Wegmans double-charge affected some debit card transactions as well as credit card users

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — On Thursday, News10NBC reported that shoppers who used a credit card at any Wegmans store on Wednesday, Aug. 16, may have been charged for the same purchase. We have now learned it’s not only credit card customers who may have been impacted by the error.

When Wegmans first confirmed this issue to us late Thursday afternoon, a spokeswoman said debit card customers were not impacted. But then we started hearing from many of you who used a debit card on Wednesday at a Wegmans, checked your accounts, and did find two identical withdrawals from the company.

The spokeswoman today clarified in a statement: “Customers who swipe their debit card, select debit and use their PIN number were not impacted. But those who swiped their debit card, then chose credit at the terminal, would have been impacted.”

A number of the debit card customers who were impacted that I spoke with say they “tapped” to pay — which is a somewhat new option that Wegmans has been offering.

Ruth Siegfried was one of them — and although it’s not a major issue for her, she wonders about those who live paycheck to paycheck.

“It’s still hitting my bank account like a regular debit card transaction, so what if I was a person who did that — ya know, I have extra in my account, I have a line of credit on my checking account, but not everybody has that. I only bought $59 worth of groceries that day … people go in there, the guy before me had — I don’t know what he was buying for, but they loaded carts,” Siegfried said.

I asked Wegmans whether its card processor would cover any fees associated with overdraws, if a customer can prove it was a direct result of this error. I’m waiting to hear back.

Wegmans did say that they expect the problem to be corrected for all customers impacted in the next few days.