Skycard - clearance of payments

Dagobert

A few months back, I obtained a Skycard. I have been paying it off via debit card, several payments a month. Initially, the payments became available for spending within a few days.

However, a debit card payment I made over the phone on a Friday, credited to Skycard account on the Monday, did not become part of the available balance until the Thursday of the following week (=13 days after payment was initiated).

I have been given all sorts of stories by CS. Apparently it can take 7 working days after receipt until a payment clears. On one occasion, I was told that irregularities are be flagged up.

My bank told me that there is no reason at their end why it should take so long. Once a payment is authorized is leaves the bank account.

Does anybody have an idea what's going on behind the scenes?

wyebird

I think it's an excuse to charge more interest. With some cards you can pay by debit card before 3.30 and it shows as being received on the same day, others can take a week (never heard of 13 days though!). Doesn't take any longer to debit your bank though!

Dagobert

wyebird wrote:

I think it's an excuse to charge more interest.

I'm not paying interest.
All it does is prevent me from spending.

pfpf

strangely this has happened to me this month.

a £600 DC payment i made was credited to my account on the 16th, and as of now is still NOT available to use. this is bad even by Sky's standards, which is normally slow.

i did phone them once about it, they said it can be 7 working days.

agreed we dont pay interest, but we cant rotate that balance either can we Dago?

i have to settle for 2 rotations per month, max.

Dagobert

pfpf, I see you are using the Skycard for the same reason I do.

A further debit card payment I made (from a different current account) seems to be taking a long time again. I suspect now that all my pay-ins are going to take 7 working days - which is in effect almost a fortnight - to become available for spending.

I was told by csutomer services that this happens occasionally. However, if this happens on a regular basis from now on then I suspect that the account has been flagged up and will always suffer from delayed balance availability.

pfpf wrote:

i have to settle for 2 rotations per month, max.

If you know it takes so long to clear you just need to plan ahead and stuff more money in before the previous amount has become available. This is annoying because it loses interest but the gain is greater than the loss.

I was told by customer services that BACS pay-ins might suffer the same fate and take up to 7 working days to "clear".