Quick Question on Debit card authorisations

Ryan101

Today I went to McDonalds and spent £27 on food for the family, the transaction when paying by my card was instant, it was simply enter pin and remove card, when I got home I checked my balance and both my balance and my available balance was the same.

I have noticed this before in boots, Home Bargains and Wilkinson the transaction never seems to get authorised.

Is this like to old floor limits that retailers used to have many years ago, or does this still happen today ?.

I have noticed that in most shops the transactions take a few seconds to process, but in the shops above and certainly at McDonalds tonight it was too fast.

My card is the Lloyds Premier debit card with the gold £250 Cheque Card Logo on the back so not sure if it is simply the card type or not.

Anthorn

You don't say how you checked your balance.

I have a Santander account and when I use my debit card the available balance reduces immediately when I check by telephone banking and doesn't go down in online banking until it appears on my transactions list a couple of days later.

It's probably related to how and when your balance and available balance is updated. If you're concerned about it give your bank a call and ask about it.

Gromitt

Some big chains such as McD's can have there own payment processing centers. For payments less than a certain limit they simply want you to progress through the queue as quickly as possible and take shortcuts in the payment process to do so. This can cause them problems later if the payment bounces, but for somewhere like McDs, a single bounced payment in a day is cheaper than the wait for everyone who uses a card.

In the states it can be much quicker for small payments - they just swipe your card and thats it. No CNP, no signature. I can only assume that the amount of chargebacks is so low that its more cost effective to do it this way to get you through the checkout process faster.

stclair

Macdonalds generally take a lot of time to process transactions. I made 3 seperate visits to macdonalds the week before last on different days and all the transactions debited my account on the same day.

Ryan101

Anthorn wrote: »

You don't say how you checked your balance.

I have a Santander account and when I use my debit card the available balance reduces immediately when I check by telephone banking and doesn't go down in online banking until it appears on my transactions list a couple of days later.

It's probably related to how and when your balance and available balance is updated. If you're concerned about it give your bank a call and ask about it.

Sorry should have said I checked online banking and the automated telephone banking and both were the same, the available or actual balance had not reduced, and in most shops it would, so if I spent say £20 in Tesco it would say balance £5000, available £4980, yet with MCD, Boots, Wilkinsons and Home Bargains it never reduces the available balance?.