly displayed pointed right at you. Whereas it's easy to tap contactlessly without even being able to see the device screen. As in the examples above.
Even if paying with a contactless card, my understanding is that it will ask you to revert to a Chip & PIN transaction occasionally. You won't necessarily know whether this is just routine or there is an error taking the total above the contactless limit.
You will when the screen is pointed at you as you wonder why you have to enter the PIN.
So the contactless limit is no panacea
That strawman is blown over!
This must have been just as much an issue before contactless payments existed for those who do not check how much they are going to be charged when slotting in their card.
You didn't need to check the amount when slotting in your card. You needed to check it before entering your PIN. It wasn't a "panacea" (which nobody claimed anyway) but it likely did help prevent mistakes.
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The example of cash vs. card magnitude is fair. An overcharge on cash is naturally capped by the note you hand over, whereas a card error can scale much higher. That means the cash error, while easily rectified if noticed immediately, is less likely to be noticed, leading to an ultimate small loss if it isn't noticed. Whereas the card error could be larger, more noticeable, and more hassle to sort out, but much less likely to leave you out of pocket if you are inclined to pursue it.
My core point was simply that the psychological habit of not checking before paying is surprisingly common across all formats, which is why the OP's situation, while extreme, fits a broader pattern of how people interact with terminals.
As for public transport, yes, I have used contactless for this, which is why I mentioned it as the exception where you can't see a live total upfront because it calculates journeys retrospectively. That doesn't contradict the broader habit of checking a fixed terminal screen at a standard retail point of sale before tapping. In my experience (possibly sheltered), the screen with the balance due is right where you tap or look to interact with the payment device anyway. In some cases only after you are presented with the opportunity to add on a tip.
Ultimately, my point remains: whether it's entering a PIN, handing over cash, or tapping a card, the vulnerability comes down to the same human factor - trusting the process without verifying the screen first. We seem to agree it's a big hassle when it goes wrong, regardless of the payment method.
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I always check the number on the terminal before tapping. Occasionally I've had to ask for the hand-held terminal to be turned so I can see the screen, and to be honest I feel a bit embarrassed to do so, even though I know I shouldn't.
On one occasion in a local town centre I was in a busy bakery when the hand-held terminal was shoved over the high counter facing and sloping away from me in a way where I couldn't possibly read it, so I asked "could I see the screen please?".
The old bag who was serving replied: "Don't you trust me?". I didn't know what to say so just stood there blankly. She then said "Don't you think I know what I'm doing?". I again said "could I see the screen please?". She swore, and gave a theatrical sigh as she turned the terminal round to face me. I paid and left in silence.
I'll never set foot in the place again.
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I can't be doing with people like that, I normally turn it round on them by saying something like "do you have difficulty following a simple instruction?"
Let's Be Careful Out There3 -
Then you'd definitely never want to go back there 😂
I've never had an issue like that, but if I did I'd be more disarming with something like "of course I do, but these machines sometimes have a mind of their own". That way I can hopefully return without having any "alterations" to my order.
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Doesn't seem unreasonable for you to want to validate how much dough was involved… 😉
* gets coat *
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