Fraud or not?

[Scotty_Tradewind]

ALWAYS, ALWAYS, in the case of large expenditure, pay at least £100 of the value of goods by credit card, even if you are charged 3% for the privaledge of doing so.
In my business where customers can pay up to £30-40k for their goods, we encourage the customer to pay even a small part of their deposit by credit card, to protect them from our own downfall and our suppliers.
The £100 credit card payment protects the customer against any fraud or failure of the seller etc. on that purchase up to £30K no matter how the rest of the payments be made, e.g. cash with receipt, cheque, debit card or bacs etc..
Banks/credit card companies DO NOT like the general public being aware of this, but it is the law.
see......
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/section75-protect-your-purchases

 

[Bosun Higgs]

If you re-read her email, she says the second debit is system generated. Therefore , no people, god or popes involved.

The system must have been created to do this, which I find to be very sharp practise. WTF do they think they are, taking an unauthorised loan from me for five days?

Looks like Sybaris has explained the system to you. My experience of life has been that cockup is by far the most likely cause of problems - the chances of a huge company like West deliberately setting up their systems to commit the criminal act of fraud that you accused them of is negligible. Posters are far to ready to throw about accusations of criminality.

 

[Seven Spades]

I run a mail order business and this causes quite a lot of confusion. We pre-authorise cards but do not take the payment until we ship the goods, this allows the customer to makes alterations to the order up to the point of shipment. When we release the order we take payment but we do not re-authorise the card with a difference number so the card holders limit is only reduce by the amount of the order between ordering an shipment.

West Marine have authorised your card twice and taken payment once and this is not a problem if your credit limit is high enough, but can be an inconvenience if it is not. What it does do is confuse the card holder who will think they have been charged twice.

 

[vyv_cox]

Sybaris has mentioned fuel payments. This is exactly what happens when buying from unmanned pumps in France by credit/debit card. On entering the card details an initial authorisation sum of €100 is debited. The cost of the fuel used is then debited. After a period of a few days the €100 charge is refunded.

 

[Seven Spades]

Sybaris has mentioned fuel payments. This is exactly what happens when buying from unmanned pumps in France by credit/debit card. On entering the card details an initial authorisation sum of €100 is debited. The cost of the fuel used is then debited. After a period of a few days the €100 charge is refunded.

It is not refunded, your credit limit was reduced by €100 for a few days that's all.

 

[Deleted member 478]

... that you accused them of is negligible. Posters are far to ready to throw about accusations of criminality.

I think that if you learn to read, you will find that I asked a question and did not make a statement - see the thread title.

 

[vyv_cox]

It is not refunded, your credit limit was reduced by €100 for a few days that's all.

I use a Dutch debit card. €100 was deducted and refunded, as I said.