How long before a non-debited Visa Debit transaction expires?

Olenna

born_again said:

Roy1234 said:

Back in October, I paid for lunch in a café with my Visa Debit card.  It was a one-off visit to this place.  The transaction still hasn't reached my bank account.  Is there a certain time span after which this transaction will be cancelled, i.e. just how long do I have to allow for it still being suddenly debited?

Visa regs state 6 months from date of transaction. So if presented after that you have a chargeback right. But if contactless or PIN transaction bank will not be keen to do this, as it is a genuine payment owed to retailer.
Also not unknown for retailer to change date of auth to within 6 months.

Legally retailer has 6 years or 5 in Scotland. But they would need you address to take it forward via the courts.

In this case, I doubt that café would have someone's personal details nor would it be worthwhile them to pursue a small claims for a lunch. 

I've personally had Maestro debit 18 months after the transaction and Visa debit two years after (the latter was a old click-clack machine as the shop's card machine was down and that card was embossed) so it does happen but is not very common. 

DullGreyGuy

Roy1234 said:

born_again said:

Roy1234 said:

I'm fairly sure I got a receipt.  Opinions here seem to differ somewhat.  6 months I can understand/live with  The idea the debit could surface countless years later without warning is not easy to live with.  I remember back in the days of Switch, a card transaction at a garage taking almost a full year to be debited, this when I was scraping by on a mega tight budget, trying to avoid going withdrawn and getting bank fees.  It's kind of wrong to think this could still be the case.

In terms of a largish busy café/restaurant, does there come a point in terms of their own accounting systems that a transaction is forgotten, e.g. on an annual cycle?  How does the debit otherwise get remembered years later if missed at the time?

Account's get audited. They realise there has been a failure in their payment system & days have not been processed.

Longest I have seen is a couple of years to debit & was a car park where the payments were not processed over a couple of months...
Also used to be common on airlines, where the in flight terminals were not connected to transfer purchases, after flight landed.

On the basis of accounts getting audited then revealing the failure, is 1 or maybe 2 years tops the limit, depending on how the annual window fell?  Surely nothing can surface beyond 2 years?

It can, depends on the quality of the audit, levels of tolerances set and if you have occasions where "two wrongs make a right".

If its a single site cafe/restaurant its likely their accounts are unaudited, you dont start having to audit based on revenue until its over £10.2m and that would be net of VAT. Sure anyone with a decent set of controls should spot it fairly quickly but have known for these things to only surface years later when they're being bought out by someone with more robust processes who sees the corrections and traces back to find the original problem. 

Roy1234

Ergates said:

ColdIron said:

sheenas said:

Normal it is pending for 7 days, then pending  status is reversed out. 

It's not pending

Roy1234 said:

The transaction still hasn't reached my bank account.

The authorisation request that comes through initially (that causes a "pending" notice to appear on your account) isn't the transaction.

If this didn't go through, and there is/was no pending, then the retailer's card machine should have errored (as it means the transaction wasn't authorised).

Are you saying that the transaction, as it's not showing as pending, must have been voided?  And that leaves the café with no means to come after me for the missed payment?  Or can it somehow be debited again after I left, having not noticed the transaction fail?

moneytorques

Roy1234 said:

Back in October, I paid for lunch in a café with my Visa Debit card.  It was a one-off visit to this place.  The transaction still hasn't reached my bank account.  Is there a certain time span after which this transaction will be cancelled, i.e. just how long do I have to allow for it still being suddenly debited?

Make it a "two off" visit and do the right thing and pay for the free lunch, consciounce cleared.

born_again

Roy1234 said:

born_again said:

Roy1234 said:

I'm fairly sure I got a receipt.  Opinions here seem to differ somewhat.  6 months I can understand/live with  The idea the debit could surface countless years later without warning is not easy to live with.  I remember back in the days of Switch, a card transaction at a garage taking almost a full year to be debited, this when I was scraping by on a mega tight budget, trying to avoid going withdrawn and getting bank fees.  It's kind of wrong to think this could still be the case.

In terms of a largish busy café/restaurant, does there come a point in terms of their own accounting systems that a transaction is forgotten, e.g. on an annual cycle?  How does the debit otherwise get remembered years later if missed at the time?

Account's get audited. They realise there has been a failure in their payment system & days have not been processed.

Longest I have seen is a couple of years to debit & was a car park where the payments were not processed over a couple of months...
Also used to be common on airlines, where the in flight terminals were not connected to transfer purchases, after flight landed.

On the basis of accounts getting audited then revealing the failure, is 1 or maybe 2 years tops the limit, depending on how the annual window fell?  Surely nothing can surface beyond 2 years?

When you are taking the likes of National Car Parks. Then it is. Auditors can only go on info provided. When a car park suddenly surfaces with payment details going back years. It ensures they have been paid for them.

Olenna

moneytorques said:

Roy1234 said:

Back in October, I paid for lunch in a café with my Visa Debit card.  It was a one-off visit to this place.  The transaction still hasn't reached my bank account.  Is there a certain time span after which this transaction will be cancelled, i.e. just how long do I have to allow for it still being suddenly debited?

Make it a "two off" visit and do the right thing and pay for the free lunch, consciounce cleared.

If they make a special "two off" visit, they'd be entitled to expect costs as they'd be effectively fixing the other party's mistake.

Roy1234

Olenna said:

moneytorques said:

Roy1234 said:

Back in October, I paid for lunch in a café with my Visa Debit card.  It was a one-off visit to this place.  The transaction still hasn't reached my bank account.  Is there a certain time span after which this transaction will be cancelled, i.e. just how long do I have to allow for it still being suddenly debited?

Make it a "two off" visit and do the right thing and pay for the free lunch, consciounce cleared.

If they make a special "two off" visit, they'd be entitled to expect costs as they'd be effectively fixing the other party's mistake.

Yes, and in this case paying travelling costs greater than the missing debit; hence I won't.  And the real debit could still appear later too, so I'd stump up potentially 2x the cost of that fateful lunch plus my travelling costs.  No thanks, this has nothing to do with my conscience, it's about not wanting to have to allow for a debit hitting my perhaps low bank balance any time in the coming years.  But it sounds as if that could happen; that there is no sensible expiry date for customers with lost card transactions.

born_again

Roy1234 said:

Olenna said:

moneytorques said:

Roy1234 said:

Back in October, I paid for lunch in a café with my Visa Debit card.  It was a one-off visit to this place.  The transaction still hasn't reached my bank account.  Is there a certain time span after which this transaction will be cancelled, i.e. just how long do I have to allow for it still being suddenly debited?

Make it a "two off" visit and do the right thing and pay for the free lunch, consciounce cleared.

If they make a special "two off" visit, they'd be entitled to expect costs as they'd be effectively fixing the other party's mistake.

Yes, and in this case paying travelling costs greater than the missing debit; hence I won't.  And the real debit could still appear later too, so I'd stump up potentially 2x the cost of that fateful lunch plus my travelling costs.  No thanks, this has nothing to do with my conscience, it's about not wanting to have to allow for a debit hitting my perhaps low bank balance any time in the coming years.  But it sounds as if that could happen; that there is no sensible expiry date for customers with lost card transactions.

There is legally, 5 years scotland 6 years the rest. statute of limitations.

Ergates

Roy1234 said:

Ergates said:

ColdIron said:

sheenas said:

Normal it is pending for 7 days, then pending  status is reversed out. 

It's not pending

Roy1234 said:

The transaction still hasn't reached my bank account.

The authorisation request that comes through initially (that causes a "pending" notice to appear on your account) isn't the transaction.

If this didn't go through, and there is/was no pending, then the retailer's card machine should have errored (as it means the transaction wasn't authorised).

Are you saying that the transaction, as it's not showing as pending, must have been voided?  And that leaves the café with no means to come after me for the missed payment?  Or can it somehow be debited again after I left, having not noticed the transaction fail?

Maybe, but not necessarily voided.

When you use a card, then *normally* the retailers "machine" will fire an authorisation request to your bank.  This is basically a "Does this person have enough money in their account to cover this bill?" question.  If this doesn't come back (i.e. it fails to transmit) OR comes back with "NO" then the transaction should stop at that point and the retailer will ask you for an alternative method of payment.   If the retailer isn't paying attention, then they might miss that error and just assume it's gone through and wave you out of the door.   If this happens, then that means the transaction was voided and isn't floating around in the ether somewhere, and will never come back to you.   Legally you still owe the money, but for a cafe, unless you go back there again, they're not going to be able to find you and they won't waste their time looking.

Debit card transactions *can* be done in "offline mode" - i.e without an authorisation request.   But this is usually something you'd do intentionally e.g. if you're running a stall in a field somewhere and there is not network coverage.  So it's not likely that has happened here.

However, there could be some other reason the auth-request didn't show up as a pending and/or the actual transaction request has been delayed.   Without access to the logs of both the card processor and  your bank we can't say for sure what has happened and/or what will happen in the future.

Roy1234

Ergates said:

Roy1234 said:

Ergates said:

ColdIron said:

sheenas said:

Normal it is pending for 7 days, then pending  status is reversed out. 

It's not pending

Roy1234 said:

The transaction still hasn't reached my bank account.

The authorisation request that comes through initially (that causes a "pending" notice to appear on your account) isn't the transaction.

If this didn't go through, and there is/was no pending, then the retailer's card machine should have errored (as it means the transaction wasn't authorised).

Are you saying that the transaction, as it's not showing as pending, must have been voided?  And that leaves the café with no means to come after me for the missed payment?  Or can it somehow be debited again after I left, having not noticed the transaction fail?

Maybe, but not necessarily voided.

When you use a card, then *normally* the retailers "machine" will fire an authorisation request to your bank.  This is basically a "Does this person have enough money in their account to cover this bill?" question.  If this doesn't come back (i.e. it fails to transmit) OR comes back with "NO" then the transaction should stop at that point and the retailer will ask you for an alternative method of payment.   If the retailer isn't paying attention, then they might miss that error and just assume it's gone through and wave you out of the door.   If this happens, then that means the transaction was voided and isn't floating around in the ether somewhere, and will never come back to you.   Legally you still owe the money, but for a cafe, unless you go back there again, they're not going to be able to find you and they won't waste their time looking.

Debit card transactions *can* be done in "offline mode" - i.e without an authorisation request.   But this is usually something you'd do intentionally e.g. if you're running a stall in a field somewhere and there is not network coverage.  So it's not likely that has happened here.

However, there could be some other reason the auth-request didn't show up as a pending and/or the actual transaction request has been delayed.   Without access to the logs of both the card processor and  your bank we can't say for sure what has happened and/or what will happen in the future.

I understand that if the transaction fails, the café doesn't notice, and I exit, then they will never be able to claim the money unless I go back and offer to pay.  I also understand the offline mode, as you say, a car boot situation not a busy café. What I don't understand is:

"However, there could be some other reason the auth-request didn't show up as a pending and/or the actual transaction request has been delayed."

In this last case, where is the transaction?  Submitted successfully to the bank payment system and lost perhaps for years?  Seems unlikely.  Lost somewhere within the cafe's EPOS system?  Seems more possible, but surely it has to be presented 'live' to the bank's payment processing system (if not said offline car boot sale) for approval?  Replaying such transactions to the bank system, maybe years later, when my card has maybe been reissued, sounds very unsafe in an era concerned about fraudulent card use.