I have an account with Nationwide that I use for my monthly stuff and for my online purchases, basically I transfer a lump off my wages over to it to cover all my DD's and leave a few hundred extra for any of my impulse buys. The problem that I have encountered is that I had 2 DD's returned and one of them was my car insurance, my bank are going to charge me £15 per returned DD and my car insurance are also charging me £30 for 'admin costs', I contacted the bank to enquire where the funds had gone as I knew there was enough in there (it would have been close as I have been spending a lot of money on games, blu-rays, etc) and it turns out that the problem is with Sainsburys.
I purchased 2 copies of Arkham City and a copy of ICO/SotC for £80.77, my bank statement shows that they took that amount in 3 separate transactions (1 x £19.99, 1 x £30.39, 1 x £30.39) but they also held £80.77 back from my account to cover the amount they would be taking. They took the 3 amounts (£80.77 in total) but didn't release the hold they had over the original £80.77 for 7 days, so in effect for a week they had actually taken £161.54, because this is the first time I've encountered anything like this I wondered if any of you had ever been in a similar position or if anybody had any idea where I stand legally because I am now £60 out of pocket?
Gamertag: Moto 70 - PSN: MotoSeventy
RIP Dan Wheldon, it was a pleasure to have known you...
I've heard of supermarkets and suchlike doing this. Apparently it's commonplace. Did you not read the t&c;'s on their website?
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g.man
XBox Live & PSN: gman808
come with g if you want to live.
I don't get it - if it's a debit transaction why do they also hold a reserve back? Doesn't the money transfer pretty much immediately?
It's happened to me once when I was buying flights. I had to have double the amount in my account in order to do it. 4 grand in total.
No, I just presumed that I'd agreed to pay £80.77 for my order, at no stage did I figure that they would be able to 'take' the money twice.
I don't get it either, I'd also never, ever heard of it. The other problem was that the missing £80.77 wasn't shown on my account, the amount was missing from the account (shown in the available balance) but no actual transaction was showing so it couldn't be traced. Even the bank had problems trying to track it and said that it was somebody called 'Record Store' and that they had placed a hold on £80.77 and were free to take that amount at any stage within the next 170 days but generally if it wasn't taken it would be returned within 7 working days, which it was though albeit too late to cover my two DD's that were due.
I'm going to ring Sainsbury's at the weekend but I can't see how any T&C;'s allow you to take twice the amount that your customer has agreed to...
EDIT: This is from the Sainsbury's site, not T&C;'s just FAQ's...
Some card issuers will ring fence funds on your card/account at the time that we send the pre-authorisation message at the time of you placing your order. The ring fencing of funds on your card/account will vary in line with your card issuer’s terms and conditions.
...so they are implying it is the bank's terms though the bank have already said it was Sainsbury's that held onto the funds after they had already taken the money for them.
Gamertag: Moto 70 - PSN: MotoSeventy
RIP Dan Wheldon, it was a pleasure to have known you...Kow, do you know what the reason for them doing this is? It sounds pretty unusual. I have no credit cards so only use DD for card purchases and I've never been aware of this being applied.
Sainsbury's T&C;'s...
9.10 We will not charge your credit or debit card until we despatch your order however, your card issuer may reserve funds in your account against the order. If the order is cancelled, we will cancel our ability to call on those funds. Your card issuer will not instantly release those funds as it is standard Banking practice to wait for the original authorisation to expire. Please contact your card issuer for details on their policy.
In the event that a number of Products are purchased in an order and there are different dispatch dates then your credit card or debit card will be charged on those different dates.
So who is my complaint with now?
Gamertag: Moto 70 - PSN: MotoSeventy
RIP Dan Wheldon, it was a pleasure to have known you...Are Nationwide now Santander? If so just give them a ring, they eturned a bunch of charges back to me the other week. Orange are also refunding me the charges when they pull their finger out
They told me but I don't quite remember. I think it was something to do with the time it would take between the transaction and when the money was actually taken. But I remember that when I checked my balance it appeared that the whole four grand had been taken and the correct amount didn't appear for a day or two. It's the only time it's ever happened so I would imagine it's something that individual businesses can choose if they want.
It helps nobody here but I never use debit cards online and rarely in person either. A debit card getting scammed is all my money, a credit card getting scammed - not my money.
That's a very good point. While I'm pretty careful about online purchases (i.e. where they're made) that doesn't remove the risk. I should probably get a credit card at some point.
Paypal is great for avoiding all those types of worries. Pity Amazon don't use it.
Alot of credit cards offer discounts or rewards just for using them too. So that's great if you pay them off in full with Direct Debit every month so you don't forget. Paypal is good if you go Amex. Some people don't accept Amex but accept Paypal. I have my Amex registered as the main payment with Paypal so can cast my 1% discount net wider.
That explains why I see a difference on my online statement between my cleared and available funds. Or whatever it's called.
It's perfectly normal for there to be a discrepancy between cleared and available funds as ALL card transactions will show almost immediately as a debit from available funds before appearing some days later as a debit transaction on your statement. That's a different matter altogether though as the funds are only being taken once from your account.
I don't understand why any card transactions would ever be debited twice from available funds at any point as that seems ludicrous, as it would cause all manner of difficulties for the majority of bank customers. I bought a car the other day for c£5000 and paid the whole amount as a single debit card transaction. If they'd tried to take that whole amount twice (even only temporarily) I'd have been in all sorts of bother, other transactions bouncing left, right and centre.
Some of the cashback credit cards are pretty good. Many have no annual fee so you can make a wee bit of money back on them (especially if you move all of your spending over to them as long as you pay them back in full each mont via DD).
Capital One are doing one which has 5% cashback for the 1st 3 months (very useful if you have any big purchases planned) while Santander do a 3-2-1 Cashback card where you get 3% back on petrol, 2% back at department stores (Debenhams etc) and 1% back for any supermarkets.
Perm, it's Sainsbury's being risk averse and covering themselves from a chargeback should the transaction be declined after they have processed it (due to the fact that credit and debit card payments go through a third party - a 'merchant services'). Im posting on my phone so will expand tomorrow when I can get to a proper keyboard if you like.
I certainly wouldn't book a holiday without one. Credit cards are fantastic if you don't use them because you're skint. It's almost too good to true until you realise how bad a lot of people are at managing their finances.
Didn't mean the taking funds twice, that's just non-sensicable to me. Just always wondered why a debit card would have a difference between cleared and available. I only really pay attention to total in, total out and how close I am to entering my overdraft.
Isn't this deeply unfair on the consumer who may end up (like the OP) being charged for returned transactions that they should have had funds available for?
Yes it is.
Basically, when you make a card transaction, the retailer gets the money from a 3rd party merchant service that provides the card payment infrastructure. The merchant service then collects this from the bank. In providing this service to the retailer, the merchant service states that, if they go to claim the money from the customer and it isn't there (due to any time lapse between the purchase and the money being claimed), they reserve the right to claw this back from the retailer, and can do for up to 170 days.
The retailer therefore bears all the risk of this transaction, so if they wish, to protect themselves they can (and probably will) ringfence the amount on your account when the purchase is made (so you can't spend it). There should be no problem with this, however, it's very difficult to match the ringfenced amount with purchase amounts (as they can change, may not be taken in one go, etc.), so the ringfenced credit must be released by your bank. That's where the failure lies, so they should refund all charges made to your account.
It seems to be supermarkets that do this sort of thing most commonly, probably due to the fact that their risk exposure would be sky high if they didn't (i.e. all the scrotes would cotton on quite quickly that they could order shopping, games etc. without paying if they time their spending right).
When you use a debit card the money doesn't come out straight away. It's usually gets ringfenced, as others have mentioned. This is why, for example, you can go to an ATM and have a balance of, £100 but £0 available to withdraw - You've already spent it but it hasn't been taken from your account. Sometimes this doesn't work and people take out money that is already on it's way out of your account... but that's a story for another time.
The blame could lie with either the bank or the retailer to be honest and without seeing more detail than you can give us it's impossible to tell. In my experience it's usually the retailer to blame - On the small number of occasions I came across this it was nearly always because the retailer had ringfenced the money twice.
Either way, the bank should refund your charges or the supermarket should pay them for you.
This is the exact reason why I have never used a debit card online.