Debit Card Usage and Authorizations (aka Pending Charges) EVERONE READ THIS!!

[Hurricane]

So far today, I've gotten three calls from angry customers about this very thing. They want to blame the hotel when, in reality, this is a bank issue. Here is some info on debit card authorizations, aka "pending charges:"

Authorizations

When you buy anything using your bank debit card, the store (whether it is retail, restaurant or online), gets an ‘authorization number’ from your bank for the amount that your purchase totals. These are the debit purchases that show up as ‘Pending’ transactions. It may be days before they actually process.

In some cases, the authorization (or ‘hold’) will ‘fall off’ before the transaction posts – leaving you to see a larger ‘available balance’ than you really have. After all, the charge will go through eventually! Hopefully by then you haven’t ‘double spent’ the same money!

However, there ARE exceptions…the most notorious being gas stations. They may only authorize $1, or they may authorize $50…regardless of the actual amount that your gas costs that day. Consequently, these purchases are a very easy way to overdraft your account!

If you only have $1 authorized (it may not even show up on your online banking)…and you forget that you had $75 worth of gas…in a few days you may be in for a nasty shock! The charge will still go through in nightly processing, but you might not ever see it online as a pending charge…and because there wasn’t a ‘hold’ on that money, you may think there is more money in your account than there really is!

[dragonbat]

Speaking as a MasterCard call center supervisor, they'll blame us sometimes when it's a merchant issue. As in, they've paid for the charge and the merchant hasn't voided it off yet.

Good times, good times.

[J.R. LeMar]

I use my debit card for most purchases (it's much better than carrying around cash), and I've noticed this with a few purchases. Most seem to go through immediately for me, but sometimes it does take a day or two. Especially when I use my card to pay certain bills online.

So I just make sure I'm keeping track of what I've spent, regardless of what my daily balance says. It's the same as when I used to mostly write checks, and I had to balance my checkbook. Except now it's just watching my account online.

[Mermaid]

Doesn't work like that here.
The actual amount you've spent say, at the gas station, might not come out of your account until some days later and your balance will look as if that money hasn't been spent but the amount of "available" money will have already gone down, so you can't spend that "gas" money twice.

In other words, your balance might say $200 but if you've spent $50 on gas, your available money that you can access will be $150 regardless if that gas money is showing up as being spent.

[Romero]

See for me, gas paid for as debit always comes out right away for me.

It's when I use it as a "credit card" to buy gas that's different. In those cases, it may be days before I see ANYTHING show up out of my account when I look online. I don't get a pending authorization of any sort in those cases.