Payment gone through twice

Recently had to make a payment to Italy for a ZTL fine - went through all the stages, pressed proceed to then receive a message to say the transaction had “timed out” and to try again. Duly tried again, this time successful.

Checked my account as the payment was in Euros and I wanted to clarify the GBP amount, only to find it had in fact gone through twice.

Immediately contacted Monzo who told me that I had to wait to see if they actually took the payment twice, first, as they would not be able to do anything until then. In the meantime they said I should contact the company myself to arrange a refund.

I have been emailing the company (the Polizia in Venice) who have confirmed only one payment has been received, and to send confirmation of the second payment. Duly sent screen shots of the payment being taken twice, together with screen shots of the timings of the payment (10:22 and 10:24am).

Not had any response since that email so contacted Monzo again. After checking they said they can’t do anything as the company has actually taken the money and i should contact them to arrange a refund. This is despite me sending Monzo the complete email chain with the Polizia and stating that my emails are being ignored. I have tried to ring them on 6 occasions (Italy that is) and not got anywhere.

Went back to Monzo who said they are now not able to do anything until I have had a reply from the Polizia.

Absolutely shocking customer service, this payment going out twice has caused me significant financial hardship - i have no one i can ask for help, and couldn’t even take my daughter and her friends (as promised) out on Saturday afternoon to celebrate her 6th birthday as I had no money to do so!

But there we are, Monzo are sorry that they can’t or won’t do anything to help, but they sincerely hope that I manage to sort this out myself!

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It looks like the Venice police are the ones at fault in not following up after you giving evidence of the second transaction.

You could make an official complaint with them if they’ve not responded within given timescales, and that by their system taking the payment twice had caused you financial hardship in the payment being held and not canceling or providing confirmation that you’ve paid.

Monzo can’t really just start canceling pending transactions without clear evidence.

Regardless of anyone doing anything the pending hold will timeout after 7 days.

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Is the information the same when you scroll to the bottom for each transaction and click “Something Wrong? Tell us”?

I’ve had duplicated transactions where the money for one was taken, but not the other. I was able to reclaim the untaken one straight away, but would have happened automatically after 30 days.

A duplicate payment went through due to a bug in the app that had been reported before - fortunately for me this was a uk transfer and eventually customer services got it reversed. I am now very careful about sending payments when the signal strength is low and the payment seems to be taking some time. I too was shocked about the customer service timescale for a response and made a complaint and received some compensation- this bug if it still exists really needs to be nailed quickly for everyone’s sake - Monzo and their customers!

Your issue was a bank transfer, this is a card payment by the looks.

I had one last Sunday trying to order Pizza hut online and it annoyingly got stuck after taking payment but not placing the order.

So I phoned the order in and took a screenshot of the receipt of the second transaction which was the same value and I grabbed the screenshot at the time and chat refunded in 2 mins. They could see the :mondo: in the status bar of it doing the Auth stage to put a hold on the money.

Looks like Pizzahut use cybersource.com

It’s not clear what the status of the payments is from what you say.

When you look at them on-screen are either of them still shown as pending? If they are then the money hasn’t been ‘taken’ yet, it’s just reserved in your account - still a pain but at least it’s still yours and it’s possible that the failed one will simply expire (although if that were the case, Monzo may have been able to refund it at their discretion).

If they do show as having been taken then, as others say, there’s not really a lot the bank can do. The police authority have the money so Monzo aren’t able to just take it back. I’m not sure this is a customer service issue, or at least there isn’t enough information presented here for us to know.

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@Feathers - at first the payments were pending so immediately contacted Monzo to inform them that only one payment was needed, and explained why it was done twice. I was told that they have to wait and see if the merchant actually takes the payment as to reverse one payment could put me overdrawn (it wouldn’t have), if the merchant tried to take it again. When the two payments were actually taken i contacted Monzo again who confirmed that both payments had gone through, and would therefore be unable to do anything about refunding the money, and i would then need to contact the merchant to arrange a refund.
I supplied Monzo with every single email i sent to the Merchant, which have not been responded to (by the Merchant that is, not Monzo). Monzo have now said that they cannot do anything until the Merchant replies.

In the meantime they helpfully suggested that i correspond with the merchant by email only so i have a written record - isn’t this what i have been doing!!!

what i find frustrating is that no matter what happens Monzo are saying they cannot do anything. I know for a fact something can be done, when something similar happened with Nationwide and a payment with Tesco, the money was refunded straightaway as they could see there was an error and the bank then recouped the money from Tesco.

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@philsdawson - The Italian Police use Mercury Payments - i have also contacted them, again with no avail! this is getting extremely frustrating

@Tony - yes this is a card payment.

so frustrating - this would never have happened with the larger banks

yeah the message at the bottom of the transaction is the same - when i click on it, it takes me through to the chat page.

It was escalated to a “specialist” on Saturday, had a response today saying that basically they cannot do anything as they had to let the merchant take the payment twice, because to reverse could mean i would go overdrawn if they tried to take it again.

i have had a response from the specialist who has offered me £30.00 as a goodwill gesture and to drop the complaint. I asked if i accepted the £30 would that mean if i had no luck with the merchant, then i cannot raise this further with them in the future.

i then had another response from a different customer advising me this was being escalated to a specialist again!

Yes it would, double transaction happens loads. you just have to wait till it comes back

it like hotel, they take money but it never really goes

What i meant was, when this happened years ago with Tesco, and i noticed the following day that the payment had been taken twice - the payment was refunded by the bank immediately.

Had money left account?

If it’s been a reasonable amount of time with no reply from the merchant then insist on a chargeback.

The only reason I would consider not doing it, is that if monzo pull the wrong one it may mark the fine as unpaid and potentially give you a record in Italy.

I would consider an official complaint to the Italian Police.

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It hasn’t on thursday, it was pending, but was showing as being taken - it was actually taken on friday

Sorry - you keep saying this, but all that would’ve happened if Monzo had reversed the payment to you immediately is that it would’ve subsequently gone out again when the Polizia completed the transaction. If you’d spent it in the meantime - say, on the birthday trip out - then you would’ve ended up overdrawn as a result.

It’s an awful situation to be in, but Monzo have done everything right so far. As others have said, you need to contact the Polizia again with the evidence showning that the payment has been taken (not just authorised, but taken) twice and ask them to refund one of them to you.

If they still refuse, then you can take the evidence back to Monzo again and ask them to do a chargeback on one of the payments. But they will want to see you’ve made every effort with the Polizia first before going down that route. Again, this is as much to protect you if the Polizia dispute the chargeback.

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As far as we can tell the account holder has done nothing wrong. The merchant is failing to respond so I’d ask Monzo for a chargeback.

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This is actually really important here and there’s a very real chance that putting in a chargeback could leave you in an even more sticky situation with the law.

I’ve always wondered in situations like whether Monzo would/do allow account holders to go overdrawn to the same value until resolved without any charge. Seems like a reasonable thing to do if it’s putting someone in hardship.

I have had confirmation from the Merchant that One payment has gone through and sent them bank statements and screen shots showing a payment going through at 10:22 which they’ve acknowledged, and a second payment going through at 10:24. Since sending them this Co formation all subsequent emails have been left unanswered