[Resolved]  Pothys Silks, Chennai — Double debit on Debit card Swiping

Address:

Chennai, Tamil Nadu

I gave my ICICI ATM/Debit card to the cashier to pay for my bill for INR 1999. First he swiped and said that his machine responds with message 'Transaction unsuccessful. Please try again'. Since this is the first time for to hear such thing about my debit card since the time I started paying my bills using debit card some 6 years back, I said 'Please try again'.

Another person on the same counter adviced him to use another swiping machine. This time the transaction was successful and I got back my card.

After 2 or 3 minutes I got two SMS from ICICIBANK saying that two debits were done on my account for 1999 INR. When I said the same to the persons at the counter, they said 'Only with your consent we swiped for the second time. We can't help'. I was really shocked.

Immediately I callled ICICI customer care, explained the situation and asked them to check the last transactions. They said there were 2 successful debits for the said amount.

When I told this to Pothys people, they easily said 'Its usual only. This happens very often. Most of the times, the extra debit will be reversed by the bank itself. If not, please come to us. We'll give you a letter on our letterpad saying that the amount was credited to us only once and not twice'.

These words gave me a litte confidence. Still, I filled a complaint with ICICI bank as well to take necessary actions to get my money back. They gave a Service Request (SR) number and also asked me to get a proof from Pothys for non-credit to their account and to send the copy via FAX to[protected].

I also went to Pothys admin office to complain about this situation. They asked me to wait and meet someone called Mazooth.. But for my disappointment, he didn't showup to me. They later got all the details of the bill, payment receipt and my contact address, mobile details and told me to come the next day.

Today I will be going to meet them to resolve this issue.

Now, my concerns are
1. Since Pothys people are aware of this problem and had seen many such cases often, they should have taken some action to completely get rid of this issue either by sorting out with the concerned BANK for any technical issues.
2. If they had used the right machine for the first transaction itself, this problem would've not come. I suspect they purposefully did this, knowing completely well that the first machine may give such problem. They should have removed such machine. If they are keeping it and just playing around with customer's money, it highly comdemnable.
3. This problem has created deep worries in my mind that I will have to run behind bank and Pothys people to get my money back. This has caused me overhead and slippage from my daily schedules and lot more concerns.


I would strongly recommend the readers not to use any cards while purchasing at Pothys, Chennai.

I'll update again once the problem is completely solved and I get back my money.