Egg Credit Card Over Limit Charge

---lee---

Hmm. Not sure what you mean with not authorising immediately. I’ve worked on CC systems for years. All our transactions are authorised immediately but we collect payment in overnight batch runs – perhaps this is what your thinking of?

I can’t envisage an in person payment where you would let anyone disappear out of the shop with goods without authorising the transaction (the card could be stolen or anything) – other than the good old days with those machines that used to take a ‘copy’ of your card – even then, they could phone the bank for authorisation.

I can see that mail order/internet companies might retain the credit card details and only put the transaction through at a later date when they are ready to send goods but again, they would not dispatch any goods until the payment was authorised.

The authorisation acts like a reservation for the requested amount lasting either 3 or 5 days (can’t remember which). This reduced the available limit on your card (you can’t see it though). If the collection is not submitted with the matching authorisation code within the time limit, the reservation is automatically released by the card provider increasing your available limit.

From the card providers point of view, you could go over the limit in the morning but then have funds clear the same day taking you back within your limit so it’s not as black and white as it may seem.

Anyway, I'm sure it does not cost £16 to send you an email.