Asda Home Shopping charged me twice and made me overdrawn!

Bluediamond

I have been advised by the wonderful MSE'rs to come on here to get some advice

I ordered food via Asda Home Delivery last week and the order came to £98.14
They charged me for this and the actual bill which came to £79.03 so they have made me overdrawn (without authority) and calmly tell me that the "ringfenced" money will go back into my account within 7 - 10 working days ! ! ! :mad:
This account is my housekeeping account and I watch every penny and now because of ASDA I cannot take any money out as I have no money left!

I have been in tears, its ruined my day and more importantly my three small children who I had been planning to take to the wildlife park today

Asda have been so unhelpful and they dont care about any charges I will have to pay because of their error

I want someone to complain to and not their customer services who have Indians with British Names! I spoke to a "Tracy" and her Indian Accent was so strong it was embarrassing!

This is not fair and I know it happens to others every day!
Any advice or addresses or Head Office details I can have?
Thanks everyone

Bluediamond

Thank you for your email.
I’m sorry that the holding amount for your order has left you without funds. I understand how frustrating this can be as you would like these funds returned quickly.
When an order is placed, the bank places a hold on the estimated order value within your account. The funds are reserved for the order due to be delivered. In some cases due to the unavailability of items or substitutions, the total of the order will change. The order value and the holding value are different.
The banks view these as two separate transactions but they're actually not. The order is delivered and the actual amount is deducted from your account but the estimated total is still on hold. This money should be released into your account soon after the charge for the order is deducted and can take up to 10 days.
The £98.41 is a holding amount that will be released back into your account. The £88.66 was taken as payment for your order.
Once again I’m sorry about all the difficulties this is causing and thank you for bringing this to our attention.
Regards,

Rolen Ramkishun
ASDA Home Shopping Team

somethingcorporate

This is not the first time this has been on the boards. It is quite poor form for them to do this.

Talk to your bank perhaps to see if they can waive the charges and arrange a small overdraft to ensure that it does not happen again?

bod1467

My wife uses ASDA online shopping. Whenever there are any issues (which seem to becoming more frequent) she calls them up and seems to always get a UK person. When I get home (and if I remember) I'll post the number(s) she usually calls.

Edit: Sorry, but to paraphrase Hilary Clinton I "misremembered" the phone numbers I had. They're for an ASDA credit card, not ASDA home shopping.

Techhead_2

somethingcorporate wrote: »

This is not the first time this has been on the boards. It is quite poor form for them to do this.

Talk to your bank perhaps to see if they can waive the charges and arrange a small overdraft to ensure that it does not happen again?

There shouldn't be any charges as the account is not really overdrawn. The authorisation hold will fall off the account as the retailer hasn't charged the account, its the bank not matching up the authorisation with the charge.

Its not really something a retailer does to someone but rather a quirk of the banking system. in this country. But pretty inconvenient when it happens.

halibut2209

So DDs and SOs will go through no problems. The OP just can't draw any cash out?

arcon5

halibut2209 wrote: »

So DDs and SOs will go through no problems. The OP just can't draw any cash out?

I don't think they will go through. This is my understanding on pre-auths...............:

It will be a pre-auth placed on the card, it basically locks the money so they can call it later on. So if they authorise the card for £100 and you have £150 in the account, your 'balance will be £150; available balance £50' so if you attemp to make a second payment for £100 you will either be refused or have a 'balance of £50; available balance of -£50'.

Obviously if the authorisation is removed (usually automatically) the available balance will be once again £50.

I think bank charges are based on your actual balance and not available balance. So if your about the go over your limit and put a cheque in, your balance will reflect this the same day but available balance in 1-3 days and you won't be charged.

halibut2209

So a DD wouldn't go through, but they wouldn't be charged for it?

arcon5

halibut2209 wrote: »

So a DD wouldn't go through, but they wouldn't be charged for it?

There is usually a charge for failed DDs so yes they would be charged.

In my experience though.. DD payments would more than likely force you into an unauthorisated overdraft than be rejected. So if for example there was a £100 preauth on an account, the account has exactly £100 balance before, their banking would show 'balance £100; available balance £0' (as a payment of £100 has been authorised but not called). If then a DD successfully went through for £50 it would show 'balance £50; available balance -£50' as again £100 payment was authorised but not yet called.
Whilst the balance is above £0 (assuming no OD facility) they won't incur unauthorised OD fees -- however, if then the company called the £100 authorisation on the card the balance will be '-£50, available -£50' = usually £5/day charges.
If though the PRE-AUTH transaction was automatically removed because it wasn't charged, the balance and available balance would restore to £50 so your within your limits.


Sorry, I hope this makes sense.

Whether DD or SO go through or not depends on the bank, most in my experience will allow them through -- simply because if you enter an unauthorised OD then it is quids in for them!


Either way, the fact the authorisation is there CAN cause many problems for the account holder, which may or may not include failed payments and incur banking charges if the bank don't honour the payments.

The best way to deal with it as mentioned is to have a low OD limit.

A similar thing happened to my partner a long while back and a cheque payment she made failed. She went to speak to the bank who discussed the account with her, agreed to waiver the charge for the returnd cheque (which was nice of them) and added a small, interest free OD of £100 incase it ever happened again.