Can anyone offer any advise from experiences?
I have called up a company today and made a payment using my Debit Card. When checking my on line banking it appears that the pending amount is double the amount required.
Has anyone had this before? Is it likely that it will be corrected during the pending stage?
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If in doubt, phone your card company
Some companies do double the amount for security but ony actually take the proper amount.
Good luck.
both payments cleared my account now. Called the company who claim they only have taken one payment and have had to send a copy of my bank statment as proof. I have not yet had a response from the email of proof, can anyone give any advise of what i can do and where i stand.
Ask your bank for the authorisation code for each of the two payments, and which merchant services provider (streamline, worldpay etc) was used to authorise the payment. Once you've got these, go back to the company and ask them to confirm the authorisation code for the payment that they took, and whether they keyed the payment through a PDQ machine, or entered it into a computer system for authorisation by a 3rd party supplier. They may believe they've only taken one payment, so it's not necessarily them trying to diddle you but they need to go back to their 3rd party supplier or merchant services provider to find out what happened to that authorisation and get the second lot of money refunded to you. Advise them that if you don't receive a refund into your account within 7 days then you'll be instituting the chargeback process with your card issuer. (Basically the bank try to get the money back off the merchant services provider, who then take it back off the company). Allowing 7 days is fair, as some banks are incredibly slow at recrediting the money even beyond the usual 3 day payment processing cycle.
Good luck.
A well known company of long East Anglian tradition but which now has a foreign sounding name took my wife's car insurance renewal twice and then took 4 MONTHS to reimburse her despite being sent a copy of her bank statement as requested when she realised what had occurred.
I have an related policy with the same company which I pay annually by cheque. Last year I sent the cheque in good time and a fortnight after the renewal date it had not been cashed. I telephoned (at some expense both in terms of my time and call charges given the delay in speaking to me) and asked whether my cheque had been received. I was advised that it had not and duly took the name of the official who gave this information. I told her I would send a cheque by return and cancel the unreceived cheque.
This was duly done as I said and in less than a week the "new" cheque cleared my bank account. However a few days later I received a threatening letter advising that the cheque I'd sent to pay my premium had been cancelled and that all cover would cease unless I paid immediately.
Given that I had tangible evidence that I had paid via my bank statement I chose not to allow them to stress me out or intimidate me and ignored that particular letter. However I did wonder whether some people may have been intimidated and felt that they should pay again given the threatening tone of the letter.
Hopefully people now understand some of the reasons (I have more) why I refer to insurance companies as thieving bastards!
the phrase an related should read an unrelated.
The "new" Charlton Life does not permit me to edit.
Edited, to check, works fine.
It's probably to do with versions of browser and all that stuff. I did try updating to IE8 but not a lot seemed to happen!
I proably did it wrong. Technology is not one of my strong points.
I paid a hotel bill back in June using my debit card, their machine at the time was broken so they used their old fashioned 'swipe' machine which takes an inprint of the card and the amount is handwritten on and then I sign. I have the copy receipt with my signature, an authorisation code and the amount on it, but no date visable
thing is they still haven't taken the cash from my current account.....the bill was for £1,500 and the money is still sitting there waiting for them to take it, at first I thought maybe they'd reconcile it at the end of the month (when it didn't come out after a few days) and each month I keep expecting it to go but it doesn't...I then thought, maybe they'll reconcile their annual accounts at the end of the tax year in April and realise it's not been paid (obviously I'm hoping they won't - and I'm not going to contact them to remind them!)
after some digging I found info that states they can take the money at anytime up to 6 years?, anyone know if this is correct - or have you been in a similar situation.
I've got plenty of things I could use that money for, but obviously don't want to spend it for them to then come calling for it....bit of a quandry
The smart thing to do is tell your bank you've lost your card and they'll cancel it and send you a new one. Then the hotel will not be able to take the money when you're not expecting it, and if they ask why the payment failed you can tell them you cancelled the card.
The 6 year thing sounds strange as most cards expire after 3 years.
If they get in touch (did you give home address, number), you say, ' I have no idea what your on about'
Had a similar thing on a day out at the zoo with the kids, ok, was only £100 but sod it.
However, most (all?) banks and credit card companies operate something called the "chargeback" scheme. See here: money.co.uk/article/1007205-chargeback-claims-how-to-get-your-money-back.htm
Personally after an initial attempt I wouldn't bother with the merchant but use your bank's chargeback scheme instead.
A word of caution: becuase of the often inadequate training received by bank call centre staff it is frequently the case that the 'phone jockey will never have heard of the scheme. INSIST that you speak with somebody competent instead and remind them of the over-arching obligation placed on them by the FCA to "treat customers fairly"
If you get to 1 January and you still haven't heard from the hotel then presume you're in the clear and celebrate by putting £1450 behind the bar at the Anchor & Hope after the Brighton game on 10 Jan and inviting everyone who has posted on this thread up until now. Keep back £40 to pay for your ticket and a couple of beers at Watford the following week and save the last tenner to take the wife out for dinner. Happy days!
Story: I had car insurance with a company (Independent Insurance) that went bust in dubious circumstances. Okay I could have waited (months?) for the FSCS to pay out. Instead I just wrote to the card company, cited S75 of the Consumer Credit Act, reminded them they were jointly and severally liable and requested a pro rata refund for the 9 months' worth of insurance I had not received. Hey presto, money back on my account in a few days. Sorted. If you pay by cheque, you can't do that.