I have several services which I pay for online using my debit card. I give them the card number and they deduct the payment once per month.

I understand that people make mistakes but I've been double billed in the last two months, from two different companies. What usually happens is that I get an email notice letting me know that the invoice has been generated, then later on, another email letting me know the card has been charged.

Both times, I just happened to notice the double billing when viewing my online debit card statement. When I logged into account from the company that double billed me, only one charge showed up in the billing history, and the other charge was nowhere to be found. When I went back though the emails, they had two different invoice numbers on them.

Pretty nifty scam, huh? I wonder how many people don't notice? Does this happen to you?

Here's hoping you sort that one out! Debit cards are especially dangerous to use online.

The only things I pay for online are netflix, my hosting and domains once a year. Paypal, or Ebay sold me two packs of nibs for my bamboo when all I wanted was one. But they were cheap and I can use them. Fortunately they didn't try to sell me two of the laptop my wife bought. Grrr, all she does is email and haunt facebook and hers will be better than mine.

Not been double billed but brought a fairly expensive item from a fairly well known Uk Brand, and was charged even though the item wasn't in stock, about four weeks later I'm then trying to cancel the order and get my money refunded.

Might not seem much but alot of interest could be earned on just keeping peoples money for a little while.

My banking institution automatically blocks multiple charges from the same creditor within a 30 day period and contacts me if there are any such attempts or any other suspicious charges. All institutions used to do this. Now most have gone to consumer disputes and chargebacks as opposed to genuinely caring about their customers.

Take care to avoid a triple scam
someone ,with the best credentials contacting to apologize and with the most convincing excuses , even more convincing because known information that only your bank (or the previous trickster ) may know

and will the excuses will be offer some refund

only problem the informations asked in almost casual tone, to speed up the accredit of the refund (no nothing so obviously alarming as asking your PW ! ),combined with that somehow obtained before to make the first scam will be sufficient for a third attack

I heard this happening so be watchful

P.S.
the point and the risk is that you have all the reasons to expect a contact after you report a error
so in case the suggestion is to really double check the authenticity of the message

Some banks can provide you with a throw-away credit card number (for a small fee), valid for only one transaction.

I'm not really too worried about using the debit card online because there's never much money in that account anyway. I have low daily purchase limits on the debit card, as well.

The first time I bought from Amazon, my card info was stolen. I noticed new purchases (I didn't make) appear on my card the day after I purchased from Amazon. I contacted the bank and the bogus charges were reversed. My card info was stolen once before when an online retailer had their server hacked. I've been double charged lots of times, especially over the last couple of years. I think this "double billing" scam is growing. I'll bet a significant percentage of double charges go unnoticed.

I guess the lesson I take away for all this is that one should not be afraid of purchasing online, just be sure to regularly check your online credit/debit card account, pretty much on a daily basis, to avoid getting scammed.

On a related note: In a previous job, one of my duties was to act as a purchasing agent. I received 4 or 5 invoices a month from companies that we didn't do business with. The scam was to send out as many official looking invoices as possible, to as many companies as possible, knowing that some percentage of those invoices would summarily be paid.

Other then my cellphone bill and those bills like it, I don't use my debit card directly; I use paypal so I can pull the plug faster then grease lightening should that be necessary. Hope you do figure out what's going on with you situation Tux.

I also use paypal, and I do not have it connected to the bank, but to a credit card. Hopefully that is a double layer that a scam would have to go through. Paypay and the credit card send immediate alerts when any purchases are made, so I can contact them right away if I didn't make the purchase. So far I have been very lucky and not been involved in any untoward charges.