£300 missing in bank cyber-space!

Sukey

I'm not sure if this is the right board to post on, so apologies if it's not and feel free to point me in the direction of the right place.

I have a bit of a problem that I don't appear to be getting any help with from the banks concerned. Basically I paid for some car repairs on Tues this week that were due to cost £100. I paid with my Lloyds TSB debit card and the first three times my card was put through the transaction was declined (BTW, my account had plenty of money to cover the amounts requested). Eventually after a long conversation between the garage and a Mumbai call centre the transaction was done manually over the phone and today my account has been debited with the correct amount of £100. However, my account is still also showing that £300 (ie the 3 declined transactions) is earmarked funds and therefore not available to me. Lloyds have said that they can't do anything and that it's the responsibility of the garage's bank. The garage have spoken to their bank and they say they can't do anything and I should speak to my own bank! Can anyone advise me how I can get my £300 un-earmarked please or should I be a bit more patient and wait to see if the money is released in a few more days? Many thanks!

onlypaddy

this can happen, as long as the garage's bank doesnt claim the funds they should drop off after around 7 days

Curly

thats a joke what if you need the cash if you kids to feed or somthing its a bad set up

Voyager2002

Curly wrote: »

thats a joke what if you need the cash if you kids to feed or somthing its a bad set up

I agree. That is one reason why I try to use credit cards rather than debit cards. Otherwise I would just pay by cheque.

Mikeyorks

Sukey wrote: »

Can anyone advise me how I can get my £300 un-earmarked please or should I be a bit more patient and wait to see if the money is released in a few more days?

The only way is via the garage. It's not their Bank they need to talk to (I suspect they realise that) but the merchant acquirer who handles their card processing. If they take the time of processing from the valid transaction then the acquirer should be able to spot and neutralise the 3 x phantom transactions.
Otherwise if will take up to 7 working days for your Banks software to get fed up waiting for the 3 x £100 surplus transactions to arrive .... and return the £300 to 'available'. I think it's NatWest who do this after only 2 working days ... all the others work to the guidelines of 5 - 7 working days.