"Ghost" transactions - money trapped in the ether!

Piranesi

Long story short: bought a laptop online, the payment left my bank account as a pending transaction but the website server crashed and the order didn't go through. My money is now trapped somewhere in the ether and I'm being told I must simply wait up to 30 days for it to come back! 

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I bought a laptop online from Currys yesterday. I entered my payment details and needed to approve the transaction using my banking app. After I approved the transaction, the Currys webpage crashed and took me to a "Server Down" page instead of loading the confirmation page. The money has come out of my bank account as a pending transaction, but I received no confirmation email and have since spent about three hours on the phone with Currys Customer Services. 

Currys say that they cannot see the transaction on their end, and instructed me to contact the bank or wait up to 30 days for the pending transaction to bounce back to my account. The bank (Starling) provided me with the transaction code, and said that the merchant could use it to identify the transaction; if they couldn't, Starling said that they would be able to reverse the transaction before the 30 day mark provided I evidence written confirmation from the merchant that they don't intend to complete the transaction. I painstakingly went through all this with Currys but they insist that they cannot send me such confirmation subject to an online form submitted to their back end team which will take seven working days to process. 

I am very frustrated that over £1,000 of my money is currently being withheld from me by a merchant/bank/process which apparently offers me no agency other than to wait up to thirty days(!) for the money to come back into my account. I am still not entirely sure whether the payment truly broke down so I am hesitant to reorder a laptop lest two show up at my door (and I'll need the money back in my account to order it anyway!) There has been very little in the way of an apology from Currys for the distress this has caused and their customer service has been frankly woeful thus far.

Has anybody else had a problem like this, where a pending payment is made to a merchant for an online order that didn't go through, the money leaves your account, and you have no option but to "wait it out" for the money to bounce back? I'd love to know what the consumer rights are in such a situation. 

eskbanker

Piranesi said:

the money leaves your account, and you have no option but to "wait it out" for the money to bounce back?

The money won't have left your account as such - it'll simply be there in a ring-fenced state, i.e. your actual balance will be unaffected but your available balance will be reduced temporarily.

I've never heard of unused authorisation holds taking 30 days to work their way out of the system, it's normally more like a week or two.  It's undoubtedly irritating when it happens, but difficult to expedite a resolution as you've found.

PHK

It's called an authorisation  hold and is common. When you make (most) card payments the money doesn't go to the retailer straight away. Your bank removes it from your account and holds it until the retailer "claims"it. Normally this will be at the point the contract is formed (usually despatched) but can be at any time afterwards.

Problems occur when something goes wrong during the transaction either with the retailers system or as seems the case here with the intermediary processing the payment. 

These can be difficult to resolve. I think your best bet is to speak to both again explaining the circumstances. The key will be getting Curry's to confirm if there's an order in place.

I've tried to use  non technical language so I hope it makes sense.

Piranesi

eskbanker said:

Piranesi said:

the money leaves your account, and you have no option but to "wait it out" for the money to bounce back?

The money won't have left your account as such - it'll simply be there in a ring-fenced state, i.e. your actual balance will be unaffected but your available balance will be reduced temporarily.

I've never heard of unused authorisation holds taking 30 days to work their way out of the system, it's normally more like a week or two.  It's undoubtedly irritating when it happens, but difficult to expedite a resolution as you've found.

Thanks Eskbanker. I have been on the phone to three different Currys customer support people who have quoted three different timelines to me: 24 hours, 7 days and 30 days. The bank quoted up to 30 days. It seems to be an extremely disruptive quirk in the banking system, and seems strange to me that merchants aren't held to account when it happens considering the fault appears to be due to their websites crashing at the payment stage.

Piranesi

PHK said:

It's called an authorisation  hold and is common. When you make (most) card payments the money doesn't go to the retailer straight away. Your bank removes it from your account and holds it until the retailer "claims"it. Normally this will be at the point the contract is formed (usually despatched) but can be at any time afterwards.

Problems occur when something goes wrong during the transaction either with the retailers system or as seems the case here with the intermediary processing the payment. 

These can be difficult to resolve. I think your best bet is to speak to both again explaining the circumstances. The key will be getting Curry's to confirm if there's an order in place.

I've tried to use  non technical language so I hope it makes sense.

Thanks PHK. I've often noticed authorisation holds when making an online purchase, but it's usually for a much smaller amount than the purchase itself (e.g. £1, I suppose to just check that the process works).

The fact that I have provided Currys with the "transaction authorisation code", and they cannot find the transaction with this or my other order details, yet are unwilling to admit to that in writing so that I can share with the bank, is absolutely baffling to me.  

eskbanker

Piranesi said:

eskbanker said:

Piranesi said:

the money leaves your account, and you have no option but to "wait it out" for the money to bounce back?

The money won't have left your account as such - it'll simply be there in a ring-fenced state, i.e. your actual balance will be unaffected but your available balance will be reduced temporarily.

I've never heard of unused authorisation holds taking 30 days to work their way out of the system, it's normally more like a week or two.  It's undoubtedly irritating when it happens, but difficult to expedite a resolution as you've found.

Thanks Eskbanker. I have been on the phone to three different Currys customer support people who have quoted three different timelines to me: 24 hours, 7 days and 30 days. The bank quoted up to 30 days. It seems to be an extremely disruptive quirk in the banking system, and seems strange to me that merchants aren't held to account when it happens considering the fault appears to be due to their websites crashing at the payment stage.

As you're referring to your bank account, I'm assuming it's a debit card transaction rather than a credit card one, so it should be no more than 8 days, as per https://help.starlingbank.com/personal/topics/debit-card-queries/how-to-cancel-a-pending-failed-transaction/

In general, pending transactions can't be reversed or cancelled. Usually transactions stay pending on your account for up to 8 days, but can sometimes take up to 31 days (i.e. hotel & car rental deposits). Transactions are automatically reversed if the merchant does not collect the funds within this time.

If you have a pending transaction and don’t expect the funds to be collected, this could be because the transaction has since been cancelled or failed to complete, we may be able to release the funds earlier if you have evidence to support this. If we do this, the merchant may still collect the funds, in which case your account would be debited.

Supporting evidence could be:

• A void receipt from the merchant, stating the date, time and amount of the transactions. 
• A screenshot of an email from the merchant stating the date, time and amount of the transactions, as well as confirmation that they will not settle/complete the transaction.

Supporting evidence can be attached to a message inside the App. Just head to the Help section to get in touch.

Retailer staff won't know how each bank addresses this....

born_again

Somebody @ Starling does not know their timescales. It's 14 days or 10 working days.

It's a very common situation.
Retailer requests funds, bank approves. Retailer system either times out or crashes. 
At least you did not do as some do & go through the process again. Most seen 12X with no purchase made due to retailer system not working correctly.

p00hsticks

Piranesi said:

eskbanker said:

Piranesi said:

the money leaves your account, and you have no option but to "wait it out" for the money to bounce back?

The money won't have left your account as such - it'll simply be there in a ring-fenced state, i.e. your actual balance will be unaffected but your available balance will be reduced temporarily.

I've never heard of unused authorisation holds taking 30 days to work their way out of the system, it's normally more like a week or two.  It's undoubtedly irritating when it happens, but difficult to expedite a resolution as you've found.

Thanks Eskbanker. I have been on the phone to three different Currys customer support people who have quoted three different timelines to me: 24 hours, 7 days and 30 days. The bank quoted up to 30 days. It seems to be an extremely disruptive quirk in the banking system, and seems strange to me that merchants aren't held to account when it happens considering the fault appears to be due to their websites crashing at the payment stage.

Have you confirmed that Curry's can actually see the order, or have you had a confirmation e-mail for it  ?
In the circumstances you describe I'd be surprised if the order went through at all, and can understand why Curry's are saying they can't help, as I suspect they can't see the attempted payment at all.... 

Piranesi

p00hsticks said:

Piranesi said:

eskbanker said:

Piranesi said:

the money leaves your account, and you have no option but to "wait it out" for the money to bounce back?

The money won't have left your account as such - it'll simply be there in a ring-fenced state, i.e. your actual balance will be unaffected but your available balance will be reduced temporarily.

I've never heard of unused authorisation holds taking 30 days to work their way out of the system, it's normally more like a week or two.  It's undoubtedly irritating when it happens, but difficult to expedite a resolution as you've found.

Thanks Eskbanker. I have been on the phone to three different Currys customer support people who have quoted three different timelines to me: 24 hours, 7 days and 30 days. The bank quoted up to 30 days. It seems to be an extremely disruptive quirk in the banking system, and seems strange to me that merchants aren't held to account when it happens considering the fault appears to be due to their websites crashing at the payment stage.

Have you confirmed that Curry's can actually see the order, or have you had a confirmation e-mail for it  ?
In the circumstances you describe I'd be surprised if the order went through at all, and can understand why Curry's are saying they can't help, as I suspect they can't see the attempted payment at all.... 

No confirmation email at all, and Curry's were insistently saying that they couldn't see the order, but were refusing to send that to me in writing so that I could pass it to the bank and speed up the process of getting my money back. Incidentally, the money bounced back into my account this morning after two days, so it wasn't as bad as it might have been! 

PHK

Piranesi said:

PHK said:

It's called an authorisation  hold and is common. When you make (most) card payments the money doesn't go to the retailer straight away. Your bank removes it from your account and holds it until the retailer "claims"it. Normally this will be at the point the contract is formed (usually despatched) but can be at any time afterwards.

Problems occur when something goes wrong during the transaction either with the retailers system or as seems the case here with the intermediary processing the payment. 

These can be difficult to resolve. I think your best bet is to speak to both again explaining the circumstances. The key will be getting Curry's to confirm if there's an order in place.

I've tried to use  non technical language so I hope it makes sense.

Thanks PHK. I've often noticed authorisation holds when making an online purchase, but it's usually for a much smaller amount than the purchase itself (e.g. £1, I suppose to just check that the process works).

The fact that I have provided Currys with the "transaction authorisation code", and they cannot find the transaction with this or my other order details, yet are unwilling to admit to that in writing so that I can share with the bank, is absolutely baffling to me.  

Just to add, Curry's may well not be even aware of the transaction authorisation code. That goes to the intermediary which passes a token identifying the charge to the retailer. Retailers don't get to store your card details for a sale like this. If they refund, they refund against the token. 

(When making a purchase by card there are at least two intermediaries in between your bank and the retailer.  In simple terms the firm that processes the payment and their bank. But there could be more depending on the card or payment service)

From what you've said the server error may well have been at one of the intermediaries. So from Curry's point of view this would look like an abandoned order.

All of these intermediaries and complications are there for security but it does mean that when something goes wrong it's very hard to put it right. 

Skiddaw1

It happened to us recently (an order paid for via PayPal). It took around 2 weeks to retify itself though we were originally quoted 30 working days. It's irritating but quite common unfortunately.