Sumup app Taxi Scam?

M

MickFarr

Registered User
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31
Hi,

Last night I went to pay for my taxi ride using the contactless payment reader the taxi driver had. It was a Sumup card reader. Transaction went through fine and it popped up on my phone saying transaction completed successfully. A minute later the taxi driver showed me his reader saying the payment was declined.

I checked again and it was showing as completed successfully. So I asked him for a print out of the declined payment which he couldn't give me. He asked for cash but I wouldn't give it to him unless he could give produce a declined payment receipt as the transaction had completed successfully. I also checked the bank app and it was showing up in my recent transactions. I gave him my details and took his details too.

Declined payments are payments that haven't been processed for various reasons but this payment did go through successfully? The app he showed me on his phone showing the declined payment could be any simple app written by a junior programmer. Pressing on the declined payment details button only said "cannot connect, please try again". Very simple app to fool the customer. Has this happened to anyone?
 
Might not necessarily be a scam.

Just because your bank did approve the transaction does not mean the merchant acquirer (i.e. SumUp) will also approve the transaction on their side.

It might very well be that SumUp decided to decline processing the payment even if your bank decided to approve the transaction based on their own risk analysis and payment parameters.

In a few days either the pending authorization on your card will either be reverted if SumUp really declined processing in which case you owe the taxi driver some money (and an apology) or it will finalize in which case indeed there is indeed an issue and you can get a confirmation from your bank that you can share with the taxi driver.

Just because your bank said "OK" does not mean that the money actually reached the person accepting your card payment, it's a pre-authorization, the final charge either comes soon or the pre-authorization will drop off (some banks in 3 days, and some keep those for 21 days).
 
Very unlikely to be a scam as you would have had the taxi plate number and could easily report him.

Generally scammers are anonymous.

Brendan
 
Sumup did processed the payment and took the money from the bank account and yes it's still gone from my bank account.

Most scammers are not anonymous, they like to take advantage of any situation
 
Brendan Burgess said:
So are you going to report him to the Carriage Office?
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No, I'm going to contact Sumup and give them the transaction number and any other details they require.

You would assume that the Sumup app would give you some details as to why a transaction was refused. This app had no information at all which is why I find it very odd. Remember the money was taken from the bank, there is a time stamp on the sequence of events to take the money from the account.
 
DublinTexas said:
Might not necessarily be a scam.

Just because your bank did approve the transaction does not mean the merchant acquirer (i.e. SumUp) will also approve the transaction on their side.

It might very well be that SumUp decided to decline processing the payment even if your bank decided to approve the transaction based on their own risk analysis and payment parameters.

In a few days either the pending authorization on your card will either be reverted if SumUp really declined processing in which case you owe the taxi driver some money (and an apology) or it will finalize in which case indeed there is indeed an issue and you can get a confirmation from your bank that you can share with the taxi driver.

Just because your bank said "OK" does not mean that the money actually reached the person accepting your card payment, it's a pre-authorization, the final charge either comes soon or the pre-authorization will drop off (some banks in 3 days, and some keep those for 21 days).
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He would hardly owe the taxi driver an apology. For what? They exchanged details in case the payment didn’t go through but it looked like it did.
 
Gordon Gekko said:
He would hardly owe the taxi driver an apology. For what? They exchanged details in case the payment didn’t go through but it looked like it did.
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Yes details were exchange. Not sure what DublinTexas expects in a situation like that, keep paying?
 
Happened to me last Wednesday. Got home in the taxi at midnight, paid through sum-up with the device the driver had. It popped up in my AIB app immediately. The driver was unsure the money had gone through, but I showed him my phone briefly showing that the payment had gone through. He was unable to get the device to print a receipt for me.

When I got indoors he was still on the road parked so I was not surprised 5 mins later when he knocked on the door saying he could not see the transaction had gone through and could I check my banking app again. Not a problem on my part and the notification came up reversed transaction. So I tried to pay again, but his device was not co-operating, and I had no cash and he did not have Revolut. Eventually I suggested rebooting the device and it worked perfectly.

My alternative was to take his contact details, give him mine and try to pay again the following day.

But I got two notifications on the AIB app, one with the payment and one with the reversal.
 
This sounds exactly like my situation. I did exactly as you did and we exchanged details.

Just checked again and its still gone gone from my account. I'll be checking with Sumup and Bank of Ireland tomorrow to see what's up?
 
This reminds me a bit of a common scam with rental cars in Malta.

The operators really want you to pay with cash so when you make a chip and PIN payment with the card they take the device back as it is processing and hit cancel without you noticing. Then they show you the receipt saying 'transaction not processed' and say there is something wrong with your card/their machine/internet/etc and off you go to withdraw the cash from an ATM.

Could it be that the taxi driver was trying to pull this one but you were too fast with the banking app approval?
 
MickFarr said:
Yes details were exchange. Not sure what DublinTexas expects in a situation like that, keep paying?
Click to expand...

What would you do if this happend in a store, walk out with the goods because you "paid"?

You did not pay if the money never gets into the driver's account because SumUp did not process the transaction, it's your responsibility to pay the driver.

You take his details; get a taxi meter receipt and you pay the driver and then you go into your bank for a disputed charge if the authorization does not dropp off after whatever your bank has as appropriate expiry days.

And if it does not dropp off then you complain to the regulator and the guards because he defrauded you. But I hardly think a driver in a licensed car of which you have the details including a receipt will try to scam a local customer for a few €. Plus, if the driver gets a few disputed charges, he might even lose his SumUp account which would be a nightmare for them.

But maybe the drivers in your local area are different than the ones I get here.

Money being authorized on your account does not mean the person you are trying to pay actually gets the money if they have a declined on their terminal.

But hopefully either the charge is processed again by SumUp (which can happen depending on the merchant agreement the driver has) or it drops off your account.
 
Also, next time you pay with SumUp, ask the shop to send you an electronic receipt to an e-mail or sms. even the taxi driver can do it if the payment is successful, now obviously use a privacy e-mail so that it's seperate in case of data breach.

On the bottom of the receipt there is a link to "receipt settings" which allows you to turn on electronic receipt for any transaction you do with that card on SumUp (shops/online/card reader) and you get a full receipt if the transaction is successful and even denied.

That way you even have the transaction ID and authorization code plus a handy receipt of all your spending.
 
Very strange? It was actually refunded by the taxi driver an hour later?

Processed at 20:59
Refunded at 22:01
 
Here's the 2 transactions, the completed transaction and the refund transactions.

If it didn't go through there would be no refund.

Bank of Ireland also confirmed that the payment was successfully made and later refunded
 

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DublinTexas said:
What would you do if this happend in a store, walk out with the goods because you "paid"?
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It's not remotely the same.

Most shops would have proper terminals which match the transaction on the phone.

I always think of sumup as a bit Micky Mouse. Can the taxi driver not have a more reliable way of getting paid by credit card?
 
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