Debit card holding amount - online shopping

lynzpower

Similar thing happened to me at a hotel recently. I wasnt even paying for the room, but they held 250. It was fine in the end , I wanst at the end of the month skintstage, but I was so :eek: when I saw there was 250 *missing* in my account.

Didnt half baffle our freinds in INdia though, they kept telling me Id overspent and it was my own fault Grrrr :mad:

lynzpower

Make a formal complaint to their merchant bank.

Its very unclear why theyve held payment TWICE

milliejon

That'll be worth it if they ever get in touch to let me know who their banker is.

They haven't responded to my complaint yet (although it is the weekend - so they may be forgiven a little).

---lee---

milliejon wrote:

Thanks for this Lee. Just one question. What happens after 7 days if the reserved amount isn't collected? Does it just clear?

Yes, the bank releases the reservation automatically.

milliejon

Lee - you've been really helpful. Thank you. Surely this can't be right though, without notifying you that they will do it.

---lee---

milliejon wrote:

Lee - you've been really helpful. Thank you. Surely this can't be right though, without notifying you that they will do it.

No, I don't think it's right - the merchant or the merchants systems have made an error.

There are basically two ways of collecting money from a card (aside from continuous payments which don’t apply to this).

1) You can authorise the amount and collect any amount upto the authorised amount within 7 days.

2) You can authorise the amount and do the submit at the same time which debits the amount immediately.

In normal face-to-face transactions, method 2 would tend to be used for small businesses as it’s the most straightforward. i.e. you buy a CD in a shop and pay with your card. You have the goods so the merchant takes the money immediately. This type of system is normally integrated with the till.

Larger companies tend to use systems which are server based and would use a combination of methods 1 and 2. For accounting and security purposes… and of course to reduce costs, they may choose to authorise transactions immediately but collect all the money overnight in batch. This is common practise as it allows errors to be corrected before the actual money is collected.

Where online (and mail order) transactions are concerned, it’s best practise not to take the money until the goods are dispatched (mandatory in the states). In your case, Asda know that they cannot guarantee to supply you with all the goods that you’ve ordered, so they authorise for the maximum sale amount and wait until they dispatch the goods before collecting the real amount.

In this case, my guess would be that something went wrong somewhere along the line and they have ended up not debiting against the authorised transaction and instead started a new transaction. This means that when you complained, they have cancelled the original authorised transaction. Or they may have decided to leave it as it is and wait for it to be automatically released when the 7 days are up. That would explain why they told you it would take 3 days. As far as I’m aware, cancellation of an authorisation is instant.

I would complain to Asda and ask for a full explanation. Clearly, something has gone wrong with their systems somewhere along the line.

milliejon

Thanks again Lee. This is really useful and will help with my complaint to Asda.

I thought that they were probably waiting for the 7 days to comes before raising the hold. That's a bit cheeky I think.

Thanks again for your help.

I think I'll actually take the time to put the complaint in writing.

milliejon

Just a quick update. I haven't heard from Asda regarding my email complaint (although they say it will usually take 48 hours), so I'm definately going to write a letter to their head office.

I'll let you know how I get on.

Iwantmorecash

you notice this if you use the pay at pump service with petrol....

it will ath an amount and let you take upto that amont of fuel, then cahre (collect) what you actualy have.

At some stations they reconmend that with solo you take the full amount because it MAY stop you using your card the rest of that day.

milliejon

This is so wrong. Surely there's some law about this. I'd never heard about this before Saturday.