I noticed strange activity in my current account the other day after buying fuel with a debit card and I'd like to know if this sort of thing is normal for a card transaction.
I called at my local supermarket and bought (a small amount!) of fuel for the XJS, paying with my Connect card in their card only pump. By pure chance I happened to check the current account balance next day and I saw that the transaction had been carried out at 50 euros more than the fuel I had bought. I went and saw the manager, who at first gave me the shrug and said it was impossible. Then he said it was unusual and if I supplied copies of the receipt and my bank statement with their name on it he would get his bank to look into it.
So I waited until today and checked the balance again, when I found that the transaction had been amended to the correct amount.
Do banks always deduct a maximum amount on a card and then refund the difference between that and the actual amount spent or might something iffy be going on here?
What if the transaction had put me over an overdraft limit without my knowledge?
I stopped using cards at UK fuel stations years ago. I think I'll pay cash over here in future.
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I think the transaction is pre-approved at whatever the maximum the pump will dispense is (£99 at my local Shell station now), otherwise how would they know you had sufficient funds to pay for the fuel drawn? I haven't noticed that there's a lag between the charge and subsequent 'credit', but perhaps connect works in real time?
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As Peter says, the only unusual thing here is the amount of time it took for the "real" charge to replace the "authorised" charge.
I've had that once in the US. (To be fair, I should say I *noticed* once, it might happen a lot for all I know). It finally turned out that, in this instance at least, the credit card company had not processed the alteration promptly.
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The latest card scam in the U.S. is a reader placed in the card machine attached to the pump, like we have here. You use your card at the pump like normal. Pay for fuel, then when the station is closed, the crooks come back and remove the device from the pump. They then have the details of all the cards that have used that pump. Just another way since the cashpoints have become old hat for them.
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Yes, I avoid these pay at pump machines here possible. They are too vulnerable to abuse from criminals (even the in-store card machines aren't immune, as I know to my cost).
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I have low limit cards and I have high limit cards. My low limit cards I use anywhere and don't care too much about it.
As far as I can work out one pretty much always gets it back in the event of fraud, and the limits are too low to give me cause for [significant] concern while they sort it out.
I also have one card with a £200 limit for use in dodgy circumstances. Let them fill their boots with that one!!
In truth I'm not really sure why I have the high limit cards, but it seems churlish to say no.
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>> As far as I can work out one pretty much always gets it back in
>> the event of fraud,
Yes, you do - I had one card scammed several times. Card company refunded no problem and each time gave the impression they couldn't care less. I've stopped using that card now.
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>>Yes, you do - I had one card scammed several times. Card company refunded no problem and each time gave the impression they couldn't care less. I've stopped using that card now.
SWMBO had a fraudulent transaction on a credit card (fool in a shop put through a debit 'cardholder not present' in addition to genuine purchase).
Bank told her not to contact BIBs. She ignored that and plod were very interested!
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On occasions when I've made an internet purchase my account has been debited with an extra £1. It's never cleared and comes back into my account after about ten days. Do other banks do this?
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>> On occasions when I've made an internet purchase my account has been debited with an
>> extra £1. It's never cleared and comes back into my account after about ten days.
>> Do other banks do this?
>>
Never seen that..(Must be a Government owned bank :-)
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Small value card purchases, like £1, was the usual practice of crooks wanting to see if the card they were using was still valid, after that had cleared they would then make the big value hit. This happened to me many moons ago but luckily my bank spotted this and rang me to ask if it was me, they then managed to block a £700 purchase that was trying to be made at a computer store.
When ever I've bought fuel abroad the purchases have always just shown up as the amount in Euros then converted into Sterling but they were made over the counter and not at the pump.
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I see this every time I buy fuel on my way back to Germany from the UK.
Stop in Heerlen for diesel fill up. When i get home I see 100€ debited from my account (max fill value) then next morning it is reset to the amount purchased.
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Hmmm. I have just had an on-line typed conversation with someone obviously in India and only primed to give platitudes and reassurance that any loss will be covered. Not helpful really. Can there be a UK bank now that will take someone with an overseas address and which has a UK-based call centre? I'd leave Barclays like a shot. And they'd be sorry - if they gave a stuff at all.
In the meantime, card pumps are out for me. Shame, because sometimes it's handy.
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"and only primed to give platitudes and reassurance that any loss will be covered"
Surely a statement that any loss will be covered is all you need. What were you hoping for them to say?
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I'd just like an explanation for why one large sum is taken from my bank balance, then adjusted to a lower sum a couple of days later. I don't get the benefit of any of the money (for what it's worth these days) in the meantime, so who does? As far as I can see, somewhere a bank or company is inflating it's bank balance from day to day with my and other people's money and not paying for it.
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>>As far as I can see, somewhere a bank or company
>> is inflating it's bank balance from day to day with my and other people's money
>> and not paying for it.
>>
Er, what's new? Isn't that the whole principle of banking?
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Mike,
Do you mean these transactions actually show on screen for a payee/amount or just that there are variations in your 'available' balance which you can reconcile back to the uses you've made of the card?
It's common, I'd almost say universal, for transactions to affect my available balance (ledger, less uncleared credits plus authorised overdraft) immediately. This is known as 'earmarking' and protects the bank (and customer) against withdrawals in excess of available funds being concealed in clearing. They dissapear either when the matching transaction clears or after three days.
I can often reconcile mine by adding to the available recent items I've got chits for but which are not showing on screen to the until I get back to ledger balance plus auth'd o/d. A railway ticket I bought yesterday for example does not yet show on my account but my available balance is reduced by the £124.50 I paid for it. The ledger balance will catch up tomorrow when the transaction clears via Visa Debit.
I suspect that filling stations using pay at pump will earmark the max transaction (say £99) and may not replace that with the actual quantity sold.
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Do banks always do this? - PeterS
