Payment authorised, but not cleared. Who should fix this?

mippy

I'm absolutely livid at the moment, and I'm not sure how to solve this situation!

I placed an order with Ness online on sunday. Tried once - it said there was a problem with my card. There shouldn'tve been, so I tried again - same thing. Yet when I checked my bank balance and spoke to my bank, the amount - £72.23 - had been authorised twice and was taken off my 'available balance'.

I phoned the company on Monday - they told me that I needed to call the bank to get a fax number, so they could fax the bank with the authorisation codes and get those authorisations removed. I was advised this would take about 36hrs, so I left it with them and placed my order again over the phone. The first time, the transaction for £56.98 didn't go through, so I gave them my card details again and it went through and gave me an order number. Fine, I thought - that's sorted, so I just need ot wait for those authorisations to be removed.

I phoned the bank this morning. Not only were the first two payments awaiting authorisation, but now two payments of £56.98 are awaiting authorisation. So now a total of £258.92 is awaiting authorisation when the order I have actually managed to place through their system is £56.98.

The bank (Santander) told me that the company can reverse authorisations from their end if I have the relevant details for each one, but when I spoke to them on Monday they told me that only the bank can. So which is it? How do I get my money back? There are no phone numbers on the Ness website aside from the order line, who already told me to *phone my bank for the fax number then phone them back to give it to them*. I am unbelievably frustrated right now and aside from this there is money in my account which I need ot access but can't, because of these pending authorisations. What to do now:?

Squire_Fulwood

This seems to be breaking out like a rash. There was the OP from yesterday who says they will never deal with HMV again because of something similar and my own experience with o2 who simply go deaf dumb and blind when I ask for my money back. I think I can see a trend here. By coincidence the Ebay site seized up on me last night and I seem to have bought two identical items. This is slightly different since I only paid for one and emailed the seller.

Back on the main subject though, I notice another similarity with these cases. The bank is very clear about the correct procedures to follow but the seller refuses to co-operate. At first it sounds like the bank and the seller are blaming each other but in my case the bank had it right and o2 were quoting the rules concerning direct debits and not those concerning plastic. o2 do not know what they are doing was the conclusion I came to. They still have the money so they can pay the phone rental this month.

Techhead_2

Both bank and retailer are correct, the retailer can 'cancel' the authorisation with their merchant provider but by the time this filters through to your account, the authorisation hold will have dropped off anyway. This is the route the bank wanted you to use.

It's quicker if the retailer contacts the card department at your bank. This is the detail that the retailer wanted. Its understandable that a branch employee may not have come across this before. (Putting aside that its Santander)

It's too late now but in future, if a transaction doesn't go through, don't keep trying it until you understand why it has failed. (Retailer error, processing problem, declined, bank error etc)

How to sort this time is trickier.

Squire_Fulwood

Techhead wrote: »

It's quicker if the retailer contacts the card department at your bank. .

I apologise for hi-jacking this thread but I wanted to say that in my case it was impossible to get o2 to do anything except read from a script saying that I should contact my bank. I did that and the bank (Santander again) were perfectly willing to go through the procedure of allowing me to pass a code to o2 for them to fax to the bank to identify the transaction. o2 would do nothing except read the same old script over and over until I hung up.

heart_free

I work at company that also sells online. When a customer makes a purchase with us, their card provider aurhorises the transaction and sets it aside awaiting confirmation from us that the sale has been completed. If for some reason we don't complete the sale (item out of stock for instance) we cancel the payment request and the amount is added back onto the customers available balance.

At no time during this process has the money actually left the customers account. The authorisation is to let the retailer know that the money is available and has been set-aside ready to be used for the transaction. This ensures that the money cannot be spent elsewhere and protects both retailer and customer.

Depending on the card issuer (and in my experience Santander are the slowest) the amount of time before the money shows back up on your available balance varies. It can take anything up to 5 days! Unfortunately the retailer cannot speed this process up. Once they have cancelled the request then it is down to the card issuer to release the funds. As no money is actually transferred the retailer cannot be held responsible.

This is the case with the system we use, of course it may be different for other retailers. Hope this helps somewhat

Azari

heart_free wrote: »

I work at company that also sells online. When a customer makes a purchase with us, their card provider aurhorises the transaction and sets it aside awaiting confirmation from us that the sale has been completed. If for some reason we don't complete the sale (item out of stock for instance) we cancel the payment request and the amount is added back onto the customers available balance.

At no time during this process has the money actually left the customers account. The authorisation is to let the retailer know that the money is available and has been set-aside ready to be used for the transaction. This ensures that the money cannot be spent elsewhere and protects both retailer and customer.

Depending on the card issuer (and in my experience Santander are the slowest) the amount of time before the money shows back up on your available balance varies. It can take anything up to 5 days! Unfortunately the retailer cannot speed this process up. Once they have cancelled the request then it is down to the card issuer to release the funds. As no money is actually transferred the retailer cannot be held responsible.

This is the case with the system we use, of course it may be different for other retailers. Hope this helps somewhat

Thanks for that.

It's very interesting because, if universally true, it would mean that you would have a cast iron case against your bank for any account charges notched up because if the money that is 'in limbo'.