For: Prommt account administrators and operations teams investigating duplicate charges.
What happened
A duplicate payment occurs when a customer is charged twice against a single Prommt payment request. You will typically notice this because:
Your payment gateway portal or bank statement shows two successful transactions for the same amount
Your Prommt dashboard shows only one payment request for that customer
The customer has contacted you to report being charged twice
Both charges are real — the customer's card has been debited twice. However, your team only sent one payment request. This is not an error on Prommt's part or your team's — it is a rare edge case caused by customer behaviour at the checkout.
Why it happens
When a customer opens a Prommt payment link, they land on a secure checkout page. Normally they pay once, the checkout confirms the payment, and the link closes.
A duplicate happens when a customer opens the same payment link in two browser tabs at the same time and submits payment in both tabs before the first payment has finished processing. Because both payments are submitted almost simultaneously, the second payment goes through in the very brief window before the first payment closes the link.
This is rare and is not caused by:
Your team sending two payment requests (if only one request appears in Prommt, only one was sent)
A fault with Prommt
A fault with your payment gateway
How to check if this is what happened
Go to View Payments in your Prommt dashboard and find the payment request in question
Confirm only one payment request was sent to this customer for this amount — if two requests appear, two requests were sent and this is not a duplicate
Log into your payment gateway portal and look up the transactions for this customer around the same date and time
If you see two successful transactions for the same amount within seconds of each other, this confirms a duplicate payment
What to do
Step 1 — Confirm the duplicate
Follow the steps above to confirm that only one payment request was sent and two charges have been processed. Do not issue a refund until you have confirmed this.
Step 2 — Refund the duplicate charge via your payment gateway
The customer is owed a refund for the second charge. Issue the refund directly through your payment gateway portal — not through Prommt.
Refunding via the gateway is the correct approach for duplicate payments. Issuing a refund through Prommt creates an additional transaction record against the payment request, which affects your reporting — your Prommt dashboard will show a refund against a request that only ever showed one payment, making reconciliation harder to follow.
To issue the refund:
Log into your payment gateway portal (Adyen Customer Area, FreedomPay Merchant Portal, or your gateway equivalent)
Locate the duplicate transaction — find the second charge by searching for the customer's card, the transaction amount, or the timestamp. The two transactions will appear within seconds of each other
Select the duplicate transaction and initiate a full refund through the gateway interface
The refund will be returned to the customer's card — typically within 3–5 working days, depending on their bank
If you are unsure how to issue a refund in your specific gateway portal, contact your gateway provider directly for guidance.
If you cannot access your gateway portal and the refund needs to be processed immediately, you can use Prommt as a fallback:
Go to View Payments and open the payment request
Click Refund
Enter the amount of the duplicate charge — this is the same as the original payment amount
Review the details and click Confirm Refund
Note that using the Prommt refund route will update the payment request status to Partially Refunded, which may require a manual note in your reconciliation records to explain the discrepancy.
Refunds are irreversible once issued by either route. Confirm the correct transaction and amount before proceeding.
Step 3 — Inform the customer
Let the customer know what happened and that a refund has been processed. A brief message is sufficient — for example:
"We can see that your payment was processed twice due to the link being opened in two browser windows at the same time. We've issued a full refund of [amount] to your card, which should appear within 3–5 working days. We're sorry for the inconvenience."
What success looks like
The payment request in View Payments shows a status of Partially Refunded (if you refunded the duplicate amount) or Refunded once the refund is processed. The customer receives the refunded amount back to their card within the standard processing window for their bank.
Troubleshooting
The payment request in Prommt shows as Paid but I can only see one transaction in the gateway, not two. This is not a duplicate — check with the customer to confirm they have definitely been charged twice (ask them to share their bank or card statement). A single transaction in both Prommt and the gateway means only one charge was taken.
I can see two payment requests in Prommt for the same customer. This means your team sent two payment requests, not one. This is not a duplicate in the technical sense — two requests were sent and two payments were collected. If only one payment was intended, refund the second using the same steps above. Consider cancelling open payment requests before resending to avoid this in future.
The customer says they were charged twice but I can't see it in Prommt or the gateway yet. There can be a short delay between a payment processing and it appearing in your dashboard or gateway portal. Wait 30 minutes and check again. If it still isn't showing, contact Prommt Support with the customer's name and the approximate time of payment.
This has happened more than once on our account. Isolated duplicate payments are rare and are not a sign of a wider problem. If you are seeing duplicate charges regularly across multiple customers, contact Prommt Support — include the payment references and dates for each occurrence.