321811 - Duplicate transactions complete when browser back button is used

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Wayne A Schulz]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8b5) Gecko/20051006 Firefox/1.4.1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8b5) Gecko/20051006 Firefox/1.4.1

This has happened a few times and is somewhat dangerous.  You complete an online purchase, enter CC information and such, your transaction completes.  You then start doing something else on another tab.  Later, sometimes hours later.  You are back on the tab that had your online purchase and you press the back button on the browser.  Your financial information is resent and a duplicate transaction occurs.  Not really a big one, but it depends on the dollar amount.  This happened on my mortgage and I wound up making two $1600 payments in a matter of hours and the mortgage company just applied the extra to the principal.  I have had this happen with various web sites and various processors, from Paypal to LinkPoint.  IE doesn't do this.  Once the transaction is sent and you have received the confirmation code from the online whatever you are not able to press the back button and have the transaction sent again.  Firefox will let you toggle back and forth between the "confirm this transaction or submit" page and the "confirmation" page and each time you toggle you have another transaction.    

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[OstGote!]

Dupe of Bug 294775? See also the bugs from bug 288462.

Btw, please upgrade to FF 1.5 final.

Comment 2

[David Weston]

I am using FireFix version 1.5.0.1 and have had this problem of duplicate transactions occur three times in the last month. However, I don't recall hitting the BACK button after I made my purchase. In fact, I frequently make purchases on Amazon and frequently hit the BACK button afterwards and have not been duplicate charged. Therefore, the problem must be due to both the FireFox browser and the vendor website. I encourage FireFox to work on this problem. Here are websites where I have been duplicate charged: http://www.rd.com/customercarecenter and https://transaction.e-press.com/products.asp.

Comment 3

[Steve England [:stevee]]

Reporter, do you still see this problem with the latest Firefox 2? If not, can you please close this bug as WORKSFORME. Thanks!

Comment 4

[Ellen Groff]

Yes this still happens in Firefox 2. It has been very annoying on a game web site. It doesn't seem to happen for the first 10-20 minutes you're on Firefox, but if you stay on very long, every transaction gets duplicated when you press the back button.

Since for game play I do a lot of "click -> back button -> click" to make multiple purchases, or "click -> back button -> back button" to make a single purchase and return the listing of items. It is very annoying to have it purchase twice what I purchased.

The only way to fix it is to close Firefox and re-open all the tabs after to get back to where I was.

Scary that it is happening on real internet visa purchases!!! I usually log off and close the tab after making a purchase so I haven't gotten caught by this for real, just in games. 

I'm now playing on Opera until this gets fixed. What a pain.

Comment 5

[Ellen Groff]

Safe way to test this is to set up an account at a game site, such as Rescreatu http://www.rescreatu.com?refer=49940, get a little of the local tu free from games, Make sure you have been running around various sites on Firefox for about 1/2 hour, then try to buy one item from shops on the shop list, or a user shop, press the back button or follow the windows to confirm returning to the shop, then check your inventory, and you will find two of the items.

Comment 6

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

Does this happen in Firefox 3.0.10 or later in a new profile?

Comment 7

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

No reply, INCOMPLETE. Please report back with the above steps.