Asda: ongoing holding on to my money after a home shop problem!

amersall

YOU overspent and put YOURself in the red

The Op did not, it was the holding of the extra £119 (that was in the original post,) that put them in the red and caused the charges, as other posters have pointed out, Asda online shop works like this and can take days to be credited back to your account.

GreatBeyond

From previously working in retail and my experience of this from the non consumer side. Basically when the order is placed the bank will hold the funds for that purchase, so in effect what should happen is that when the company ask the bank for the payment they take the funds that have been held and give that to the company.

The problem here is that the price was different so the bank have paid that in addition to what was already being held in your account.

It is rare that this happens and it's not something which is limited to ASDA. What we used to do is send a fax to the bank to say that we wouldn't be taking the payment for whatever reason. In theory they would then release the authorisation, but it is a banking process so there was nothing we could do to make them release it.

There were also times where they would refuse to do it based on the fax and ask for the us to send the customers 16 digit card number on the fax which is obviously something that we wouldn't be doing.

I do totally understand why you have been so frustrated with this, the same thing happened to me just before Christmas, I purchased a laptop for my wife but had to change the delivery address which resulted in another authorisation leaving me without £400 approaching Christmas. I got in touch with the bank and got them to release the hold the following day, I'm not sure if this was just good fortune or because they could see that a payment had been made for that exact amount.

GreatBeyond

JethroUK wrote: »

YOU overspent and put YOURself in the red

You can't attribute any blame or shift your responsibility to Asda because they reduced your bill/debt.

Doesn't this sounds stupid if you say it back to yourself?

Seems to me you really know it is totally your fault and your responsible for the outcome and you can't shift your responsibilities on to 3rd parties just because they have some tenuous link to the situation

I think you should probably hold your hands up and apologise to the OP for this.

You have got it wrong.

peachyprice

JethroUK wrote: »

YOU overspent and put YOURself in the red

You can't attribute any blame or shift your responsibility to Asda because they reduced your bill/debt.

Doesn't this sounds stupid if you say it back to yourself?

Seems to me you really know it is totally your fault and your responsible for the outcome and you can't shift your responsibilities on to 3rd parties just because they have some tenuous link to the situation

Did you even bother to read the OP?

He DID NOT put himself in the red. Asda ringfenced an amount then took a different amount without releasing their reservation on the ringfenced amount. He has double the amount 'taken' from his bank account. How is that OP's fault?

neilmcl

GreatBeyond wrote: »

I think you should probably hold your hands up and apologise to the OP for this.

You have got it wrong.

Not for the first time.

newdave1975

Thanks for the support, all I woujd say was we thought we would be ok as we had our overdraft, but the problem was Asda held that. So our funds were halted. We're on a low income do sometimes dip into it, but not usually by much. Asda's "way of doing things" took us over it, we neither expected it or even knew that it could happen, so was a complete shock.
Normally when shopping you have a price and that's what's deducted. Also too i woujd add that it was impossible for us to know that Asda woujd be out of stock for some items and so change the price.
I don't need to defend myself, I'm not the only one this has happened to and unfortunately won't be the last. The poster who said its all my fault clearly hasnt read these posts or is just trying to get a reaction! Thankfully others have shot him down on that :-)

j0nathon2

I find this odd.

Asda authorised £119 and needed to settle £109. What should happen is the £109 is taken from the £119 and the £10 is released at a later date. I would be surprised that a company the size of Asda are not using a bank who support partial settlement.

The other way around is usually more of a problem, they authorise £119 and a few offers expire and you actually owe £121. This often results in an orphaned £119 with a new transaction for £121. (While this is more common a problem out there with merchants, it's still avoidable on standard credit and debit cards).

Either way, as said above, Asda can phone their acquirer and ask them to cancel the £119. As also stated above, it's likely they will need to fax a signed letter headed request, so they can't dispute a failed settlement later on.

newdave1975

j0nathon2 wrote: »

I find this odd.

Asda authorised £119 and needed to settle £109. What should happen is the £109 is taken from the £119 and the £10 is released at a later date. I would be surprised that a company the size of Asda are not using a bank who support partial settlement.

The other way around is usually more of a problem, they authorise £119 and a few offers expire and you actually owe £121. This often results in an orphaned £119 with a new transaction for £121. (While this is more common a problem out there with merchants, it's still avoidable on standard credit and debit cards).

Either way, as said above, Asda can phone their acquirer and ask them to cancel the £119. As also stated above, it's likely they will need to fax a signed letter headed request, so they can't dispute a failed settlement later on.

I think as some have pointed out, the easiest and better way is just for Asda to refund the difference from the initial amount. This is I think as has been suggested how others do it.

j0nathon2

They don't refund as such, they just claim a partial amount of the original authorisation. Or, that's what most merchants would do. I've never worked with one who does anything like Asda, when the final transaction amount is lower than the original.

newdave1975

It's certainly in need of some clarification as this thread shows, burying it in the t&cs isn't good enough, in this case Asda had cause some worry and hardship, not good when all I wanted was a simple shop. And must definitely not to incur what amounts to 1/2 of my shop Bill going on bank charges.
In the age of contactless, fast pay and ping it, Asda and other retailers who make transactions this way (and not forgetting too the banks that facilitate this) need to get into the modern way of doing things. Even getting the retailer to cancel their initial authorisation (by FAX might I add??) and permission to the bank to release the funds can still take up 48 hours!