Debit card and 'reserved' money

davidcampbell

skeggysteve wrote:

davidcampbell:
Sorry got to dis-agree.
Yes the Halifax do have a legal obligation to the merchant service company, who ever they are, but it is they, the Halifax that agreed to the conditions.
If the Halifax have authorised the payment then surely, as the money has not been paid, they can un-authorise it? OK maybe not that simple but you get my drift.
Bottom line is the Halifax have not been in the least bit helpful. They seem to have forgotten that it is my money and more importantly I am the customer.
OK I have to agree the both companies are to blame in someway - for one they both have an appauling attitude to their customers.

but the money only hasnt been paid because the company havent YET collected it. would you cancel a payment someone owed you just cos they said they didnt owe it any more, without proof?

what happens if they 'unauthorise' it. the company come to collect their money ( on the original authoirsation) and halifax say no we have changed our mind, you cant have it.?? it cant work like that.

i know what youre saying though and yes they arent being very helpful.

try escalating it to someone higher??

DC

skeggysteve

davidcampbell wrote:

but the money only hasnt been paid because the company havent YET collected it.


i know what youre saying though and yes they arent being very helpful.


try escalating it to someone higher??

DC

Hi DC,

1. Who does what? Do my bank send the money or do the company wanting it ask for it? But they must have 'asked' for it for the money to be reserved??? I'm getting more confused by the minute!

2. Yes they just seem to forget that I'm the customer - but nothing new there and not just with the Halifax or banks!

3. I know I should but don't know if I've got the time/energy to do that when I 'know' I'll be wasting my time/energy! Cynic me?!!!

Kind regards,

Steve

davidcampbell

skeggysteve wrote:

I know I should but don't know if I've got the time/energy to do that when I 'know' I'll be wasting my time/energy! Cynic me?!!!

absolutely. i agree with the sentiment. claim back cost of calls at least from halifax?? (certainly in my job if you asked i would have no hestiation under the circumstances to offer a goodwill payment for cost of calls)

1. Who does what? Do my bank send the money or do the company wanting it ask for it? But they must have 'asked' for it for the money to be reserved??? I'm getting more confused by the minute!

sorry reading back i realise i wasnt very clear.



for physical transfer of the funds the company TAKE it, as against the bank SENDING it. (thats why halifax cant 'unauthorise' it) if halifax could SEND it there would be no problem but the company need to TAKE it - and they wont because they think it was declined

when they initally request it, it is authorised and set against your balance as a pending authorisation. so yes they 'asked' for it and it is reserved but it isnt TAKEN until they physically ... erm TAKE it .

in 3 working days from the transaction if they dont collect it (which in this case they arent going to) the transaction will drop off your pending authorisations, your available balance will adjust and everything will be square again.

halifax authorisations dept can adjust your available balance to not reflect the pending amount (as outlined earlier) but they wont do so just on your say so

does that make sense? (its so much easier to explain in front of my computer at work ... maybe its the headset :rotfl: )

theres clearly been a mixup. halifax think company are taking it. company know they arent. but until the two communicate you are stuck in the middle


if ive just waffled a load of nonsense let me know and ill explain differently :rotfl:


hth

DC

BrokeBrokeBroke

I actually had a good experience with Halifax when something like this happened. First time ever!! I hated banking with them as much as you all sound like you do.
I bought a bed and mattress and when the mattress was delivered it wasn't new (was the shop display one) The shop didn't have another one to send me and couldn't get me one in time to be shipped (I was moving) so they said they could refund my card (Electron or Solo). So, they 'refunded' 40 pounds - I called the bank and 40 pounds was 'missing' off my available funds. I then called the shop to tell them what they'd done and they apologised and promised they would refund 80 pounds. Then they actually took another 80 pounds, so all in all I was 120 pounds down when I should have had a refund of 40. I didn't want to ask them to try and refund 120 incase it went wromg again! I called Halifax to see what they could do as it was Bank Hol weekend and I was non too impressed, The lady I spoke to was so nice and just said 'Oh, I can kind of see what's happened here- there are 3 pending transactions, so she cancelled them all there and then and I got back in touch with the bed company who managed to do the 40 pound refund.

So there is something they can do there and then, just need to get the right person on the phone I guess!!

skeggysteve

davidcampbell wrote:

.......

for physical transfer of the funds the company TAKE it, as against the bank SENDING it. (thats why halifax cant 'unauthorise' it) if halifax could SEND it there would be no problem but the company need to TAKE it - and they wont because they think it was declined

when they initally request it, it is authorised and set against your balance as a pending authorisation. so yes they 'asked' for it and it is reserved but it isnt TAKEN until they physically ... erm TAKE it .

.......
DC

Many thanks David for that reply.

I do understand what you are saying - well basically!

But I am forced to comment that it is still the customer that comes off badly.

Maybe if it wasn't for people like you the banks would have more problems, because we wouldn't really know what was going on!

Kind regards,

Steve

davidcampbell

But I am forced to comment that it is still the customer that comes off badly.

i fully agree. way of the world these days unfortunately :mad:


hope you get it sorted soon

good luck

DC

waterbaby

How long between;

1. the company requesting the payment and the bank authorising it

2. the bank authorising it and the company taking the payment

I mean how long (or short) COULD it take, rather than how long DOES it take. I'm sure computers figure heavily in processing these payments.

Walletwatch

waterbaby wrote:

How long between;

1. the company requesting the payment and the bank authorising it

2. the bank authorising it and the company taking the payment

I mean how long (or short) COULD it take, rather than how long DOES it take. I'm sure computers figure heavily in processing these payments.

I think 1 happens instantaneously, as the merchant tries to block an amount equal to the transaction amount and the bank approves or declines the block, based on whether you have an available balance.

2 could happen anytime, but the VISA guidelines (and yes, these are driven by Visa / Mastercard and not the bank) are generally to hold the amount for two working days. This is not to say however, that the merchant loses the right to claim the amount if they don't claim within these two working days. It is quite likely that the merchant doesn't claim in the two days, and then claims a week later, by which point, if you have withdrawn the funds, your account could even go overdrawn, as the amount will be force-debited.

davidcampbell

Walletwatch wrote:

This is not to say however, that the merchant loses the right to claim the amount if they don't claim within these two working days. It is quite likely that the merchant doesn't claim in the two days, and then claims a week later, by which point, if you have withdrawn the funds, your account could even go overdrawn, as the amount will be force-debited.

quite correct. after an authorisation the merchant can claim the funds up to 6 months later. there is no obligation for them to collect it within 2 days or 3 days or whatever. most will collect within a few days as they cant use your money until they have done so,

as walletwatch says after this you must be careful to continue to account for the transaction so as not to go overdrawn.

DC

hopefulfooluk

A similar thing happened to me but it was using my Halifax credit card, and they dealt with it admirably. I bought some plane tickets on Opodo totalling £2,700 and the cash had been authorised at the time I booked. A day later, £2,700 had debited properly, but there was still a block on the original £2,700 so effectively I was £5,200 down on my balance. I rang them and they deleted the slow-clearing £2,700 authorisation as they saw the transaction had already gone through, but warned me that they would still be obliged to pay it if it had been put through a second time (it hadn't, so I was ok).

Point of this post is that whenever I've called halifax to dispute authorisations that I had a genuine reason for disputing, they've always cancelled them.