The £1,599 bunch of bananas: the dangers of the contactless revolution

A trip to the local shop cost one reader a fortune after she was wrongly charged £1,599 for a bunch of bananas that was priced at £1.

Cymbre Barnes, 28, from London, had to leave without a refund when she spent £1,602 on £4 worth of shopping at a small Marks & Spencer. Ms Barnes paid by tapping her phone on the card reader with Apple Pay, which has no limit on the amount you can spend.

“I was in a rush before work so when I got to self- checkout I used contactless and it was instant,” she said. “I did a double-take when I saw the screen but by then my receipt was already being printed. It was too late.”

Ms Barnes was told she could not get a refund because the only till in the shop was broken and would not be fixed for another week. “I had to walk 45 minutes to the next nearest M&S to get my money back,” she said.

A spokesman for the retailer said: “There has been huge innovation in contactless payment options and we’ve had great feedback from customers. This was an isolated payment error, for which we’ve apologised to the customer and offered compensation.”

Unlike with contactless payments, there is no limit to how much you can spend with Apple Pay. The ease of transactions can mean shoppers fall foul of mispricing, a technical glitch or fraud.

Rishi Sunak, the Chann- cellor, announced in this his month’s Budget that the limit on contactless payments would rise from om £45 to £ 100 later this year, reflecting how the pandemic had accelerated the move away from physical cash.

Ian Johnson of Marqeta, a cardissuing company, said digital wallets such as Apple Pay were typically still more secure than contactless cards because they were protected by a mobile phone’s biometric security system. Users typically verify their identity with a thumbprint or face scan.

Mr Johnson said the £100 limit was a “big issue” as it made it significantly easier for fraudsters to spend large sums of money on lost or stolen cards in one swoop.

Sarah Pennells of Royal London, said retailers and banks should make improvements to security before the higher limit came in.