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Why does this happen?

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Hi all,

I have a question about debit cards and buying online.
I have a Barclays current account and a connect debit card. Sometimes, not all the time when i purchase goods online before they even take the money for the item they take say £1 out of my account which usually goes back in after about a week.
Tesco for example if i do online shopping to be delivered in a few days will always take £2 out of my bank account straight away, even though my shopping may not be coming for a few days. It seems a week later the £2 re-appears.
Monday i ordered some DVD's from Asda online and now 1p has disappeared from my account and i ordered one from play.com who took £1. So now i have £1 1p missing.
It does not worry me at all i just find it very strange.
Why do some companies do this.?

Comments

  • McKneff
    McKneff Posts: 38,857 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    i have never heard of this. Maybe they do a test run to see if the account actually exists before going the whole hog,
    Funnily enough, just last week my new isa was live and i did just that,
    i sent a test £1 just to make sure it was going to go through okay before i
    transferred a large lump sum.
    make the most of it, we are only here for the weekend.
    and we will never, ever return.
  • 456789
    456789 Posts: 2,305 Forumite
    1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    seems strange that they do it every time :S
  • MPH80
    MPH80 Posts: 973 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    It's called a pre-auth. It used to be something that was just done by hotels - e.g. you arrive and they pre-auth £50 against the account for expenses to give you some credit at the hotel.

    Now the online industry has started using this. Tesco, for example, will use it to check the validity of the card in advance so that when they do deliver your groceries and charge your card - there's a higher chance of it being valid.

    If they don't do the pre-auth - they won't know until they are about to dispatch that the card is ok and by that time - they'll have put your groceries in the van. Of course - there's a chance that if a fraudster is using your card then between pre-auth and charge - the card has been stopped - but it lowers the chance of rejection.

    M.
  • Sharon87
    Sharon87 Posts: 4,011 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    When I hired my gown for my Graduation they done this. I didn't know about it so I phoned Halifax asking what it was. They told me it was this American company with the word 'Secure' in it (can't remember the actual name). They told me about how they usually take money for online transactions then credit it back. This was the first time I had used that card for online transactions, so I thought 'fair enough'. It's weird how they're doing it everytime to the OP.
  • It's not everytime i use my card online it happens, most of the time it's fine. It just seems to be certain companies.

    Tesco always do it and nine times out of 10 so do play.com. Thought it a bit strange that Asda would take 1p though, it's usually £1 or £2 in Tesco's case.
  • MPH80
    MPH80 Posts: 973 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    It's just a low amount to test the card - that's all. Asda have probably taken the "lets not impact our customers as much as possible but still validate the card" approach.

    Think about it this way - if Tesco reserved (say) £20 on your debit card each time you shopped - you might get rather annoyed if your mortgage payment bounced because of it. £1/£2 is ok though (and unlikely to cause a problem) - but 1p is better!

    It really depends on the payment model. A company which takes the card details where they aren't going to charge the card until a future date are more likely to pre-auth. A company which takes payment immediately won't bother.
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