Takeawaye delivery company charged me twice, wont refund. Do I have any rights?

[Mn12RH]

Hi.

I placed an order online.

I added items to order, went to checkout, put in card details, clicked on the palce order button.
A message came up saying my card was being verified, this took 2 minutes or more to go through.
There was a message saying the order had been placed and gave an estimated delivery time.

The order was delivered and I was sent an email saying the order had been successfully delivered.

Almost 10 minutes later I receive another email saying my order has been successfully delivered.

I went out side and saw another delivery on my doorstep.
I immediately email the company I placed the order with as they had no customer phone number and was sent an automated reply saying it was a mistake and would be refunded.

Days passed but I never got a refund an no human contacted about what to do with the wrong order (which I have since thrown away).
I emailed again and said I haven't received the refund.
This time they replied saying that I had mistakenly placed a second order so they can't refund me.

When the orders were delivered there was a time stamp on the package, roughly 40 seconds apart. I believe this relates to when the orders were accepted.
I can almost say that this was an error with the card verification, as it took a while to go through and the time stamps above were roughly the time when the card was being verified.

As someone who has worked in software development before I can assume that the website tried request payment from the bank, didn't get a response after 30 seconds or so, so retried, and then got verification for both requests so created a second order.

I 100% did not place a second order. But what can I do?
Do I have any rights on this. The order was left on my doorstep, but that is normal now due to covid. Also I did not receive confirmation of either order at point of order, these were sent after the items were delivered.

[R0b]

On its face, it sounds like an error, if you consider the orders to be exactly the same and are spaced 40 seconds apart. If you used a debit card you can initiate a chargeback but there's no guarantee it will be successful. Your other option is likely to be the legal proceedings route, but that depends on whether you are prepared to take it that far.

If the order was placed through a delivery platform like JustEat then you may be able to argue that they are responsible because the transaction process was presumably through their payment system and not the takeaway company. You could then join the takeaway company and the delivery platform as joint defendants but for a nominal amount, it' wouldn't be commercial viable for someone like JustEat to spend more on defending the claim than simply settling it.

[Mn12RH]

On its face, it sounds like an error, if you consider the orders to be exactly the same and are spaced 40 seconds apart. If you used a debit card you can initiate a chargeback but there's no guarantee it will be successful. Your other option is likely to be the legal proceedings route, but that depends on whether you are prepared to take it that far.

If the order was placed through a delivery platform like JustEat then you may be able to argue that they are responsible because the transaction process was presumably through their payment system and not the takeaway company. You could then join the takeaway company and the delivery platform as joint defendants but for a nominal amount, it' wouldn't be commercial viable for someone like JustEat to spend more on defending the claim than simply settling it.

Hi R0b, thank you for replying.

It was through a platform, and I contacted both parties and have received similar response from both.
I would say that the platform is at fault and not the takeway company.

I beleive I should go down the legal route if they refuse to refund, but what is the correct way and does the takeaway company need to be involved?

I was going to email the platform, basically saying that I am asking for the order to be refunded or I will contact my bank and take legal action as taking a second order which was not initiated by me and clearly an error by their system is fraud. Is this the wrong approach.

Also am I allowed to ask for the personal information they have stored on me such as what times the orders were placed, and if any tracking software captured my mouse movements?

[R0b]

It sounds like it might be a platform mistake but ultimately it was the takeaway company who received you the money and presumably a deduction for the platform's commission.

If you want to start the legal process then you will need to send a letter before action to the platform, usually their registered office and you can normally find that information in the terms and conditions. To maximise your chances of being successful, I would also include the takeaway company and ultimately they can counterclaim against the platform if they need to but that's their choice.

If you search the web for how to draft a letter before action, you'll find a wealth of information on how this should be presented. Your claim sounds like it's going to revolve around restitution and/or mistake (worth searching about those legal terms too so you understand what you are claiming). I don't think this is a case of fraud, there has to a deliberate attempt to deceive which doesn't seem to be the case here.

You can make a subject access request to the platform, but I don't know exactly what they could give you, because in terms of tracking, especially if the tracking is recorded anonymously they might not be able to match your tracking with your order purchase. I'd be surprised that the platform would have some kind of mouse tracking software, they might use cookies to track you going from one page to another but that's not the same as tracking your mouse movements. Personally, that's a bit over the top for something like this but it's your dispute so entirely your choice.

If you want any feedback then upload a draft version of the letter and we can comment on it, but please don't just write a short paragraph consisting of 5 lines, you need to give it some thought.