I feel Barclaycard stitched me up buying a sweater
I bought a sweater which was accidently put through twice. Even though the shop recredited my account Barclaycard won’t
A friend and I were in Florence and we both chose a €49 (£41) sweater in a shop. The vendor accidently charged me for both when I paid by Barclaycard MasterCard. When we realised what had happened the shopkeeper put through a credit for €49 to my card, and my friend paid for his. I kept my credit and debit transaction chits, and we left the store.
When I received my credit card statement it emerged Barclaycard had processed my credit as a further debit, and as a result I had paid for three sweaters. When I complained, the card provider initially credited my account as it should have, and I thought that was the end of the matter. Then it reversed its decision, and reverted to the original position.
Despite the evidence of the chits, it refuses to believe what has happened and has even suggested I take this up with the Italian retailer, which is hardly practical as I don’t speak Italian. It appears to be hoping that I will just give up and accept the loss. Can you help? MS, Brighton
We were rather perplexed by this case as, like you, we thought the sales chits showing a credit would irrefutably prove your case; disputes like this usually occur when the consumer has lost the receipts showing the credit. Quite why Barclaycard hasn’t accepted these as conclusive evidence is unclear. As for telling you to take this up with the retailer in Florence, that was hardly helpful.
We asked Barclaycard to take another look and it has had a swift change of heart. Barclaycard says its systems clearly show three debits, and suggested the error either happened in the store, or at the store’s bank. “We recognise that MS has not had the level of experience we expect [to provide]. We have apologised for the poor service, have refunded the amount and have credited his account with £20 as a goodwill gesture,” it says. The reason the money briefly reappeared in your account was that Barclaycard put through a chargeback, which failed: hence the money disappeared again. Meanwhile, on the evidence of this case, the rest of us had better get used to keeping our credit card slips.
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