Shop charged again rather than part refund. What are my rights?

BigCraigJohn

Basically a record shop had a big sale starting last thursday, I went a bit mad and spent £330, later on I get notification of the order and £150 or so of the order was out of stock.
Checked my bank a second ago and got that sinking feeling as my account is £30 overdrawn despite me being sure of credit, the £180 had cleared and was visible, rang the bank and after a fair amount of hunting she came back and told me there was still the £330 awaiting clearance despite them taking the £180 separately.
I am now overdrawn and have some direct debits coming out tomorrow, these would of been covered by this £330 but i'm now in a position where i'm definately going to have overdraft fees and worse case bounced direct debits. Is there anything I can do about this?, who's in the wrong? and is there any sort of refund policy companies are legally required to follow etc?

oldfella

if you are saying they have billed you twice then that is the equivalent of theft. They are required to put you back in the same position as if they had not made the mistake, which includes interest or overdraft charges. Tell them what they need to do.

BigCraigJohn

Its a strange one and after a think i'm inclined to think the bank may be at fault.

Thursday: I order £330, cash held by bank pending authorisation.
Notified by retailer only £180 of order available.
No further hold just the original £330
Tuesday evening £180 clears my account and shown on my statement but £330 still held pending authorisation.

So after thinking about it I think the retailer only charged once as there was only the one authorisation hold and its the bank that have screwed up.

JuicyJesus

BigCraigJohn wrote: »

So after thinking about it I think the retailer only charged once as there was only the one authorisation hold and its the bank that have screwed up.

It's the retailer. Although it's not even really a screw up.

What will happen is the £330 will drop off in a few days time and be available for you to spend again, as (presumably) they won't claim on that transaction.

It's definitely not the bank's fault. They just process the transactions they're instructed to.

marlewuk

retailer is at fault, they processed a request for payment before checking if they actually had the stock first.
Cant wait for funds to become available again?
need to get retailer to contact their merchant services to cancel the authorisation - some banks will remove the pending transaction if the retailer send a request via fax to the card services dept (of the customers bank).
other wise these pending amounts can take 5 working days to drop back onto your available funds if not claimed before

dalesrider

BigCraigJohn wrote: »

Its a strange one and after a think i'm inclined to think the bank may be at fault.

Thursday: I order £330, cash held by bank pending authorisation.
Notified by retailer only £180 of order available.
No further hold just the original £330
Tuesday evening £180 clears my account and shown on my statement but £330 still held pending authorisation.

So after thinking about it I think the retailer only charged once as there was only the one authorisation hold and its the bank that have screwed up.

Been talking to the retailer... That is what they usually say. :rotfl:

Retailers places Auth.
Retailer then requests the full amount.As it is not the same, retailer needs to ask their merchant bank/auth center to remove the o/s auth as it does not match the debit.

Why are you overdrawn?
Or do you mean you do not have available funds.
Two totally different things.

BigCraigJohn

Checked my balance yesterday morning and there was £160 or so available with £650 credit balance, checked again at 7pm and it was -20 available with the £180 on the statement list and £350 or so credit balance.

How come there was no earmark on the £180?, was removed from my available and on the statement all in one go.

I dont have available funds, my available balance is in minus and ive got some direct debits gone out today. I presume the bank will pay them whether I find some money or not but thats not really the point, could be so much worse in other situations.

matttye

I could be wrong about this but I don't think you'll get any charges as the money is still in your account. It's earmarked to go out and 'not available' , but it's still there. If the bank rejects the direct debits you may be charged for that, but I don't think they can charge you an overlimit fee as you have funds in your account.

I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong

pqrdef

Most retailers run broken software that can't do it right because the programmers couldn't be bothered, and nobody made them.

The mistake is not to use a credit card. Debit cards are scary.

pqrdef

JuicyJesus wrote: »

It's definitely not the bank's fault. They just process the transactions they're instructed to.

Of course it's the banks that profit from this crazy system, which they invented.

What is clear is that the OP didn't authorise £330 and an additional £180. So if claims had to be authorised by the cardholder - as many people fondly imagine - then somebody would have done something wrong.

BigCraigJohn

pqrdef wrote: »

Of course it's the banks that profit from this crazy system, which they invented.

What is clear is that the OP didn't authorise £330 and an additional £180. So if claims had to be authorised by the cardholder - as many people fondly imagine - then somebody would have done something wrong.

Rang the bank, they tell me they cant do anything and its a matter of waiting for it to release.

Rang the retailer and they say that despite what the bank say they can do nothing so unless im mistaken someone owes me a weeks worth of interest, now what shall we charge?, Wonga or Highstreet?.

The bank did however say they would most likely pay the direct debit and she put a note on the system explaining the situation and that there was a good chance the funds will be released this evening after 6.

Ah yeah to rub salt in the wounds, the retailer said they are struggling to get orders out due to the sheer mass of sale orders and I know they and are on the brink of going into administration so my order hasnt event shipped yet.

I'll wake up in a moment.