Disputing Debit Card Charges That Were Cancelled Then Taken Three Days Later

cockneysean

Hi,

I have a Barclays cash card account.

I recently went to hire a car with a friend. It was mainly for the friend, but he was to be put on it as a named driver.

Well, it turned out that he wasn't old enough. So on that basis we decided to stop there and then and not proceed.

I had already paid £359 by using my debit card. I spoke to the guy and he said don't worry I will put a stop on it. All good I thought. I went home and checked my online banking and the funds were still cleared and available in my account.

I decided to transfer the money to a different account just in case and seeing as I no longer needed the car, I've gone out and bought some stuff for my kids.

BTW this all started at the car rental place on 15/08/2011. Today, on the 17th of August, I transferred some money from my Santander account to my Barclays account and went to the cash machine to withdraw it.

It turned out that I am now £277 DR (in the red), and this is three days later. The funds were always available the whole time and not earmarked like they usually are with debit card payments, by which I mean your account balance is reduced accordingly as soon as you make the payment.

So it seems to me that for some reason,even though I was told that the payment was not going to be made, they have somehow managed to debit my account.

I am thinking that due to the amount of time involved, they have used my card number to perform a Cardholder Not Present transaction.

Can someone please tell me what I should be doing here? I've called the car rental company and they have said that they will "look into it" but what I want to do is go to my bank and tell them what has happened and get the payment reversed.

Please can someone advise me on the ins and outs of this and if the bank are able to refund me my stolen funds?

pmduk

I'd talk to your bank and explain the situation. I'm not sure if a cancelled transaction would count as unauthorised, but it's worth an attempt.

exel1966

It's unbelievable just how many problems the OP seems to have with his finances !!

crazyguy

I dont think you can stop a debit card transaction and they normaly take a few days to clear from the payers account into the account requested, so I think you will need to go back to the firm you used to hire the car and ask for a refund,

I know with Halifax you pay via debit card and it will not show as being taken out but will have been allocated against a payment and leaves some 2-3 days after I have made the transaction.

jalexa

exel1966 wrote: »

It's unbelievable just how many problems the OP seems to have with his finances !!

I see your point but I'm more interested in the payment mechanism. I'm assuming the Barclays Cash Card is a "online" debit card (bank experts please help with a better description).

Techically basic bank accounts are not "impossible" to get overdrawn, though the "presumption" is they wont go overdrawn. This case must be a result of the merchant not making (or reserving) the card transaction when the customer was present, but later. Alternatively a fault in the card processing.

If there is such a thing as an "online" debit card, should that transaction not have been at the merchant's risk?

(question mark for bank "experts").