Dosh dilemma: Rahul paid for his takeaway twice - can he get his money back?

There are few things more frustrating than ordering a takeaway, only to find out your payment hasn't gone through.

That's exactly what happened to Rahul.

He ordered a £25 meal online one Friday evening and entered his card details. But after waiting for the payment to process, an error message appeared saying it hadn't gone through.

So Rahul tried again.

This time, his order was confirmed and his food arrived shortly afterwards.

But when he checked his banking app, he noticed £25 appeared to have been taken from his account twice.

Rahul had only ordered one takeaway, so what had happened to the other £25?

One of the payments was showing as completed, while the other was still pending.

So, has Rahul been charged twice?

Not necessarily.

When you make a card payment, you may initially see a pending transaction while the payment is being processed.

If the first payment failed, that pending transaction may eventually disappear and the money will become available in your account again.

However, if both payments are completed, you may have genuinely been charged twice.

What should Rahul do?

If you notice the same payment twice, you should:

• check your banking app to see whether one payment is pending and the other is completed
• check your order confirmation and receipt to make sure you only placed one order
• give a pending payment some time to see if it disappears.
• contact the takeaway if both payments have gone through and explain that you've been charged twice.
• Contact your bank or card provider if the takeaway says it only received one payment but you've been charged twice.

Keep your receipt, order confirmation and screenshots of the two transactions in case you need to prove what happened.

How can you avoid it happening to you?

If a payment appears to fail, don't immediately keep pressing the pay button.

Instead, check your banking app and emails first. You may find that the payment has actually been authorised or that you've received an order confirmation despite the error message.

And if you do spot two identical transactions, don't automatically assume you've lost the money.

Check whether one is still pending. It could disappear without you having to do anything.

What happened to Rahul?

Fortunately, Rahul didn't end up paying £50 for his £25 takeaway.

The takeaway confirmed it had only received one payment, and after a few days the pending transaction disappeared from his banking app.

So Rahul hadn't actually been charged twice.

But his experience is a useful reminder, if you see the same payment twice, check what's really happened before you panic, and if you've genuinely been charged twice, don't simply write it off.