topic Re: Man taps his Amex for payment, and MC pays the tab? in Credit in the News

Man taps his Amex for payment, and MC pays the tab?

ChargedUp — Wed, 17 Mar 2021 04:50:19 GMT

Quite interesting if this is true... Could this be a glitch in the POS system charging a previously used card in their system or an incredibly ironic contactless misread?

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/mar/15/why-was-my-contactless-spending-on-an-amex-card-charged-to-mastercard

Re: Man taps his Amex for payment, and MC pays the tab?

CreditMagic7 — Wed, 17 Mar 2021 18:18:47 GMT

Re: Man taps his Amex for payment, and MC pays the tab?

Credit4Growth — Wed, 17 Mar 2021 18:39:41 GMT

No Bueno! SMH

Re: Man taps his Amex for payment, and MC pays the tab?

OmarR — Thu, 18 Mar 2021 02:40:14 GMT

I have been a part of these investigations in a compliance officer/auditor role.

Here is what happened:

He (Mr. Amex) was 2nd in line, and the customer in front of him (Mr. Mastercard) was just finishing being checked out and done. THAT customer's mastercard was still in the vicinity of the reader (usually laying on the card reader itself) while he gathered his purchases, thoughts etc., while the cashier started Mr. Amex's order. As soon as the cashier initiated this, Mr. Mastercard's credit card "locked in" as the system treated it as the next "tap". Mr. Mastercard now gathers and walks off, while Mr. Amex moves forward into the payment position. He taps his Amex, (not knowing that this tap is being ignored), the cashier hits sub-total/total, enter. A receipt spits out and Mr. Amex checks to make sure the total is in agreement with what he is purchasing. And it is. But what he doesn't see is that the receipt says "Mastercard ending in 0452"....which is not his card. He signs it and goes on his merry way. Mr. Mastercard gets the bill.

We had NUMEROUS situations like these. One of the issues was when a customer was handing the card to a cashier. The cashier would either swipe on their built in POS (in their register), or swipe for the customer (at the customer POS terminal) and in either case just gently lay the card down on the customer POS terminal card reader. They would say "Thank you, have a good day" and immediately start scanning the next transaction for the next customer.

We had to give directives (via internal memos) that a cashier is NOT to lay the card down on the reader and actually hand it to the customer. In addition, they are to visually make sure that the credit card reader is clear before starting the next transaction. Because the customers themselves were still setting their card/wallet on the reader and unwittingly paying for the next transaction. The cashier is NOT to start the next customer in line until they have verified that the customer who has just checked out is clear of the reader.

As you can probably guess, our "fraud" investigations started when Mr. Mastercard would come in, claiming that they didn't purchase XYZ dollar amount but it somehow ended up on their credit card statement, but NOT on their receipt. We even had one guy who ran in for like a $40 item, but paid for the $4,000 piece of furniture of the guy that was behind him in line. It took us a while of reviewing security footage (and being newer to tap-n-pay at that time) to connect all the dots. That and the fact that Mr. Amex and Mr. Mastercard were always transactions that were right after each other.

Re: Man taps his Amex for payment, and MC pays the tab?

TIPPY-BOB — Fri, 19 Mar 2021 23:07:34 GMT

@ChargedUp wrote:
Quite interesting if this is true... Could this be a glitch in the POS system charging a previously used card in their system or an incredibly ironic contactless misread?

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/mar/15/why-was-my-contactless-spending-on-an-amex-card-charged-to-mastercard

Thanks for posting this! There's always something new to learn every day.

Re: Man taps his Amex for payment, and MC pays the tab?

TIPPY-BOB — Fri, 19 Mar 2021 23:09:40 GMT

@OmarR

Thanks for all the details and thorough explanation from an expert's view. A bit scary.

Re: Man taps his Amex for payment, and MC pays the tab?

Mr_Mojo_Risin — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 12:16:11 GMT

@OmarR wrote:
I have been a part of these investigations in a compliance officer/auditor role.

Here is what happened:

He (Mr. Amex) was 2nd in line, and the customer in front of him (Mr. Mastercard) was just finishing being checked out and done. THAT customer's mastercard was still in the vicinity of the reader (usually laying on the card reader itself) while he gathered his purchases, thoughts etc., while the cashier started Mr. Amex's order. As soon as the cashier initiated this, Mr. Mastercard's credit card "locked in" as the system treated it as the next "tap". Mr. Mastercard now gathers and walks off, while Mr. Amex moves forward into the payment position. He taps his Amex, (not knowing that this tap is being ignored), the cashier hits sub-total/total, enter. A receipt spits out and Mr. Amex checks to make sure the total is in agreement with what he is purchasing. And it is. But what he doesn't see is that the receipt says "Mastercard ending in 0452"....which is not his card. He signs it and goes on his merry way. Mr. Mastercard gets the bill.

We had NUMEROUS situations like these. One of the issues was when a customer was handing the card to a cashier. The cashier would either swipe on their built in POS (in their register), or swipe for the customer (at the customer POS terminal) and in either case just gently lay the card down on the customer POS terminal card reader. They would say "Thank you, have a good day" and immediately start scanning the next transaction for the next customer.

We had to give directives (via internal memos) that a cashier is NOT to lay the card down on the reader and actually hand it to the customer. In addition, they are to visually make sure that the credit card reader is clear before starting the next transaction. Because the customers themselves were still setting their card/wallet on the reader and unwittingly paying for the next transaction. The cashier is NOT to start the next customer in line until they have verified that the customer who has just checked out is clear of the reader.

As you can probably guess, our "fraud" investigations started when Mr. Mastercard would come in, claiming that they didn't purchase XYZ dollar amount but it somehow ended up on their credit card statement, but NOT on their receipt. We even had one guy who ran in for like a $40 item, but paid for the $4,000 piece of furniture of the guy that was behind him in line. It took us a while of reviewing security footage (and being newer to tap-n-pay at that time) to connect all the dots. That and the fact that Mr. Amex and Mr. Mastercard were always transactions that were right after each other.

Now that is interesting. I wouldn't have thought about that happening.

Like every other day on here, I've learned something new.

Thanks for sharing your experience with the situation.

Re: Man taps his Amex for payment, and MC pays the tab?

DaveInAZ — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 21:49:03 GMT

@OmarR wrote:
I have been a part of these investigations in a compliance officer/auditor role.

Here is what happened:

He (Mr. Amex) was 2nd in line, and the customer in front of him (Mr. Mastercard) was just finishing being checked out and done. THAT customer's mastercard was still in the vicinity of the reader (usually laying on the card reader itself) while he gathered his purchases, thoughts etc., while the cashier started Mr. Amex's order. As soon as the cashier initiated this, Mr. Mastercard's credit card "locked in" as the system treated it as the next "tap". Mr. Mastercard now gathers and walks off, while Mr. Amex moves forward into the payment position. He taps his Amex, (not knowing that this tap is being ignored), the cashier hits sub-total/total, enter. A receipt spits out and Mr. Amex checks to make sure the total is in agreement with what he is purchasing. And it is. But what he doesn't see is that the receipt says "Mastercard ending in 0452"....which is not his card. He signs it and goes on his merry way. Mr. Mastercard gets the bill.

Gee, thanks for the tip, I'll be on the lookout for that and if I see it rush to get my items started on the register.

Naw, while definitely not a candidate for sainthood I prefer to be honest. A few years ago I was checking out at a Safeway with a couple 5 liter boxes of wine among items in my cart. As those boxes of wine are too heavy to bag I always just put one on the conveyor belt and when the cashier gets to it point to my cart and tell the cashier I have 3 or 4 boxes of wine. But this time a lady in line behind me started talking to me and I got distracted. I made it out of the store and then thought "Wait, I got off awfully cheap", and looked at my receipt and realized I was only charged for 1 box when I had 4. (I'm really not that much of a lush, Safeway gives 10% discount when buying 6 or more wine items) I did think about it for a few seconds, complete with a little Devil on my shoulder saying "Don't be stupid, get out of here, quick!". But no, I went back inside and pointed out to cashier what I'd done, she was very grateful and rang up the other boxes of wine.

And Mr. Amex was probably in a hurry and not paying attention, I would notice it when I didn't get a beep when I tapped my card.

Re: Man taps his Amex for payment, and MC pays the tab?

Anonymous — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 18:12:31 GMT

That was very informative, thanks! Though because I'm very cautious of such matters I always return my card to my wallet right after swiping/tapping, I never leave it on or near the machines. Mainly because I've misplace a card that way in the past and have since then kept better care of them.

This does bring up the issue of hands free purchasing though that some retailers want to implement, hence tag everything so that when you leave the store it charges your card. I've just never understood how they know who to bill if two people are leaving at the same time. Cool feature but looks problematic to me.