Authorisation hold problem

priorslee

I've got an issue with two small transactions that have come through on my Barclaycard statement which the merchant is claiming are 'authorisation holds'. I'm told that these aren't normally seen on your account or they disappear within a day or two. In my case they date back to 4 December.

According to wikipedia these work as follows (edited down slightly):
Authorization hold is the practice within the banking industry of authorizing electronic transactions with debit/credit card and holding this balance as unavailable either until the merchant clears the transaction, or the hold "falls off." In the case of debit cards, authorization holds can fall off the account anywhere from 1–5 days after the transaction date; in the case of credit cards, holds may last as long as 30 days.

The merchant is claiming it's a bank problem and that they cannot (or will not) resolve it. But I am very suspicious of this. I've never seen one of these on my account before so I assume Barclaycard systems must work properly.

Has anyone ever seen this sort of transaction on their account?
Or can anyone shed any light on this issue?

I'm sure I could resolve it by going to Barclaycard, but I don't see why I should have to hassle them when the fault seems to lie with the merchant.

meer53

Normal practice i'm afraid.

InsideInsurance

Normal practice and generally its the bank that controls when they drop off but generally its about a week.

Depends on how your online banking etc works, for my credit card they will appear almost instantly in the pending transaction section but unless the funds are requested they will never move down into the actual transactions section