A customer purchased airline tickets with their debit card; it was processed as a credit transaction. Apparently the charge hit their account twice (not sure if they hit submit twice, etc.) and they purchased two sets of the tickets for the same persons. They tried to work the airline company but they would only provide them airline credit.



The customer then came to the bank and disputed the charge as a double charge, which is how we submitted it. The airline responded that it was 2 separate charges. The customer would like to resubmit the claim as unauthorized. Does anyone know if this is correct and whether we can do this?

First question: "Based on the information the airline provided in response to your "duplicate transaction" chargeback, do you have enough information to make a decision regarding the cardholder's Reg E claim?

If the answer is yes and you believe the customer authorized both charges (even if it was in error by being careless with the submit button) Reg E 1005.11(e) does not require that you open up a new investigation with a new claim reason.

(e) Reassertion of error. A financial institution that has fully complied with the error resolution requirements has no further responsibilities under this section should the consumer later reassert the same error, except in the case of an error asserted by the consumer following receipt of information provided under paragraph (a)(1)(vii) of this section.

If you have not reached an determination on the Reg E claim, or wish to pursue the case deeper into the chargeback process, you may file an arbitration chargeback if a MC issuer or file pre-arbitration with the merchant if a VISA issuer. Since it sounds like the cardholder did authorize a purchase with this merchant, processing this as No cardholder authorization MC code 4837 or Fraud, non face to face VISA code 83 would probably not be the way to go. The best chance for success would be to obtain on updated letter from your cardholder stating their side of the story. They must include a detailed description of their effort to resolve with the merchant and the merchant's response. Include any documentation that they have to back up their claim of a single purchase. (If they agreed to a no refund or airline credit only clause in the terms and conditions, then you will not win this claim.) If the cardholder claims that they were not informed of this policy prior to making the purchase, file an arbitration chargeback MC code 4853 - not as described, or file pre-arbitration (VISA) based on code 53 - not as described.

Prior to taking this step examine the cardholder's documentation and the merchant's documentation carefully. If the airline wishes to contest your claim, the case will go to VISA/MasterCard's arbitration committee unless you drop it at that time. The losing side will pay a $150.00 arbitration filing fee and a $250.00 arbitration committee fee.