Has this ever happend to you ?

teulk · 8 Jul 2007 at 15:11

My girlfriend bought me a graphics card from another online store for £98, it went through all the processes i.e security check all the way through to payment being taken and invoiced and its even with the courier to be delivered tomorrow (monday) - now she checked her bank account on friday and the cost of the item had been taken off but then she checked again yesterday day her bank balance is as it was before the cost was taken out........so basically the incvoice says payment has been taken but the bank account seems to say otherwise now...........at the moment it looks as if ive got the card for free :eek:

Obviously the money will stay in the bank to cover the cost of the item but what is a reasonable amount of time for the company to decide its made a mistake and recvcover its cost by re-billing my g/f.

Monkey Puzzle · 8 Jul 2007 at 15:16

Hmm, give it a few more days at least - probably just not gone through the system yet as it's over the weekend.

DAVEM · 8 Jul 2007 at 15:17

teulk said:
My girlfriend bought me a graphics card from another online store for £98, it went through all the processes i.e security check all the way through to payment being taken and invoiced and its even with the courier to be delivered tomorrow (monday) - now she checked her bank account on friday and the cost of the item had been taken off but then she checked again yesterday day her bank balance is as it was before the cost was taken out........so basically the incvoice says payment has been taken but the bank account seems to say otherwise now...........at the moment it looks as if ive got the card for free Obviously the money will stay in the bank to cover the cost of the item but what is a reasonable amount of time for the company to decide its made a mistake and recvcover its cost by re-billing my g/f.

Nothing says "I love you" like a graphics card

teulk · 8 Jul 2007 at 15:20

Monkey Puzzle said:
Hmm, give it a few more days at least - probably just not gone through the system yet as it's over the weekend.

But the payment was showing as being taken from her account and now its not.........im sure it will sort itself out all by its self

Yeah she got me a sapphire x1950gt 256mb

benktlottie · 8 Jul 2007 at 16:20

teulk said:
My girlfriend bought me a graphics card from another online store for £98, it went through all the processes i.e security check all the way through to payment being taken and invoiced and its even with the courier to be delivered tomorrow (monday) - now she checked her bank account on friday and the cost of the item had been taken off but then she checked again yesterday day her bank balance is as it was before the cost was taken out........so basically the incvoice says payment has been taken but the bank account seems to say otherwise now...........at the moment it looks as if ive got the card for free Obviously the money will stay in the bank to cover the cost of the item but what is a reasonable amount of time for the company to decide its made a mistake and recvcover its cost by re-billing my g/f.

Sometimes, a card transaction doesnt appear against the bank balance for 3 days. It will appear!

Duke · 8 Jul 2007 at 16:32

"Available balance" should change within a few hours of payment being taken, then the account gets updated after a working day or two

Edward78 · 8 Jul 2007 at 16:40

Something odd happened with me also, I got the WoW Xpack in the mail. I didn't order it & none of my family ordered it for me. So I got iit totally free.

tom_e · 8 Jul 2007 at 16:41

i ordered something from the rainforest once and it took a full 7 days for my bank to catch up with the payment

Munky1080 · 8 Jul 2007 at 16:48

It all depends on when the store sends their transaction information to the banks as to when it will go out. If i'm not mistaken, they basically "check" to see that the money is in the bank at the time, so they can approve the sale on their end, but they don't actually get their money until they decide to send the "batch" of transactions at the end of the day, or week.

Vixen · 8 Jul 2007 at 17:05

Card transactions aren't instant. What your girlfriend almost certainly saw was a pending transaction affecting her available funds - ie the company had requested the funds set aside, but hadn't claimed them. I'm not sure about other banks, but with Natwest/RBS, pending transactions only affect the available balance for 3 working days.
Normally companies will claim the funds straight away, but some will do it in a batch once a week, or possibly even less frequently if they don't have many card transactions. The money isn't removed from an account until the funds have been claimed.

So basically, the transaction has been processed, but they've not claimed the funds yet. Regardless of her available balance, they WILL be able to take those funds, so make sure she keeps it set aside.

teulk · 8 Jul 2007 at 17:09

Oh the funds will be available there will be no problem there, her "available balance" did reflected the money being taken (or set aside as mentioned) but then it didnt a day or so later, so it looked like it had been taken and now it shows it hasnt

Vixen · 8 Jul 2007 at 17:20

teulk said:
Oh the funds will be available there will be no problem there, her "available balance" did reflected the money being taken (or set aside as mentioned) but then it didnt a day or so later, so it looked like it had been taken and now it shows it hasnt

Yes, the pending transaction doesn't sit on the account for very long, so it is no longer affecting the available funds. It just means the store is slow at claiming funds from the bank.

Droolinggimp · 8 Jul 2007 at 18:54

DAVEM said:
Nothing says "I love you" like a graphics card

A graphics card!? Is that it?

teulk · 8 Jul 2007 at 19:04

Vixen said:
Yes, the pending transaction doesn't sit on the account for very long, so it is no longer affecting the available funds. It just means the store is slow at claiming funds from the bank.

On my account pending transactions sit there until it actually shows its been taken from my account and showing on my online statements ( this could be a few days) the pending transactions affect my available balance also........i.e if i have a balance £200 and i buy aomething for £100 my account would show Balance £200, Available funds £100 and thats how it stays until the money has completely cleared - I guess some banks work diffently..........im guessing you work in a bank or something

teulk · 8 Jul 2007 at 19:05

droolinggimp said:
A graphics card!? Is that it?

Well its the little things that count, next month she's gonna buy me a car - how nice is that

Droolinggimp · 8 Jul 2007 at 19:12

teulk said:
Well its the little things that count, next month she's gonna buy me a car - how nice is that

Damn...

Still nice to get gifts anyway, regardless of size etc..

teulk · 8 Jul 2007 at 19:13

i keep telling her that size doesnt matter

Monkey Puzzle · 8 Jul 2007 at 19:17

im sure it will sort itself out all by its self

Not sure how much of a defence that is if the bank gets stroppy!

teulk · 8 Jul 2007 at 19:21

Monkey Puzzle said:
Not sure how much of a defence that is if the bank gets stroppy!

Im not worried, 1. my girlfriend bought it so its her money

2. the money is going to stay there until they finally take it, if its not taken by friday then a phone call will made to the company.......ok i know we could just stay quiet if it dont come out as things like this have a nasty habbit of catching up with you and biting you in the backside

Vixen · 8 Jul 2007 at 20:12

teulk said:
On my account pending transactions sit there until it actually shows its been taken from my account and showing on my online statements ( this could be a few days) the pending transactions affect my available balance also........i.e if i have a balance £200 and i buy aomething for £100 my account would show Balance £200, Available funds £100 and thats how it stays until the money has completely cleared - I guess some banks work diffently..........im guessing you work in a bank or something

I worked for RBS (who own Natwest) for 3 years, and one of my roles was dealing with switch authorisations, and very similar questions until yours. I would assume that if your account doesn't change, that any transactions you have checked have always cleared before they would have dropped off your account.