Anyone heard of £1 test debit off their debit card?

Redrobbo_2

We have a simple current account with Co-op. A few times we've noticed that our available balance is £1 less than our actual balance but not worried because the £1 always seems to come back.

We fell foul of this today, when spending down to our last 33p our card was declined to our embarrassment. Online we seemed to have enough to cover the purchase and so I rang customer services. The nice adviser told us there was a £1 debit which hadn't come through yet. Having made no paypal or internet purchases we had no idea what this could be. She advised that some shops, Tesco for one, sometimes do a nominal debit to check the account before the sale goes through and this is later recredited.

I have never had this with Natwest or LLoydsTSB who I also bank with.

Has anyone else had this? Is it legal? Technically, depending on your banking terms, it could also throw you into unauthorised overdraft and the associated rip off. What do you all think.

Lokolo

Yes it is legal and it should have happened with lloyds or natwest if you had done the same thing.

They tend to do it at petrol pumps (unmmaned) too I believe.

If you are going down to your last 33p then you may want to budget. I leave myself £100 leway for cases such as debits I had forgotten about. Stops me being declined.

Mark_In_Hampshire

Tesco.com used to do this when you registered or changed a card on your account.

The £1 is authorised and "held" but not actually captured ("taken")

After aboue 48 to 72 hours, the lock is released and the £1 becomes available again.

This also happens with debit cards at petrol stations "pay at pump"

Payment processors frown on this type of activity now and it shouldn't be done.

Redrobbo_2

Lokolo wrote: »

Yes it is legal and it should have happened with lloyds or natwest if you had done the same thing.

They tend to do it at petrol pumps (unmmaned) too I believe.

If you are going down to your last 33p then you may want to budget. I leave myself £100 leway for cases such as debits I had forgotten about. Stops me being declined.

This our "bits and bobs" account no direct debits come from here. Believe me bitter experience has tought me tough lessons about budgetting but thanks for the advice. We did use it at an automated petrol pump (Morrisons) on Sunday. That would be it

pmduk

These test amounts tend to stay on co-op accounts for a week.

hippey

The £1 amounts are a check for Lost or Stolen cards and typically used in terminals operating below floor limits or that need to pre auth transactions I.e. UPT etc.

It's not really frowned upon in fact it is the processor who sets this requirement, the actual transaction should clear down the £1 figure but this depends on the terminal.
However it is less common than it used to be, but there is now way of stopping it.

iereboy

Lloyds does use it.

Its more common than you think. More common with petrol stations and on line shops.

You may consider trying to budget as well or having an emergency pot to avoid embarassment.

missile

I had never heard of it either.

No doubt it was embarassing, but maybe you should consider you are fortunate that the transaction did not go through and incur charges for exceeding your limit.

luckylynda

I recently placed a pre-order with amazon and they debited a £1 from my account,I bank with halifax.
I had never heard of it before either,rang Halifax and they explained,it took 7 days to return to my account.

uolypool

My sons are with Halifax and this happens frequently with them.Usually only have the £1 being help for a couple of days then it shows back up.

hippey

It's just one of those strange things, it does come from 'back in the day' when electronic processing was very different and quite rare, basically like it has already been mentioned, all it's doing is checking the card. Very useful in situations where the final amount is not known until a short time later or to speed up processing and reduce declines.