update: all the charges ended up in my bank account today and overdrafted it and incurred fees. now have to wait days for the refunds to take effect and more days to put them back in my bank account.
App Store agents have told me this is now a known issue and Apple is investigating the specific causes. So far they can only blame an overload in their automated payment system from all the Lion downloads...
app store agent email selection:
"Please know that your email was escalated to myself because I have been dealing with concerns such as yours and I hope that I will be able to explain to you, to the best of my abilities what has occurred.
As you can imagine, with the launch of the new OS X Lion, our system has experienced a higher than normal volume of traffic. This has caused some irregularities within the Mac App Store, including with our automated billing system. Please know that Apple is aware of the issue and is currently working towards a resolution.
While I wish that I could provide further details in this regard, please understand that Apple has a team of engineers dedicated to resolving the issue. Any developments in their investigation, along with any actions they might take, will not involve me directly. As such, I'm not able to provide any specific updates. I apologize for any inconvenience and hope to have your understanding in that regards."