Supermarket charged card twice

[sair5412]

I wonder if anyone can help me out here as I am unsure of my rights. I visited my local Asda on 28th September and used the self scanning till and put my card in when prompted for payment. �31.72. It seemed not to be working so a member of staff came over and swiped the card again and tried to work out what the machine had done as it was saying I hadn't paid. In the end she said the screen had fozen and I would have to go to a check-out and put all my shopping through again. I did this and the lady knocked off �2 for the inconvenience. I then handed over my card and paid �29.72. The next day I looked on my online banking and saw that both totals had gone out of my bank account on the same day. I went back to the store and explained this and the customer services manager said he would take the bank statement and details of the 2 transactions (which the bank gave me) and have it looked into. He claimed that it needs to be looked into to see whether it was the banks fault or Asda's. I have been back to the shop 3 times now and he is refusing to re-imburse me until it has been fully investigated! I have written to customer services head office and heard nothing, I can't find a phone number but I doubt it would be any good any way. I feel like this is basically theft!! Where do I stand? Thing is primarily, I want my �31.72 back but second to that I feel I am entitled to some sort of compensation. The store is 10 miles from my home, which I have travelled to with my 3 year old to sort this out, I am a single mother with limited funds and I feel as if I am being treated like some sort of fraudster when stood at the desk and he is saying quite loudly that I can't have my money back as we need to 'investigate'. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks.

[Pea Pod]

This is the phone number for the cust omer services care team 0500 100 055 If no one has a better solution you could give it a try.

[sair5412]

Thanks for that, I'll try them.

[cascarelli]

You could try contacting the card company who may be able to help. If there's a dispute or youve been charged for something you havent received (which is whats actually happened here) they will quite often refund you and then sort it out with the store. We had this recently with a mischarge on a visa debit card. The card company do reserve the right to claim the money back off you if they find out what you say isnt true, but it worked well for us and we were refunded straight away

[Lou Knee]

I was once charged on my credit card for something that I did not buy....which would equate to your subsuquent transaction.......when the statement came to me I challenged the transaction and had to fill in a form declaring that I did not owe the money to the company that was charging me. The credit card company then investigated and found that it was not my fault and so reimbursed me.

Whenever a supermarket make any kind of mistake....overcharging, charging twice, something wrong with one of the products you bought.....do not bother with the customer service desk. Write directly to the chief executive of the company with a copy to the manager of the shop concerned.....you will be surprised with the response. I recently had a dispute with a supermarket and wrote as just mentioned. the purchase price of the product was refunded to me along with an apologetic letter from the head honcho together with �30 worth of vouchers.

If any company makes a mistake and you incurr expenses in pointing this out to them, eg postage, petrol used to return to the store , car parking charges etc....do not leave the store (or correspondence) until you are satisfied with the outcome refund-wise and compensation-wise. If they made the mistake then it is completely and legally up to them to cover all costs in putting it right........*takes breath and toddles off to kitchen to make a coffee*

[sair5412]

Thanks Lou Knee. Hope you enjoyed your coffee! ; )

Thing is, I paid on a Maestro, not credit card so as the bank have pointed out, they cannot claim it back for me. I have rung the store again today and spoken to a lady who said she would look into it and ring me back. And of course,,,, 8.10pm, I am still waiting for the phone call! Not likely I will hear from her now. It's just infuriating. I understand they need to look into it but taking this amount of time is just taking the proverbial. My mum reckons I try trading standards.

[birdwoman]

You need to ring your bank that the card is with. They will have a specialist team who will take up your case for you and sort this out. I work for a bank and we have a customer relations team who deal with these sort of queries.

[sair5412]

Hi birdwoman,

I went into my local bank HSBC and they got me to fill in a dispute form which I did and then I got a letter back saying that it is not in their power to do anything as it seems Asda obtained my details through a genuine source (or words of that effect).

I appreciate everyones help!!! Honest, I really feel that I'm up against a brick wall and now I worry everytime I pay for something on my card!

[meglet]

Why not see if your local paper is interested in covering it? A single mum plus bully boy supermarket angle might make a good story. Asda would not like the bad publicity!

[birdwoman]

Unfortunatley I don't work for HSBC but I can tell you that the bank I work for would take your case and refund you your money and then get the money back from Asda - it's not even a massive amount of money but money that you would find useful and you are wrongfully out of pocket. It might be worth trying your bank again but this time call the telephone banking people because they should pass your case on to their customer services team. I am getting angry on your behalf now because Walmart is one of the highest earning companies in the world and won't even give you your money back without a fight (probably why they are so rich) I would definitely take this further if I were you. I once complained to Sainsbury's because we had experienced some bad customer service from them and got a �30 voucher as an apology. Hope you get it sorted. Good Luck!

[sair5412]

Thanks for all your advice and support. My mum rang them today and told them how much it had been upsetting me (plus a bit more!) and they suddenly said they would send a cheque plus compensation for petrol etc and the bullying in front of other customers. She might even have metioned the fact that our local paper prints on a wednesday night! She's a professional complainer! (hey, don't pick on me or I'll get me mum on you!) Bless her!

Thanks again, I'll let you know how much I get for the hassle. xx