Time limit for funds to be released

spaceman5

just a quick querry, on saturday i tried purchasing a wii fit from toys r us, i used one of those wii fit stock checker websites, anyway by the tie i had put in all my details it had gone out of stock, anyway with in a space of an hour, they had stock in about 8 times, soi tried ordering it 8 times, each time to be told there was no stock, ok i thought, at least no money has come out of my account, anyway i check my bank account(llyods tsb) to find my available funds have shrunk by £600, so can only assume that every tim i requested to order toys r us asked for the funds, :eek:, anyway i emailed toys r us straightwawy, and there reply was that they will not actually ask for the funds, and the money will go back in my account, after there original funds request has timed out, so what i really want to know is, does anybody know what the time limit is that companies get to ask for funds that have been set aside for them particuly with llyods tsb as i am sure all banks are different, TIA Dave

rb10

It sounds like they have placed an 'Authorisation' on your account to debit funds. These will usually drop off your account after around 4-5 working days - but remember this excludes Christmas Day & Boxing Day, so it would be middle to end of next week.

If the reduction in available balance means, for example, Lloyds won't let you withdraw cash, the authorisation should be able to be removed. However, only Toys R Us are able to request this. So, Toys R Us would have to send a fax to Lloyds requesting for the authorisation removed.

Mikeyorks

It's about 7 working days before the Bank software gives up on the debits failing to materialise and returning the funds to 'available'. So that's 10 elapsed days ... and likely made worse by the Christmas break.

Toys r Us should be able to negate the transactions via their 'acquirer' who handles their card data. Exceptionally (and it would be) the Bank might be prepared to do it on the basis of multiple same value transactions from the same source + sight of the Email?