tesco double payment

[siclone]

hey guys hope this is the right place to post this

 

basically what has happened is i went to do my shopping in tesco yesterday day and gt charged £104 for £52 worth of shopping due to an apparent 'ghost payment', i only realised id been charged twice once id got home and looked at my online banking, so i contacted tesco to get the problem sorted and not only has it taken them just under 24 hours to phone me back about this they are now saying i have to wait 7 days before it the £52 will be put back into my bank, i wouldnt mind waiting that long if it was a couple of pounds they had over charged me but, they have left me with just over £1 pound in my account obviously i cant do without this money for 7 days as i have other bills to pay, do any of you guys know if theres anyway to get the money back quicker?

 

thanks in advance

[citizenB]

I will flag your thread for some advice.

[siclone]

thank you

[citizenB]

Did you use credit or debit card ?

[Desperate Daniella]

I had the same thing happen in Asda and it did take a week for it to be credited back. Apparently it takes this long for the computers to recognize that exactly the same transaction has gone through twice. They will not shift on it.

 

The best thing you can do is phone your bank, tell them what has happened, and they will be able to see that the transaction has gone through twice.

 

Unless you are very, very lucky the first person you speak to will say there is nothing they can do and you'll have to wait for the money to be credited. Do not accept this. Be very polite but very firm and insist on speaking to a manager. Explain that you have only £1 left in your account. Are you expecting a payment into your account which they can see arrives regularly on a certain date? Salary, tax credits, child benefit - anything that they can see you receive on the same day every month? If so they may agree to give you a £50 overdraft for a few days. Just keep asking nicely and sounding desperate.

 

Good luck.

 

DD

[siclone]

it was a debit card

[citizenB]

Well I have flagged your thread for some input from other ST members, but I wonder if you can do a charge back of the whole amount - then let Tesco chase you for the original £52.00 ?

 

Was it Tesco's system that did the double charge or your bank ?

[siclone]

hey daniella yh i regular payment that goes in every thursday so with abit of luck they might arrange some kind of overdraft till then im going try calling them now see if i can get anywhere with them, thank you for your advice

[siclone]

it was tesco's system, what had happened was when the card was in the card reader i accidently knocked it whilst getting a bag, it said card removed to early so the woman on the till asked me to put it back in and try again, obviously the card had not been removed to early

[citizenB]

It is a real shame it wasnt noticed whilst you were at the till, they might have been able to reverse it.

 

I wonder how many times a day that happens ??

[siclone]

i know its disgusting to be honest, you think they would get it back into your account with a few hours

[citizenB]

i know its disgusting to be honest, you think they would get it back into your account with a few hours

 

Well they took it out quick enough didnt they ??

[Desperate Daniella]

It is absolutely infuriating, and obvious what has happened, and of course they should reverse it immediately, but they don't give a stuff and they do not help.

 

Good luck with the bank, siclone.

[siclone]

yes they did and like i said left me with just over a pound! i bet they do it all the time and half the time get away with it!

[Desperate Daniella]

They probably do.

[MaxxPower]

Can they not just refund your receipt for £52 in-store and then keep the 'ghost' payment? Surely that would get you your money back right away and they've still got payment for their shopping.

[Hammy1962]

Ghost (Duplicate) payment transactions happen more frequently than you would think. Usually this is in restaurants with roaming WiFi card readers that lose their connection to the base station.

 

More often they happen when a debit card transaction is halted half way through the authorisation stage and is hardly Tesco's fault, and certainly not disgusting! In fact in this case the card was disturbed whilst authorising!

 

In nearly all the cases where this happens it is automatically corrected by the banking system, without any human input, when the days transactions are reconciled. There are specific algorithms in place to identify and correct. The situation is automatically rectified and will not show on the next day.

 

However, if a duplicate payment is suspected and confirmed by an on-line system, by the payee, they spring into action and demand an immediate refund. The correct response from the bank should have been, don't worry, it will correct itself the next working bank day. However if a manual refund is attempted this can cause problems as the automatic system will still work which would result in two debits happening and even more confusion. It is usual for a manual refund to take three to five day's to show as a credit on an account. Whereas to leave it be for 24Hrs would show (on-line) that the duplicate was removed by the system overnight.

 

In fact, if you had not checked on-line, the duplicate is removed and you would never know it had existed.

 

On-line banking is a wonderful thing but not really real-time, more like 24Hrs time

 

Credit Cards are not affected.

 

Hope this helps

 

H

Edited March 21, 2013 by Hammy1962

[Desperate Daniella]

Let's hope the money does come back tomorrow, but in my situation the bank/Asda did not do a manual refund and the automatic refund took five days for the money to come back to my account. This is fine if you don't need the money, but siclone has been left with just £1.

[citizenB]

You might also want to write to the Head office and let them know that you are not happy about this situation. If it is going to take 7 days for them to refund your money - it will be earning them interest, but they will only give you £52.00 back ?

 

Obviously if the money is back in your account tomorrow, then it is irrelevant. But it is grossly unfair.

 

If their reader is so sensitive that a knock can make it double charge, then they should make people aware of this.

[caro]

hey daniella yh i regular payment that goes in every thursday so with abit of luck they might arrange some kind of overdraft till then im going try calling them now see if i can get anywhere with them, thank you for your advice

 

I'd be inclined to tell Tesco that if they don't return the money pronto and you need an overdraft that you'll be claiming the cost of this.

[Hammy1962]

I'd be inclined to tell Tesco that if they don't return the money pronto and you need an overdraft that you'll be claiming the cost of this.

 

As I explained above, Tesco do not have a duplicate payment of £52. Why would, or even should, they offer a refund.

 

The issue is a transactional one between banks that doesn't even go down to individual bank level as the transaction happens within the payments clearing system.

 

I know everyone loves to hate Tesco but in this case I'm afraid it really is not their fault.

 

H