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Apple Pay hits a glitch: 1000 Bank of America customers are charged twice!

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By Noel Young, Correspondent

October 23, 2014 | 4 min read

It was the sort of bug you dont' want with a new instant payment system. About 1,000 Bank of America debit transactions on Apple ’s new mobile-payment system were mistakenly duplicated, according to CNN Money.

A big surprise on Apple pay

“We apologise for the inconvenience and are correcting this issue immediately and all duplicates will be refunded,” Tara Burke, a spokeswoman for the bank , said in a phone interview with Bloomberg.

The error was attributed to a processing mistake between the bank and at least one payments network.

“We’re aware of a Bank of America issue impacting a very small number of Apple Pay users,” said Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller.

“They’re working on a fix that will be available shortly and reversing any duplicate transactions.”

She said Apple Pay, which debuted Oct. 20, “is off to an amazing start” and that customers have been receptive to it.

On CNN Money a reporter revealed. ”I was among the first people to try out Apple Pay the moment it came available on Monday. It was convenient, fast, and it seemingly worked without incident ... until I logged in and checked my debit card bill.

“As it turns out, I’d been charged twice for every single purchase I’had made with Apple Pay at various stores.”

On Twitter the reporter found many other people had experienced this same problem.

"Problems with #ApplePay - it looks like my @bankofamerica account was double charged by @Walgreens," tweeted fellow Apple Pay user Rohan Thompson.

Many of the other people on Twitter with the same exact problem also mentioned they were using Apple Pay via their Bank of America debit card.

Bank of America assured the reporter it was a problem on Apple Pay's end. "That seemed feasible, because all of the purchases I made without Apple Pay were only charged one time,"" said the CNN reporter.

"Bank of America transferred me to Apple Pay customer support. But Apple's rep reminded me that for security's sake -- as promised -- Apple keeps no records of names or amounts for any of the transactions.

"That meant there's nothing Apple could do, the representative told me. So Apple told me to call Bank of America.

“It was every consumer's worst nightmare: customer service for two companies telling you to call the other.

“Thank God for three-way calling. I got Apple and Bank of America on the same line and let them sort it out.”

"BofA was smart enough to refund me the money, because they said it was obvious to them that these were duplicate charges for the same exact amount.

An Apple spokesman said, "We're aware of a Bank of America issue impacting a very small number of Apple Pay users.

"They're working on a fix that will be available shortly and reversing any duplicate transactions."

A spokeswoman from Bank of America said only about 1,000 transactions were impacted."People should check their bank statements after using #ApplePay," she said.

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