Accidental purchase cancelled immediately on Amazon but payment showing pending in my current acc.

ontrox90

Hi, I made a mistake with an order quantity on Amazon and mistaken it for delivery cost on the order. I paid for the order but then realised and cancelled it immediately. I looked on my HSBC current account to find that a payment for the order was pending taking my accounts available balance overdrawn. I was told by Amazon, since I had cancelled the order immediately. that the funds are held in a Authorisation Hold for 5 working days until it becomes available in my account again but would have to contact HSBC to release funds earlier. I contacted HSBC to ask if I would incur any overdraft fee if the funds had not been taken out and explained the situation - unfortunately the reply in the online chatsupport was pretty vague thought I was told that they could not release the funds early and would have to wait 5 days. My question is that will I incur charges on my account if my accounts available balance stands in a negative balance even though the fund have been put on hold.

eskbanker

You should only be charged if your account's actual balance goes into overdraft, rather than the available one doing so.

born_again

No. A authorisation is just that a request for funds. NOT actually taking them. So you will not be charged.
Also note it can take up to 14 days till it no longer shows.

jonnygee2

unfortunately the reply in the online chatsupport was pretty vague thought I was told that they could not release the funds early and would have to wait 5 days

Not an unexpected response from HSBC customer service, but not exactly helpful. I asked Monzo the same thing not long ago and they'd reversed it within about 3 seconds of me explaining the situation (and explained clearly what was going on).

They can actually reverse the authorisation pretty easily, if you need access to the money soon then press them a bit harder.

As said you won't get charged overdraft fees though.

jonesMUFCforever

IMO Amazon are wrong - they are the ones who COULD remove the pending authorisation not HSBC.

born_again

jonesMUFCforever said:

IMO Amazon are wrong - they are the ones who COULD remove the pending authorisation not HSBC.

While you are correct. HSBC can remove the outstanding amount. Freeing it back into the op's available funds. BUT if does not remove the authorisation. As you say, that is down to Amazon & their merchant bank.

dunstonh

All banks have the ability to clear an earmark as well.   However, they will normally only do so on accounts in good standing and with history.