Nationwide said 704,426 of the society's four million current account holders had been affected, of which fewer than 50,000 are thought to have been adversely impacted, by wrongly incurring charges or fees.
Leigh O'Riordan said that he had paid for his annual rail season ticket from Billericay in Essex to London, at a cost of £3,422, but he found the payment had been taken out twice.
"In my case, this means I now do not have access to my money," he told the BBC website.
"It took me a while to get through to Nationwide, but they were very good and they apologised."
The blunder will come as a blow to a building society which has successfully marked itself out as offering something different from the scandal-hit big banks.
Nationwide said earlier this month that it had seen a 45pc increase in people transferring their main account to the society, including branch, online and telephone applications.
A statement issued by Nationwide said: "We have identified an issue where some current account card transactions made on July 24 were duplicated on July 25.
"This is a one-off isolated incident and is down to human error. The duplicated transactions will be corrected overnight.
"We would like to apologise for the inconvenience this has caused and we can assure customers that should they incur any related charges these will be refunded in full."
Richard Lloyd, executive director of consumer body Which?, said: "This again raises wider questions about how robust banks' systems and safeguards are as consumers bear the brunt of yet another banking glitch."
NatWest has become the second financial institution to report technical problems with its systems today after up to 2m Nationwide transactions were duplicated.
NatWest said on its Twitter feed: "Some customers may have issues with their online banking and using their debit cards at the moment. Working as hard as we can to resolve. We'll post updates as soon as we have more information."
Cash machine withdrawals using debit cards are also affected, the bank added.
Earlier in the summer the bank suffered a major systems collapse when millions of customers were unable to check their balances, withdraw cash or make payments. NatWest promised that no customers would be left out of pocket as a result of the technology problems.
Today customers of Nationwide, the country's biggest building society, said around 704,000 customers were affected by an apparent technical problem with the mutual's payment systems.
The building society confirmed that there was an "issue" with debits from accounts. It said on Twitter: "An issue with debit card transactions is affecting some customers. Sorry, accounts will be corrected."
Later it added: "Some debit card transactions made on Tuesday were taken again on Wednesday. We would like to apologise for any inconvenience this may cause. We’re working hard and payments will be corrected overnight. We assure you that any related charges will be refunded in full."
One Nationwide customer said: "I noticed that a large debit for my home insurance had gone through twice – once on the 24th and then again the next day. Not great as it was nearly £300. At first I thought it was the insurance company, so I rang them, but they could only see the one transaction.
"Then I rang Nationwide and the call centre confirmed that there was a problem between them and Visa and up to 2m transactions were affected."
One customer tweeted in response to NatWest's message: "Please tell me this is a bad joke?"
Nationwide has moved to quash rumours that a technical glitch that has caused debit card transactions to be debited twice is on the scale of the NatWest systems failure last month. It blamed "human error" and has apologised to customers.
The glitch is an embarrassment to the UK's biggest building society given that it was quick to jump on the bandwagon when NatWest's systems went into meltdown and Barclays was rocked by the Libor scandal at the end of last month. It went on an advertising spree that boasted: "Nationwide. On your side. If you're think of switching, why not talk to us today."
The following questions and answers should help put affected customers' minds at rest.
Who does the technical glitch affect?
It affects 704,000 current account card holders who made transactions on July 24 - some 50,000 will be adversely impacted.
What happened?
According to Nationwide it was "human error" which saw the "batch" of Visa transactions it received late last night put through twice – hence the duplication of payments today.
When will I get my money back?
The duplicated transactions will be corrected overnight so you should see refunds in your account tomorrow.
Will I be charged if any payments have bounced as a result?
No. Nationwide stressed that no charges would be levied on affected customers.
What happens if my mortgage payment has been rejected because there were insufficient funds in my account?
You should contact the society immediately. It said it would rectify the situation and ensure that your credit file was not affected.
What is Nationwide doing to ensure that this doesn't happen again?
It said it was reviewing its processes as a matter of urgency.
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