Perils of shopping online

juleart

A company selling online with 'safety assured' regulation logos placed a £125 delivery charge onto my order which then was allocated to my bank debit card. I queried immediately and was told it would be taken off as there should be no delivery charge. When I went to draw money from my account the next day the transaction had taken my account over my overdraft limit so all weekend we had no access to money for food or petrol. After calling company today I'm told the money has not been taken from account but is being 'reserved' and money is only taken when goods are despatched. Also, it will take 7 working days for money to be put back into my account! Having gone over my overdraft limit I am being charged £5 a day. Why is it they can take money out straight-away but take 7 days to put it back? Why am I penalised and suffering financial hardship due to a faulty website allocating incorrect delivery charges? Can I do anything to get this resolved faster?

Azrael_1701

It is not the company that places the funds on hold, it is the bank, contact them and see if they can remove it(although probably not)

jambosans

Azrael_1701 wrote: »

It is not the company that places the funds on hold, it is the bank, contact them and see if they can remove it(although probably not)

Whilst true, the funds are placed on hold by the bank at the company's request, therefore (as you indicate) the bank are under no obligation to remove the hold/ authorisation unless instructed by the company directly.

@OP, if you tell us who you bank with, we may be able to give more tailored advice.

juleart

Thanks for the info and my bank (Halifax) gave me an authorisation code for the company to phone them and give it but the company said they couldn't do that. I will try again after receiving your information. It was really helpful. Thank you again.

jambosans

juleart wrote: »

Thanks for the info and my bank (Halifax) gave me an authorisation code for the company to phone them and give it but the company said they couldn't do that. I will try again after receiving your information. It was really helpful. Thank you again.

The company can fax Halifax on letter headed paper with a request to remove the authorisation code - unless the procedure has changed. You'll need to contact Halifax for the fax number.

Also, you don't incur daily £5 unarranged overdraft fees on pending authorisations, your account balance would have to be negative (note your balance and available balance are two different things).

juleart

I contacted the company again, Chemist Direct, through their live online chat and was told they don't use authorisation codes and as I was previously informed they have released it and it will take 7 days.

juleart

That's so reassuring about the charges but they don't appear to want to help me with this at all.

MPH80

To explain from a retailers point of view (I do work with ecommerce retailers) ...

What has occurred is either a pre-auth or an auth. In either case, if a 'settle' isn't sent - the money isn't taken - it's simply reserved.

To explain why it's not easy for it to be reversed ...

When the idea of a pre-auth started - there wasn't a reverse function. Most PSPs (Payment Service Providers) who provided the interface were encouraging retailers just to pre-auth a pound. You (as a retailer) could say how long the pre-auth was valid for, but the banks would sometimes respect that and other times ignore it. Also, in theory, the pre-auth would be removed when the settle was sent. This used to be incredibly unreliable. However, in more recent times this has become better.

Now - the reverse function is similar to the rest of this. For those PSPs (and not all do) who provide the reversal of the pre-auth as a function - the banks may, or may not, respect it. Sometimes it is only possible to cancel a pre-auth if you use the webservice (computer to computer) interfaces rather than the online console provided by the bank. You will typically only build out the full webservice interface if you're doing a large scale implementation.

Typically - most integrators won't actually bother building the 'reverse' function into a website anyway as orders are dispatched so quickly that yours is the corner case and would be dealt with manually through apology and patience.

I know none of that helps you with your problem - but I'm hoping it might help your understanding of why this isn't usually possible.

M.

Azrael_1701

juleart wrote: »

I contacted the company again, Chemist Direct, through their live online chat and was told they don't use authorisation codes and as I was previously informed they have released it and it will take 7 days.

HBoS release the funds after 5 working days anyway, so in reality they havent done anything. Have you phoned HBoS and asked if they are willing to remove it?

juleart

Thanks for explaining why it all occurs and I probably wouldn't feel so angry if I had changed my mind about a purchase, but this is their website fault and their error and I am very upset that my family is being put into this situation due to their incompetence. It is incompetence as I placed an order with them back in May and the same thing happened, so they were aware of the fault since May and have not rectified it. I have written to MD of the company in the hope they will fix the hope and no one else will be inconvenienced this way.

My bank say it has to run it's course now so the 'reserved' amount will eventually come back to me soon, hopefully. I'm pleased it's 5 working days - roll on Thursday when I can get some more food!

pqrdef

One reason it can be better to use a credit card. Authorisation holds are a menace - no telling what can happen.

But it should be illegal for a merchant to put a hold on money it isn't owed, and doubly illegal not be able to reverse it on demand.