Winn-Dixie Probes Double Charging

Officials at Winn-Dixie have been investigating a malfunction that overcharged an unknown number of shoppers last week at the Jacksonville, Fla.-based grocery chain’s 485 stores.

Credit- and debit-card machines at Winn-Dixie stores charged some shoppers twice for groceries bought Wednesday, one of the nation’s biggest grocery-shopping days. Officials at the grocer said they believe the malfunction was corrected by Friday, the Anniston (Ala.) Star reported. “We have every single team, and I can tell you this, from front-end to finance to customer service – everybody – working on this,” Robin Miller, Winn-Dixie director of communications, told the Star.

The malfunction is believed to be rooted in one of the steps an electronic transaction goes through following a card swipe. Information was slow to compile due to the holiday, and files were still being gathered Friday evening, the company said.

An investigation by the grocer, the processor and the banks hasn’t definitively ruled out the possibility of the system crash being a result of an attack, but Winn-Dixie officials believe it was a communication error, the Star reported.