Amazon - Holding funds and repeatedly attempting to take payment again

Kim_13

Surprisingly, Curve haven’t blamed Amazon at all, but they haven’t exactly done anything else either.

There was a timeout on the original transaction apparently (no explanation for how one of those happens) and Curve allowed Amazon to take the funds the next day, meaning that the further payments were Curve trying to get their money back (though the agent acted as though they’d only done this once, successfully, completely ignoring my comments about their having charged a different card and taken the Standing Order monies.) If they can see that there’s been a timeout, then in my mind it would be reasonable for them to release that hold before repaying themselves, so that the payment is taken from the card the customer intended. At a guess, because the transaction was repaying Curve, it isn’t a transaction in the usual sense, preventing it from being moved using GBIT. 

I would have said this to Curve, but despite finally replying to me at something past 10 this morning and saying that the conversation would remain open until tomorrow, they had closed it before I read the response at just after 5pm. 

The agent even claimed to have released the hold on the first payment - no, that released itself after a week and a few hours and I sent Curve an update stating this while they were ‘investigating.’ All in all, a non-explanation and some fabricated details to avoid taking any responsibility. Surely if they effectively step in in these circumstances, the customer should be contacted and given a specified period of time to add funds to the chosen card rather than them choosing any random card from which to reimburse themselves.

There was an apology for the confusion and inconvenience - yes, having to cancel standing orders and pay them manually once other funds were in place was inconvenient, but confusion? Not what I’d call being left out of pocket by their completely inappropriate card selection - and had I not noticed what they’d done, I’d also have wound up in an unarranged overdraft and losing the £5 Halifax Reward to boot.

Grr.