It’s not yet clear exactly how many shoppers were impacted by the technical issue, which meant that multiple payments had been authorised when paying in store. Tesco has confirmed the error has taken place nationwide, and may have affected shoppers in its various types of store, from Express to Metro. However, the technical error is not believed to have been an issue with online shopping.

A host of shoppers have taken to social media to complain not only about having been charged twice, but also how long it has taken to get the money back into their account. Those who were overcharged said that they had seen an error message when attempting to use their card to pay, before a second attempt then went through.

You will get your money back

Importantly, you will get your money back, even though it might not happen as quickly as you might like.

Tesco will be reversing duplicate transactions automatically, so you shouldn’t need to do anything in order to get your refund. That said, it’s well worth keeping an eye on your bank or credit card account to make sure that the money does appear as promised.

If being overcharged has led to further financial issues ‒ for example pushing you into an overdraft that you’re being charged for ‒ then it’s well worth complaining to Tesco and asking them to put things right by at least covering those overdraft charges.

What Tesco have said

A Tesco spokesperson said: “Due to a technical error some customer card payments have been authorised more than once. We’re sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused, and we want to reassure affected customers that they will only pay for their purchases once and any duplicate transactions will be reversed.”

The Tesco issues follow a glitch at Co-op and Morrisons stores last month which saw shoppers urged to use cash as payments were not going through properly.