jade32•8d ago

I finally saw a mobile payment glitch empty a customer's account

Last month at a coffee shop in Portland, I watched someone tap their phone to pay and the terminal charged them $2,800 instead of $4.50. The barista froze up and said the system showed a "duplicate processor handshake." I told the customer to call their bank immediately and freeze the card. Turns out the merchant's terminal had a known bug with contactless limits that day. It took three weeks and six calls to get the money reversed. Has anyone else run into a terminal error that caused a crazy overcharge?

2 comments

2 Comments

river_bailey28d ago

Same thing happened to my brother at a gas station last spring.

kai_west8d ago

... and that gas station thing is wild because my cousin had almost the same deal happen but it was at a drive-thru ATM, not a gas pump. The machine just ate his card and spit out someone else's receipt with a totally different name on it. Took him like three weeks and two trips to the bank just to get his card back.