online banking balances

lizcudmore

Right. This may put me in danger of sounding dim - but I never claimed to have any sense when it came to money!
I use Barclays online banking - there are two balances. Current cleared balance, and then overall balance. When I buy something with debit card, it comes out of current cleared balance, however when three days later the company claims its money it then appears to come out again???

So. For example. Say I have £1000 in my account, of which £500 is cleared and £500 is an uncleared chq. I then spend £20 on my card. Current cleared balance will say £480, overall balance will say £980. So far so good. Then, company claims its £20 after a couple of days and balance is then £960.

This is a very simplified version of what's happening, and I'm sure explanation is simple, but I JUST DON'T GET IT!!! HELP!!
Thanks...
Liz

Gromitt

If you wait a few days, do it change back to £980 ?

lizcudmore

But by then, the water's muddied with loads of other transactions.
I think Martin answered me in his piggy bank budgeting section where he says 'banks lie, online balances are just a snapshot of day's activity'.
I think I'm just going to work in cash from now on!

Mikeyorks

Shouldn't ever say £960. That only happens when there's a problem with the £20 transaction and a phantom transaction (for £20) is also sitting there. Tends to happen when Debit card is removed from reader too quickly / finger trouble on a retailer till etc.

But that should be rare - not something that happens regularly. So your bank's software waits for the phantom £20. Which never arrives - so the £20 is added back to your current cleared balance a few days later.

pqrdef

lizcudmore wrote: »

overall balance will say £980.

This is odd. Normally the account balance is just the running total of all the listed transactions, so a debit card payment won't change it until it's listed.