Thousands charged twice in card glitch

 Thousands of shoppers were charged twice last week when they used their credit and debit cards.

A computer glitch meant a number of card terminals took duplicate payments last Wednesday, admitted Cardnet, which processes card payments in shops and restaurants.

Money came out of bank accounts twice but transactions showed up only once on many shop, pub and restaurant receipts.

Lloyds Banking Group, which jointly owns Cardnet with First Data, said people had been refunded after just under 5 per cent of Cardnet machine transactions were affected.

Most of the affected payments involved Visa debit cards.

Cardnet handles more than 1.2billion transactions every year, according to its website. It claims to “make it easy for merchants to accept card transactions online in person or by phone”.

A spokesman for the firm said: “Cardnet sincerely apologises for the issue and the inconvenience caused. We continue to work closely with all parties to resolve this issue swiftly.”