Payment taken after 23 days

[ringo110879]

Just a quick question. If i buy something and make a payment via debit card. Can the company take the money from my account sfter 23 days. Reason i ask is i booked a holiday and paid by card, i travelled it and returned without payment being taken, thought i was gettin a freebie. Holiday company took the money out of my account after 23 days which put me overdrawn, costs, charges, ouch!! I thought that there was a set period of authorisation with which the company has to take the money.

any ideas?

[theren_911]

FREELOADER! I thought they have a matter of years to reclaim monies.

I took an EXPENSIVE watch for a refund last X-mas and it refunded twice for some reason, still not been caught either! Muhahaha - does that make you feel better? :-b

[gammaray]

I suspect it's up to the company when they process the transactions. Normally the transactions are processed quite quickly. Card processing companies, like streamline for example, who operate the counter terminals that you run your card through, process these the next working day. If it was a paper transaction it will depend when the company take the slips to the bank. I suppose there could have been a delay somewhere. There will be a time limit but it's likely to be months rather than days.

[kaz20]

when i donated money to comic relief last year via my debit card it took them about 3 months to take it out of my account. made me a bit bitter really as it half suggested that they werent very desperate for it (im sure they were really... but it didnt give a very good impression!)

[ringo110879]

I actually spoke to my bank when it occured and they were of the opinion that the monies are only authorised to be removed from my account within an agreed period. For my bank it is 5 days, during these 5 days the money was in 'limbo' and was shown as part of the balance but not available, you'll notice this when you pay for something by card. After 5 working days the money was still in my account and was also available funds, i thought they'd missed their opportunity to take it. Any financial experts out there? or does anybody no where i can get advice? Thanks.

P.S Nothing wrong with being a freeloader. lol

[CheekyChops]

I worked for a high street bank and it was 6 months then (2 years ago). Hardly any payment ever took this long but there was always the possibility it could.

At the end of the day, you paid for something and you knew they would be debiting your account and therefore you shouldn't have spent the funds, 23 days really isn't that long! I'm not preaching, I too got caught out by Comic Relief which took about 4 months to go through and sent me overdrawn. I just don't see how you can complain, you thought you had got away with it but hadn't, that's life!

[Whickerman]

This is the big downfall of debit cards, and the reason i never use mine. A lot of banks actually have to wait for the vendor to submit their paperwork before the transaction is processed, in the same way the old credit card system worked. It's ludicrous in this day and age.

[dzug]

I don't think you have a leg to stand on.

How do you know it was the holiday company that took the money after 23 days? It's equally possible that the bank made an error, debited someone else's account, they took a while to notice the error and the bank eventually put it right.

Think of it as an electronic cheque - real ones can be months being presented occasionally.

[stevie21]

"only authorised to be removed from my account within an agreed period"
Totally false - you've entered into a contract to give someone money for "services rendered" (oo-err!!) and they are entitled to that money. It's theirs, you owe them it. That really is the end of the matter. There's no limit of time aside from any standard time limit when chasing a debt which from my very dodgy memory is 3-6 years.

dzug - "How do you know it was the holiday company that took the money after 23 days?"
Their name on ringo's bank statement might be a small clue. Such payments work along these lines....
The merchant (holiday company) CLAIM the money from you. The bank don't "send" it, it is *taken* by the company.

It's all well and nice to hear yet another banking conspiracy theory (I swear to god, I don't know how you all have the endurance to continually think them all up!!!) but this one's inaccurate.
Actually it's a work of crazy fiction - "debited the money from someone else". For fox's glacier mints...

[ringo110879]

It was the cutomer services rep at my bank that told me about the authorised period. She said that when i made the payment the monies were authorised and made available for a period of days, she said 5. During this time the money wasn't available to me as i had authorised it as a payment. I now do realise that i have no chance of re-claiming it, just thought i'd check. And by the way 'cheekychops' i didn't spend the funds, as it was a large amount i simply re-transferred it into my savings account expecting a letter or invoice from the travel company, it's just a shame i had to pay charges of 58 pounds.