System error causes Abbey to bill customers twice
Visa debit card transactions duplicated as a result of processing problem
Thousands of Abbey customers were mistakenly billed twice for the same Visa debit card transactions over the bank holiday weekend.
The bank is working to reverse a processing error that led to the mistake during an overnight processing run on August 29.
The bank has promised to reverse all duplicate payments and backdate customer accounts, including ATM payments, affected by the system glitch.
The exact number of customers affected remains unconfirmed by Abbey.
It's the latest in a series of computer mishaps to have hit the UK banking group in recent months.
In June, Abbey publicly apologised for a systems problem with its online business banking service that caused some customers' payments to be sent to the wrong people.
This followed an incident in May when the bank's system failed to renew certain overdraft limits resulting in unauthorised overdraft fees and other charges.
Abbey was also named in December 2004 as one of a number of banks which had to issue a credit card recall following warnings from Visa that details of associated accounts may have been compromised.
Abbey is currently mid-way through the phased roll-out of a new banking platform from Spanish parent Banco Santander.
An Abbey spokesperson said: ‘We are confident that this is a one-off problem and we don’t know the root cause of it at the moment.’
In an official statement following the disruption Abbey apologised for any inconvenience caused.
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