Is it possible to confirm a payment that is not yours on your phone? Yes, if you are unlucky and use Blik, as one of the readers of Niebezpiecznik.pl found out.
Mr. Łukasz, a Niebezpiecznik user, paid with Blik for shopping in a supermarket. After entering the Blik code, he reflexively approved the payment – as it turned out, not his, but a completely unknown person. The transaction details showed a different amount, and the description indicated Pyszne.pl, not a grocery store. How is it possible that the customer paid for a stranger's shopping?
Unlucky Blik transaction
The reader has never used the service to order food, nor has he ever set his browser as trusted to pay faster with Blik. After realizing that there had been a mistake, the customer filed a complaint with the bank (PKO BP), which was rejected due to the correct authorization of the transaction. Pyszne.pl did not provide information, referring Mr. Łukasz to the police, and Blik in response emphasized that it does not store user data and referred the reader to the bank again.
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Is it the fault of the person or the system?
Niebezpiecznik experts attempted to solve the mystery of the PKO BP client. They rejected the hypotheses that the browser was remembered for future Blik payments (Mr. Łukasz never did this) and that the second person was deliberately acting. The idea that two Blik users saw the same code due to a system error also turned out to be unlikely. Blik explains that such a situation is impossible, because the code is assigned to a specific person and bank account, and is valid for 2 minutes . After that time, the same sequence of digits may appear again, but never at the same time for two users.
The cause of the problem turned out to be… human error. You can imagine that at the same time that Mr. Łukasz was shopping in the store, someone in Poland was ordering food on Pyszne.pl and also paying with Blik. Both users generated their (different) codes, but they could be so similar that they differed by literally one digit. In this situation, it is likely that the Pyszne.pl customer simply made a mistake when copying the code, unluckily providing the one generated by Mr. Łukasz.
The Niebezpiecznik reader first received a refusal to pay in the store, and that's no surprise, because his code had already been used for an online order. Only the transaction with the new code was successful, but the customer was not aware that he had approved the wrong transaction the first time.
Blik advises contacting your bank regarding a refund
Blik confirmed in correspondence with the reader that another user entered Mr. Łukasz's code, which was then unfortunately accepted by him. According to the Payment Services Act, in such a case, you can apply to the bank with a request to obtain the data of the person who used someone else's Blik code . This is then not treated as a complaint but as assistance in establishing the identity of such a client. Then Mr. Łukasz will be able to seek a refund from the person who used his Blik code.
Habits are the enemy of safety
Blik is generally a safe system. The codes are 6-digit, single-use, assigned to the customer and valid only for a short time. It is hard to find a case where someone accidentally entered someone else's code and they, unaware of the mistake, accepted the transaction. The key thing in the whole story seems to be that the reader instinctively accepted the Blik transaction. On the one hand, it is hard to blame him, because payments with codes take a bit longer than contactless ones, and haste and ordinary routine could also have played a role here. Despite this, there is no denying that the lack of checking the transaction details on the phone turned out to be extremely unlucky for the customer.
Blik is breaking new popularity records, which criminals are meticulously exploiting. Frauds related to phone transfers or ATM withdrawals are already well-known; the system itself also has its imperfections, as people using “used” phone numbers are discovering. Nevertheless, you can pay with Blik quickly and conveniently, but let's pay attention to what we accept, so as not to lose both money and nerves.
