UK debit card users charged twice for transactions due to technical glitch

The affected payments were made on 29 August

Many customers were charged twice for transactions that only showed up once on many receipt (REUTERS)

Thousands of UK consumers may have been charged twice for debit card payments made in the last week due to a technical glitch.

Cardnet, a card payment processor part-owned by Lloyds Banking Group, said it was “aware of an incident” which saw customers charged twice for transactions that only showed up once on many receipts.

The affected payments were made on Wednesday 29 August.

“In some cases, this will have been an overpayment of expected settled funds, in others an underpayment,” Cardnet said.

“In addition, and importantly, cardholders (customers) of Cardnet’s impacted merchants may also have been debited twice for transactions made on Wednesday.”

A number of consumers complained on Twitter that they had been charged twice for payments, while several businesses alerted customers to the problem.

Cardnet said refunds to cardholders charged twice should have been completed by Tuesday 4 September.

The company also said both Thursday’s settlement file and the reversal of duplicate transactions has been sent for processing, “which will correct the issue for merchants as part of their settlement of funds from Friday 1 September and bring their settlement back into line of what is expected within two days”.

The firm added: “Cardnet sincerely apologises for the issue and the inconvenience caused, we continue to work closely with all parties to resolve this issue swiftly.”