A Milton woman is among Westpac customers left fuming following a banking glitch on Christmas Eve.
The woman, who asked not to be named, told the Otago Daily Times the fault pushed her account into overdraft after her Westpac payWave card was charged twice for a $181 grocery bill in Balclutha.
She phoned Westpac after noticing the problem and said she was told the fault would be rectified, and the extra money refunded, overnight.
Instead, nearly a week later, she was still waiting for the money to be returned to her account, although Westpac staff were now hoping to do so today.
The glitch left the Milton customer upset and threatening to swap banks.
"Why have they not informed their customers?
"And why do they think it's OK to make customers wait for their own money to be returned?
"This is getting ridiculous,'' the woman said.
Her complaint was echoed by several other customers who took to Westpac's Facebook page to vent their frustration over similar problems on Christmas Eve.
A Westpac spokesman said yesterday when contacted the problem was experienced by "a small number'' of customers and was not specific to payWave.
The glitch related to a "slower than normal response time at the point of sale'' on Christmas Eve, which lasted "a couple of hours'' but happened again intermittently until the problem was fixed, he said.
During that time, "some purchases may have been charged more than once to an account while it was being rectified'', he said.
"Those accounts are in the process of being corrected and we apologise to customers for any inconvenience.''
Questions about exactly how many customers were affected, and the sums involved, were not answered yesterday.
The outstanding money was expected to be refunded "over the next day or so'', the spokesman said.
