By FAY SIMMONS

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

ROYAL Bank of Canada (RBC) last night pledged it is “working diligently” to reverse payments where customers were charged double for the same transaction.

Andrew Knowles, RBC’s senior manager for corporate communications, told Tribune Business that it experienced a ‘“technical issue” which caused some clients to incur duplicate transactions where the same payment was made twice. The commercial bank is now working to reverse these transactions as soon as possible.

He said: “We experienced a technical issue on March 7, 2024, which resulted in some client transactions being duplicated. Our teams are continuing to work diligently to reverse any duplicate transactions and reflect accurate account balances as quickly as possible.

“We apologise for the inconvenience and thank clients for their patience while we resolve this issue. We encourage our clients to contact us directly with any questions or concerns.”

Multiple RBC consumers went on social media to voice their concerns and warn other consumers about the double charges. One user said that all of their recently-cleared charges were debited again and advised other consumers to check their accounts and contact the bank if they see duplicate charges.

“If you bank with RBC, please check your accounts and contact them. (For me) all recent charges that were cleared (debited) this week were debited again last night...so double debits. This is not the matter of holds not falling off and need to be manually released, and involves multiple local and international vendors,” one social media user said.

“The funds were actually debited. The system seemed to have had a glitch last night as it took quite long to log on also. From lingering holds...to certain merchants being blocked on cards (that you have to call in for a 12-hour temporary block released when doing the transaction...to double debits...heads should be rolling in IT, process change management, client services and the like!!!”

Other users said their funds were refunded throughout yesterday, while others said that they were assured their accounts would be credited over the coming days.