Curious about Next refund to Amex

SamDude · 21 May 2019 at 12:02PM

This is not a credit card question as such, but I can't find a specific board for my query (mods, please move if you feel).

I returned two suits bought for my son a few days ago and was surprised that Next knew which card the refund should go to. Read on, this is not as simple as it sounds...

My wife bought a boys suit (approx £80 for the shirt, jacket and trousers) from Next (store A).
The next day, she bought another suit for around £90 (same boy, different colour suit), this time from store B.

She paid for both on her Amex card, and we intended to try them on our son before returning one of them. It turns out that neither was a good fit, so both had to go back for a refund.

I was tasked to take the items back, so I visited store B with the receipts and her card for the payment to be refunded to.

The items were all accepted back and I was asked to insert the payment card for the refund.
I was not asked for the receipt (even though it was in my hand), but instead of producing my wife's Amex card from my wallet, I used my Amex card. The cards are on the same account - hers is an additional card on my Amex account, so there was no intention to refund to the 'wrong' card.

I was told that it wasn't the card used for payment, so I checked and realised that I gave the wrong Amex card. I then used her card and the refund was issued (you don't need to enter a PIN for refunds, so this was not an issue).

I asked the store staff how her system knew what card to use, seeing as she hadn't checked my receipt. She said that the till knows who bought the items, so it knew which card to refund to.

This makes no sense, especially as:
-My wife bought one suit from store A and store B (on different days)
-The store assistant didn't ask for or check my receipt

Did no other customer buy these particular items (from any store, on any day, using any other payment type), that the Next till system was clever enough to recognise the transaction without scanning my receipt?

This has been bugging me for a few days, does anyone know how the system recognised which payment card was expected for the refund?

RonoB · 21 May 2019 at 12:09PM

Hi. It’s from the scanning when they put the items through the till. It can tell you where, when, how much and what card you used. I think it’s to stop thefts and then returning for store credit. They will know if stolen as wont have been scanned at the till.
It’s been like that for a few years. Very advanced. The rest will catch up.

SamDude · 21 May 2019 at 12:43PM

So each item has a unique barcode, instead of a standard SKU code?
Wow, that is clever...

shiny76 · 21 May 2019 at 12:56PM

SamDude wrote: »

So each item has a unique barcode, instead of a standard SKU code?
Wow, that is clever...

I doubt it. However, they may be able to keep a record of items sold and the card details for that payment. Meaning they knew your card had not been used to purchase either of the suits.

Or could it be that your card has never been used in a Next store?

SamDude · 21 May 2019 at 1:14PM

Ok, so just to clarify - when I inserted my Amex card ending 1234, I was told by the store rep that it should be card ending 5678.

So back to the question - if the items are not tracked with unique barcodes (including card details used to pay for it) and I did not present the receipts to show where/when the items were purchased and importantly what card was used - how would the store rep have known to ask for my wife's xxxx5678 card?

18cc · 21 May 2019 at 2:47PM

you could have a look at your receipts and see if the items have the same code or unique codes might give you a clue...

From The Way You Are describing it each item must have a unique code otherwise as you say there would be no way to tell who bought it

molerat · 21 May 2019 at 3:29PM

EPOS software is becoming more and more fraud aware. The system possibly just cross referenced the 2 items purchased and came up with the common denominator - the card.

shiny76 · 21 May 2019 at 3:40PM

SamDude wrote: »

Ok, so just to clarify - when I inserted my Amex card ending 1234, I was told by the store rep that it should be card ending 5678.

So back to the question - if the items are not tracked with unique barcodes (including card details used to pay for it) and I did not present the receipts to show where/when the items were purchased and importantly what card was used - how would the store rep have known to ask for my wife's xxxx5678 card?

Because the store system knows that item 1 & 2 were bought with card ending 5678. Perhaps they were the only recent purchases of said item in their specific size?

Did the assistant offer the last 4 digits or did they just say the card ending 1234 was not the correct card (had not been used to purchase items now being returned) and then you offered a card that had?

SamDude · 21 May 2019 at 3:47PM

molerat wrote: »

EPOS software is becoming more and more fraud aware. The system possibly just cross referenced the 2 items purchased and came up with the common denominator - the card.

If you bought the same suits on different days a week earlier, from Next store C and store D and paid with cash - you would have two separate cash receipts.
Would I have been refunded cash for buying the same items (having never visited store C or D)?

It's not like I purchased a carrot, USB lead and bow tie in the same transaction which was 'random' enough to cross-check multiple stores and transaction dates on a fancy EPOS system.
To me, the combination of items we bought in different transactions were not unique enough to pinpoint the exact payment card without the receipt.

Terry_Towelling · 21 May 2019 at 7:36PM

Thinking about it a bit (not a lot), the only scenario where the system could always be 100% prescriptive enough to actually say what card was needed for the refund would be where the bar codes were unique - but we're being told that probably isn't the case.

Another situation where the system could get close to being that prescriptive would be where a loyalty card was used. Even then it might not get it 100% correct but it probably wouldn't make any material difference. For example, you buy 4 identical sets of clothes from any number of stores, pay for 2 on your Amex, 1 on a debit card and 1 with cash.

You could then be returning the two sets paid by debit card and cash but present your Amex card for the refund. The loyalty card records would find all the purchases but wouldn't know that the two you'd returned were not the Amex purchases (unless you were asked for the receipts) - but would that really matter?

If you returned 2 sets (again in the loyalty card scenario) and presented your debit card for a refund of both, the system might flag up that only 1 could be refunded that way but couldn't be 100% accurate in telling you to use the Amex for the second refund. Once again though, would that really matter?

Any other scenario (i.e. no loyalty card and no unique bar coding) there could be occasions where the system would know you'd presented the wrong card but it couldn't tell you what card you should present unless there had been no more of those clothes sold.

That really brings us full circle to the unique bar code.

geraint83 · 21 May 2019 at 8:56PM

Based on my experience in Next, the bar codes are unique.

The first six digits underneath each barcode are the item code (different for each size and colour offered for an item) followed by random numbers which appear to be unique to each item.

It's the same if I order something online from Next - if I return them (potentially from multiple orders), the system knows which account to credit the returns to - they never ask for the receipt.

It's very clever!

Curious about Next refund to Amex

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