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OT..Common practice of charging credit cards....

Elvis2

Elvis2

Platinum Member
before item even ships? I ordered a Geforce4 ti4600 from a vendor that says the cards should ship on Monday. When I ordered the card on the 6th, I noticed that I had a pending charge for that amount on my credit card. Now I see I've been charged already but the item isn't even in stock yet. Don't think I like that crap and am wondering if it's a common practice with other online vendors.:disgust:
 
now what does OT stand for again?
rolleye.gif


why dont you tell us what vendor it is.
 
Edge micro did that to me and then they couldn't get the product and ship it. Took a few phone calls and a whole month later I had my card refunded. I've seen it, but most reputable places will only charge when it's pretty much out the door.
 
OT = off topic

The vendor is Multiwave.com. I checked out their resellers ratings (5.8 out of 7.0) and read some of their feedback and they sound reputable enough. I guess I'll find out next week
rolleye.gif
 
I hate those pending charges, they can stay on your card for up to one month before the credit card company will cancel them. Also, you can't dispute them, and have to wait for the vendor to actually charge your credit card.
 
This is normal practice, but it is NOT the vendor doing it. The vendor requests a verification of funds from their clearing house at the time of the sale. The clearing house is the one actually placing a hold on some dollar amount. WHY? Because if they didn't you could charge up to your limit, remember, these are just holds, until the paperwork gets processed. You then head to the local ATM and clean out your account, and then the paperwork hits the clearing house there is not money in the account.
 
id think for larger vendors, they have evreything automated so that when an item ships, the computer knows when to charge the credit card. but for smaller businesses, they would have to charge the CC manually themselves, so they may just charge the CC while they are doing the paper work at the beginning of the order. and then later they find out that the item is out of stock, so ur CC is already billed. they should credit the money back atleast....
 
"
I hate those pending charges, they can stay on your card for up to one month before the credit card company will cancel them. "

boy what cc do you use? mine automaticly drops them if no charge is made after 5 days
 


<< OT = off topic >>


I don't think you appreciate that the question was a sarcastic one. You clearly knew this thread did not belong in this forum even as you wrote it ... but yet you went ahead.
 
I work at a large e-commerce solution company, and this is the standard procedure, for reasons stated above. Basically to make sure the funds are there, they put the authorization on it, so it holds the money. When the product actually ships the charge is put on for the entire amount. It's completely legal, because as stated above again, that it is the cc company that does it. And depending on their policies it will drop off at varying intervals, sometimes a week, sometimes more. We can submit a request to have it removed, but more than likely it will drop off before the request will be removed. Basically..quit whining about it, get a card with a higher limit...everybody who does credit card transactions does it....that's the way it is to prevent them from getting ripped off...besides this is OT
 
Yes, authorization holds are very common for many companies who ship your purchases to you. It's really the only safe way for the company to be sure you are going to purchase the item.

I work for a large travel agency and that is how it works. The customer calls up, places an order and while they are on the phone, the credit card billing address is verified and there is also a verification of available funds. The amount that is required for the purchase is then put on an authorization hold until everything is processed properly and the item, in our case airline tickets, is ready to go. Then, the authorization hold morphs into an actual transfer of funds from the buyer's bank account to the seller's bank account.

This is not a deceptive practice. It only ensures that the buyer actually has the funds to proceed with the purchase. The only problem is when there is some reason the purchase can't go through, like an item is out of stock, the bank lets the authorization hold remain for some time. Sometimes, a call to the bank will endin a release of the funds. Other times, you may need to call the vendor who then in turn must contact the bank to release the funds. Either way, it is really up to the bank how long the funds are held up.
 
Authorization holds are one thing, but should that authorization hold appear in your monthly bill? That's what happened to me, subtract from balance, on the monthly bill, etc.

 
ChefJoe:

Yeah, that's definitely too long. From my experience, auth holds that turn out to be non-purchases usually drop off within a few days. I know people have had auth holds done towards the end of their billing cycle so that it does show up as a pending charge. Maybe that is what happened in your case. However, if it is something that was actually on hold for a month, it is definitely deserving of investigation.
 
Nah, this was a charge put on 1/25 with a reference number and transaction date... appeared on my billing statement and was added into the "debit" column, the credit card asked for money at the end of the cycle (2/19) too. I'd like to know how you see the difference between authorization and real charges. On-line with Amex ? Man, if I push this thread up anymore it's going to get killed for sure.
 
You were definitely charged for it then. Pre-auths state they are pending, a call to the bank will let you verify it...they should also never appear on the bill.
 
I had three different pre-auth charges of $1 from Iomega whenever they replaced my CDRW drive. I got a really good deal and it is a great drive. I should check to see if they went away, got to go...
 
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