Debit Payment Duplicate

Ran a Visa today, and she just called to say it debited from her account twice. Strange, as there wasn't a problem during payment; I put the card in once, it ran fine and printed one receipt. I called tech support for the machine, and he said that, because of communication with/over the digital line, our machine charged her twice, but automatically reversed one. He said it only captured one payment, and that the other payment would reverse on her account in 2 to 3 business days. He also that, if our machine is going over a phone line, this will keep happening, and that we need to call Merchant Services and request an update to our file to 'internet', rather than phone line.

The same thing happened once last year, and it doesn't seem right for a customer to have to wait any time for money to be put back in their account. If he said our machine ran twice, but only did one capture, why does it hit twice on her account, and doesn't that mean it actually took double the amount?

 

We run all charge transactions through a dedicated phone line for higher security. I generally do not trust the web with any financial information. In 34 years we have never had this issue, it sounds to me like your processor may not want to be bothered looking into your issue. We take an electronic security certification every year and the governing body highly recommends phone line transactions over those done via internet.

 

Thanks for the note. That makes sense.

Our customer says it just shows up as 'pending' on her account, so maybe it'll show two pending, but only charge once?

 

We had the same thing a couple of weeks ago, when a charge was shown as "pending" on the account but charge disappeared by the time the other pending charges went through.

 

As I understand it, debit transactions, even if it's only a pre-authorization (such as when you Pay at the Pump), reserves the amount until finalized, or 2-3 days later. I don't know why, but that's the way it is.

A few years ago we charged a customer's card an amount, then reversed it for some reason I can't remember. Then when we tried to charge it again, it was declined. Turns out it was a debit card and he didn't have enough money in the account to pay it twice. We had to fax the bank a letter essentially saying "We do not intend to, and in fact never will, attempt to complete [this transaction]. Therefore please release the funds back to the customer." before we could try again.

 

Agreed. Sounds like a reserve, like you get when you go to use a pay-at-the-pump gas station card. Itll show online as "pending" on the cardholder providers website.

As far as processing over an analog phone line with a modem, we switched to encrypted secure internet method 12 years ago and havent looked back You won't need a phone line available, it's probably more secure, and takes about 1-2 seconds vs 20-30 seconds. As everyone switches to digital phone providers, this technology (including dialup modems and fax machines) will become slower and less reliable. For example if you buy telephone from your cable company, it is digital service that has been converted to emulate the old analog dial tone. In the process, it can become fairly unforgiving if there is a slight delay in the internet speed in your business, causing it to cut off. The additional digital to analog conversion, also means it will run at about half of its original analog intended speed. Going direct digital for phones and for credit cards is the future, IMO. (Voice over IP for phones)