M&S order cancelled was refunded but charged same amount again

Direct to Flex - Flex card

If you pay via your normal card or any virtual card, you can flex it after the fact.

The only caveat to that is that you can’t flex a transaction that used a virtual card linked to a pot.

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Oh brilliant thanks. So just a virtual card set up for your current account is considered “Virtual Flex card”? Interesting.

If I Flex using my normal card it shows as from Current Account, so it must only be for virtual cards surely?

Anyway not on topic now so…

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I wouldn’t say it was really, it’s no different to your normal card. But it’ll work just the same.

There’s no entry in that shot to show it was taken back to pay flex.

The only oddity that can happen is another separate M&S transaction had been charged with its own timeline, which would indicate customer is (potentially) going to receive goods.

That would again (weirdly but shouldn’t) mean a refund would’ve been made to customers current account which needs to be used to clear the other outstanding entry in Flex (if there is one).

The behaviour can be, as above, frustrating and confusing af.

Having said that, if customer checks again for Flex not M&S, for the credit to their account, and uses that to clear the flex off.

The confusion should disappear.

I think the toughest part of explaining it in the past was that a customer needed to pay back what Flex loaned to them, and for whatever reason, seems to be the case here.

As they think they may be charged twice or paying twice.

The problem really is the visibility on the Flex behaviour and timeline which is causing the confusion for the most part. Not M&S.

The instalments feed doesn’t show the original transaction. It only shows amendments / updates to that transaction. However, obviously there must have been an initial £600.50 deduction otherwise the instalment plan wouldn’t exist.

The behaviour can be, as above, frustrating and confusing af.

I honestly don’t find it very confusing, the timeline is pretty clear. The customer is owed £600.50.

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Is there a way of you simplifying what you’re saying? Only because it doesn’t seem to make sense, but I trust you know what you’re talking about having worked at Monzo.

From the timeline above, and literally taking that alone:

  • OP flexes a transaction (Flex: -£600, CA: £0)
  • The transaction is refunded (next on the list) and sent to the current account (Flex: -£600, CA: £600)
  • M&S request £600 (next on the list) so (Flex: £1,200, CA: £600)

Which part of this hasn’t actually happened so I can make my brain work because from what I can see I’m literally following the trail in front of us.

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What shouldn’t have happened based on what we know, is the refund to the customers account.

If that hadn’t happened the balance would’ve been £0.00 on Flex.

The specific timeline of events from the presentment side could be what’s triggered it (total speculation, but not fully visible)

Order placed -600 from Flex
Order cancelled +600 credit back to Flex

Balance 0.00 on Flex

But then in-between those (split minor seconds) is a presentment otherwise by M&S (let’s say charge to another cost centre and also refunding that because overall order was cancelled).

The refund (cancellation) hit Flex first, +600, putting Flex in credit by +600

This triggers refund to customer as overpayment of Flex to their current account of 600 (because it doesn’t know how else to handle an overpayment), which brings Flex back to 0.00.

Then M&S (speculative cost centre charge) hit Flex debiting -600.

As balance initially 0.00, should’ve been a presentment of -600, and then a cancellation refund of +600 to minus the balance and bring it back to 0.00

But (in assumption) it happened the other way around.

Thus customer overpayment now needs to be paid back to Flex to cancel out the whole thing.

That’s how I see it happening based on no goods being issued.

Could be something totally different, and again internally I think they sometimes see more than what the customer sees in terms of the nitty gritty behind the scenes.

Does that make more sense?

Watch it be something totally different and my overdrive mind went too far :upside_down_face::joy:

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10/10 Popcorn Thread.

I think (having skim read it) that @Carlo1460 has it nailed, in that the original transaction was taken, returned to Current account then “taken” again from Flex. So their current account is £600 up and flex is owed that money.

This is not as clear as it could be - should it not just refund Flex and cancel the whole thing out? I don’t use Flex so can’t answer the OP’s question, but this has been fascinating to read.

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… I had to pause my podcast to grasp it but I think so…?

I am actually making the assumption that the OP would notice if he were up £600 in his current account. I would notice and if it were as simple as “oh I’m up £600 in my CA and down £600 in my Flex than I expected” then just transferring it over would solve it.

I suppose the fact this thread exists provides an assumption that this hasn’t happened. But that needs OP confirmation.

What a journey this is.

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I could be wrong (not unusual for me here :joy:) but when I worked them I’d screen snip the presentments to simplify the answer to customers as they couldn’t always see what we seen internally and eventually it would click.

Too many variables really, customer may not have noticed the refund if searched M&S, as it would show as Flex returned, and has a high balance naturally (few thousand), for example.

Not blaming the customer but it’s plausible. Presentments also don’t bring notifications with them so can go unnoticed.

I’m keen to know the answer :sweat_smile:

Gonna tag @TheoGibson in here so he can try to shed some light on what the deal is here! :person_shrugging:

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I think the OP already posted a screenshot of Monzo saying M&S had charged this twice and the OP needed to charge back the transaction.

Looks like a basic reply from the chat agent to be fair, if the customer hadn’t been refunded to their current account in this scenario then yeah it could be a case no goods delivered etc so could be disputed, but the customer had the money sat in their current account on 16th.

I’m really glad I don’t use Flex as the above is far too complicated :thinking:

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Exactly my thoughts!

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Valid.

In fairness:

  1. Merchants shouldn’t be able to send presentments through MasterCard, seen at a customer level, their in house systems should essentially manage it for them IE splitting amounts to different costings/items. Flights are a prime example of this.

  2. Monzo shouldn’t display any of the technical stuff to customers as it can cause such confusion as is above.

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As Einstein pointed out everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.

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I don’t understand what you on about,
I get it, the excess is usually sent back to the current account. BUT in MY CASE. the transaction was

  1. Order placed £600 taken from FLEX
  2. Order cancelled - Returned to FLEX (No, not the current account BUT FLEX, since I hadn’t cleared it yet)
  3. Right after the refund, my flex card gets charged AGAIN.

Stop making it complex, where it really isn’t.

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The complex part is having £600.50 sent to your bank account when it shouldn’t have been, as you paid on your flex card - not your debit card.

You should only receive refunds to your current account if you choose to Flex a debit card payment at a later date.

Deem it as complex as you think, from what you’ve shown the public, you had £600.50 Flex returned to your bank account, so this just needs paying back into flex otherwise you’ve been given a refund you’re not entitled to - unless you’ve paid £600.50 from your current account to Flex which isn’t shown in the picture?

You should have an entry in your current account feed labelled Flex on the date shown. Highlighted in green as below:

This is exactly the timeline and you got it right. For some reason Carlo1460 is making it complex

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