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Original poster

I've been charged £65 for a pizza instead of £6.50,what can I do?

183 replies

shopoholiicc · 10/07/2021 10:48

Went out on a date on Thursday and had a few drinks.
Popped into pizza shop on way home and spent £6.50 on a pizza (or so I thought )
He said contactless was down so I had to type my pin in.
Anyway checked my bank yesterday and £65 was pending for this pizza shop.
Went straight up when they opened and the man was rude and said I must have spent £65.
I said I only ordered 1 pizza and asked them to check cctv or the till.
He said cctv wasn't working and asked me to leave the shop.
Is there anything I can do here?

OP posts:
Depechemodebiggestfan · 10/07/2021 13:28

He had it planned hence the contactless was not working and conveniently the cctv is not working.

worktrip · 10/07/2021 13:39

Oh lord. I am forever just tapping and never looking that the card machine!

xxKatie9806xx · 10/07/2021 13:42

I’d contact the police (non emergency number) - judging by his reaction when you went in there I’m guessing he’s a regular scammer at taking advantage of people in this way.
Once after a night out, I was queuing in a kebab takeaway and I witnessed a drunk person pay with a £20 note and he only got small change back and no note. I stood and kept watching and they did it to the next person. I went outside and got a police officer. Literally stealing from people too drunk to notice.

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BaronMunchausen · 10/07/2021 13:44

@EveryFlightBeginsWithAFall

If it really was for £65 He wouldn't have needed to tell op that contactless was down if she paid with a card as it's only up to £45
I know you have to put your PIN in every so often, but is there such a thing as contactless being down on a machine - and chip and pin not?

It may be he only said it was down because he wanted to move the decimal point on the bill..

xxKatie9806xx · 10/07/2021 13:45

Would be very interesting if the police looked into his recent transactions

warmfluffytowels · 10/07/2021 13:45

@EveryFlightBeginsWithAFall

If it really was for £65 He wouldn't have needed to tell op that contactless was down if she paid with a card as it's only up to £45
I agree - I definitely think he scammed her, but how is she going to prove it if there's no CCTV or receipt? He could easily have "put" 10 pizzas through the till so everything matches up if checked.
MouldyPotato · 10/07/2021 13:45

Ring the bank and explain it first. They will be able to advise.

Greenrubber · 10/07/2021 13:46

You could do a bank chargeback!
I would also phone report them to trading standards
The bank chargeback will phone you so you can explain what has happened and then it's upto the shop to prove otherwise if I'm not mistaken

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 10/07/2021 13:51

Haven’t read it all but how can it be a scam when you see the amount when you type in your pin? Chancing it that you wouldn’t notice maybe but not quite a scam.

So is it not a scam when fraudsters get people to transfer money between accounts - 'because they can clearly see all the numbers'? Not a scam when cowboys do £20 worth of work and then get elderly customers to pay them £5,000 - 'because they actually wrote the cheque out themselves'?

How do we know he didn't keep his thumb over part of the screen when handing it over, or have a 'broken' lightbulb just over the place where a customer would stand to use the chip and pin machine?

He'll just go on social media and say something like:

"A customer came in last night and bought £65 worth of pizza. The contactless system was down so she used her pin and checked the amount before pressing enter. Now she's trying to claim she only spent £6.50. I'm only a small business and I can't believe she's trying to steal £50 off me! If there was a problem, why didn't she anything at the time?"

But why would it be relevant that the contactless system was down? It wouldn't be an option anyway for a purchase over £45. Of all people, a business owner would be expected to know that.

RachelGreep87 · 10/07/2021 13:51

In a few hours go down and stand outside the shop. Start telling everyone as they are about to go in what happened and that they will be scammed. That should get him to offer a refund.

xxKatie9806xx · 10/07/2021 13:52

Also if you have a local Facebook page to there i would post and let everyone know you’ve likely been scammed and see if anyone else replies having had the same happen to them - then you’ll have more to tell the police

EastWestWhosBest · 10/07/2021 13:55

But why would it be relevant that the contactless system was down? It wouldn't be an option anyway for a purchase over £45. Of all people, a business owner would be expected to know that.

Apple Pay has no upper limit in a lot of places. I’ve spent over a grand using my watch!

warmfluffytowels · 10/07/2021 13:58

But why would it be relevant that the contactless system was down? It wouldn't be an option anyway for a purchase over £45. Of all people, a business owner would be expected to know that.

You can pay any amount on contactless via ApplePay.

PuppyMonkey · 10/07/2021 13:59

Had anyone advised you to do a chargeback yet? Or cancel the cheque? Wink

Seriously though, OP, fingers crossed you’re getting it sorted as we speak.

I once paid £780 for a £78 haircut. Fortunately, the hairdresser noticed at the end of the day and came round to my house to sort it. I didn’t notice even though I had to put my PIN in. Blush

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 10/07/2021 14:01

Also, it possibly wouldn't be worth the risk/effort for £50 or so if OP was the only person he'd ever tried it on, but just two customers each day and that's £3K extra each month.

Some scams work by investing lots of time and effort on one mark to rip them off for thousands; others are done quickly and opportunely to only take a few extra tenners, but from lots of different marks.

Just like with legitimate businesses (that are not scamming people at all): Mercedes Benz and Mars are both huge, successful companies, but if Mars only sold the same amount of Mars bars as MB sell cars, only one of them would be a global force!

HyggeTygge · 10/07/2021 14:05

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

Also, it possibly wouldn't be worth the risk/effort for £50 or so if OP was the only person he'd ever tried it on, but just two customers each day and that's £3K extra each month.

Some scams work by investing lots of time and effort on one mark to rip them off for thousands; others are done quickly and opportunely to only take a few extra tenners, but from lots of different marks.

Just like with legitimate businesses (that are not scamming people at all): Mercedes Benz and Mars are both huge, successful companies, but if Mars only sold the same amount of Mars bars as MB sell cars, only one of them would be a global force!

True, but you'd think if someone called you out on it you'd be way better off playing it as a genuine mistake rather than risk ppl being alerted and more careful with their payments!
WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 10/07/2021 14:07

I've no experience of Apple Pay, but does it connect with the merchant's terminal and also give you an alternative option of inputting a PIN if contactless doesn't work/isn't available - the same as a standard bank debit card does? Wouldn't AP either 'work' by waving your phone over or simply 'not work' full stop, for whatever reason?

Even if so, it still needs contactless in order to work, as you can hardly stuff a phone into the little card slot to make physical contact with the machine, can you?!

MarshaBradyo · 10/07/2021 14:09

I’m betting the op had her card out ready to pay when he said contactless wasn’t working so I don’t think ApplePay is a factor

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 10/07/2021 14:12

True, but you'd think if someone called you out on it you'd be way better off playing it as a genuine mistake rather than risk ppl being alerted and more careful with their payments!

I suppose you could play it either way, depending on your strategy and which way you thought would ultimately make you more dishonest money - either try it on and then apologise and rectify the 'mistake' when challenged; or otherwise brazen it out and gaslight the customer that they did actually spend that - especially if you run a business that routinely does a great deal of trade after the pubs have closed and many of your customers will be well 'refreshed'.

EastWestWhosBest · 10/07/2021 14:18

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

I've no experience of Apple Pay, but does it connect with the merchant's terminal and also give you an alternative option of inputting a PIN if contactless doesn't work/isn't available - the same as a standard bank debit card does? Wouldn't AP either 'work' by waving your phone over or simply 'not work' full stop, for whatever reason?

Even if so, it still needs contactless in order to work, as you can hardly stuff a phone into the little card slot to make physical contact with the machine, can you?!

Apple Pay is contactless but using your phone or watch rather than a card. If contactless doesn’t work then Apple Pay doesn’t work.

People are saying that there is an upper limit on contactless, which only holds true if you are using a card rather than a phone.

lastcall · 10/07/2021 14:33

Contact your bank and dispute it; chargeback.
Contact the police.
Social media.

RickiTarr · 10/07/2021 14:35

@dementedpixie

You can start a debit card dispute with your bank
Yes this.

Also let local Trading Standards know they have a rogue trader on their patch. It all sounds somewhat deliberate. Tipsy customers, the smooth line about contactless being down, the conveniently broken CCTV and the lack of desire from the manager to resolve your issue. I bet it’s something he does a lot.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 10/07/2021 14:37

Thanks for confirming that, East - that's what I gathered.

So either OP had a card with a £45 CL limit (if the CL 'works Hmm) or unlimited with chip & pin; or a phone, which would not have been usable for paying at all if the CL/near-field function was somehow not working.

I've never known a device that will work with chip & pin but not with contactless; if anything, the CL works fine but the C&P is playing up - e.g. Asda and Morrisons have machines that frequently decline a C&P card for no good reason, but if you put pressure on and bend the front of the card down a little bit, it suddenly works, but they have no such issue with CL. If it's a lack of sufficient signal, then the terminal will not work for either way, regardless.

warmfluffytowels · 10/07/2021 14:40

TBH the whole ApplePay limit is a red herring. The fact that he said "contactless isn't working" is a red herring.

He overcharged her. If it was a mistake, it would have come us a till discrepancy and he would have refunded her, not gotten all defensive.

However, as it stands, OP has no proof she was scammed. He will argue that she put her pin in, and by doing so, accepted the amount on the screen as correct. If he's smart enough, he will have done a fake transaction for ten pizzas so the till balances and he can produce a "receipt" showing OP spent £65.

How will she prove otherwise if his till appears to be correct?

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 10/07/2021 14:42

I've never known a device that will work with chip & pin but not with contactless

Other than some of the very basic devices where CL is not set up as an option - in which (rare these days) case, the merchant will have a sign up saying 'doesn't do contactless' or will tell you that (not just that the CL is 'down'). However, I think (may be wrong) banks charge smaller businesses significantly lower fees for taking CL payments than C&P ones, as they want to promote routine card use for small purchases and do away with cash - so it would be very much in the interests of places like takeaways to get a system that does accept CL.