SMS payment notifications when the “money has not gone through”

[Newsfeed]

SMS payment notifications when the “money has not gone through”

It’s late in the evening, you are paying for petrol at a garage with your bank card, and the pump attendant is holding the card machine above his head hoping to get a signal.

Your phone then receives an SMS stating that the payment has gone through, but the attendant gives you a slip saying “Error” – and says you need to pay again.

 

[Lindiswa]

i had a similar experience.. i was withdrawing cash from an ABSA ATM, i heard the sound the atm machine makes when money is about to pop out. i did not get the money but i received a notification that i withdrew it. i told the people who were waiting in the line what happened and i told them i will not move from this ATM until my funds are reversed. i phoned ABSA and they reversed my funds.

 

[Sinbad]

SMS payment notifications when the “money has not gone through”

It’s late in the evening, you are paying for petrol at a garage with your bank card, and the pump attendant is holding the card machine above his head hoping to get a signal.

Your phone then receives an SMS stating that the payment has gone through, but the attendant gives you a slip saying “Error” – and says you need to pay again.

Yes, you need to pay again. The SMS is not proof of payment. The PoS device is authoritative.

 

[ArtyLoop]

This happens because of a breakdown in communications, incorrect firewall setups and other reasons.
The link to the bank also goes down, and creates this kind of out-of-band problem.

Because the link is down, the reversal often doesn't happen. This is not the ATM-to-switch link, rather the link at the bank.

I deal with this stuff daily..

 

[ArtyLoop]

Yes, you need to pay again. The SMS is not proof of payment. The PoS device is authoritative.

Correct, as per EMV rules.

 

[cavedog]

Kfc robbed me like this on a R150 purchase. Sms confirmation funds were taken but pos system decline. Swiped again and got approved.

The pending transaction was stuck for 4 days and then got processed.

Went back and never got my money back even after showing a bank stamped statement.

Sometimes the pending transactions do go through.

 

[Sinbad]

Kfc robbed me like this on a R150 purchase. Sms confirmation funds were taken but pos system decline. Swiped again and got approved.

The pending transaction was stuck for 4 days and then got processed.

Went back and never got my money back even after showing a bank stamped statement.

Sometimes the pending transactions do go through.

Incorrect approach. Ask your bank to reverse the duplicate. Always keep the "error" slip as evidence.

 

[Pitbull]

Happened to me before too on more than one occasion.

I just submit it again, the next day the correction shows on your bank account. No biggy. Never had an issue with it.

 

[ArtyLoop]

This happened to me recently with a Captiec account and prepaid electricity.
Because I work in the industry I was a slight advantage to actually figure the problem out.

Of course I had no help from Capitec, their staff are too stupid to understand what I am on about. But, it all comes down to the same thing... the banking system in SA is conducted by means of TCP/IP sockets, and when that goes wrong, due to packet loss (which often happens in our "wonderful" cellular networks) you end up with strange, hard-to-debug scenarios such as these.

 

[cavedog]

Incorrect approach. Ask your bank to reverse the duplicate. Always keep the "error" slip as evidence.

Capitec is the o es who told me to go to kfc and get a refund as the transaction has already been processed and banked by them. It was a finger point fest and no one is giving me my money back.

 

[Sinbad]

And everybody says "bank with capitec cos they're awesome"

lol

 

[ArtyLoop]

And everybody says "bank with capitec cos they're awesome"

lol

All the banks are the same... Capitec is the lesser evil of the evils.
At least they're not like FNB that outright steals money out your account.

 

[Pitbull]

For the record, I have never had to ask for a correction and it was sorted automatically the next day - FNB

 

[faniebraai]

The reason is most cards today work using dual message pairs. Meaning 1st leg auth (0100), 2nd leg advice (0220).

Petrol stations being the main culprit only do the auth online, and submit the advices in batch, that's why you get the notifications sometimes days later

But as per the article, when the auth reaches the issuing system, your bank, it triggers the sms. Then the response (0110) never makes it back to the POS in time, or ever. Which causes the POS to timeout and fail. In the background the merchant service or POS, will send a reversal advice (0420) to reverse the funds.

 

[RobertKza]

A couple of years ago, I had the same issue paying Fruit and Veg City. The staff physically assaulted me in the store accusing me of trying to steal the goods I had. I contacted the MD who said that he was fed up with people trying to commit fraud.
It took a week of pressure from my part to get the reserved funds on my account reversed by Fruit and Veg City.
Don't buy from Fruit and Veg City if you want to avoid unpleasantness

 

[Dylan_G]

The reason is most cards today work using dual message pairs. Meaning 1st leg auth (0100), 2nd leg advice (0220).

Petrol stations being the main culprit only do the auth online, and submit the advices in batch, that's why you get the notifications sometimes days later

But as per the article, when the auth reaches the issuing system, your bank, it triggers the sms. Then the response (0110) never makes it back to the POS in time, or ever. Which causes the POS to timeout and fail. In the background the merchant service or POS, will send a reversal advice (0420) to reverse the funds.

This is interesting. Thanks!

 

[Milano]

A couple of years ago, I had the same issue paying Fruit and Veg City. The staff physically assaulted me in the store accusing me of trying to steal the goods I had. I contacted the MD who said that he was fed up with people trying to commit fraud.
It took a week of pressure from my part to get the reserved funds on my account reversed by Fruit and Veg City.
Don't buy from Fruit and Veg City if you want to avoid unpleasantness

Same issue? So the system returned a transaction error, you received a payment notification, then you refused to allow them to run the transaction again until they 'encouraged' you to do so?