Double or pending charges on your bank account or credit card do not necessarily mean that you have been charged twice.
First, understand that the banking system in North America is obsolete. What should be instantaneous takes many days. Though every technology needed to make the banking system work properly exists, it hasn’t been deployed. So keep this in mind as you read below.
Authorization hold (also called card authorization, preauthorization, or preauth) is the banking industry practice of authorizing electronic transactions made with a debit card or credit card, and holding the balance as unavailable either until the merchant captures the funds on the transaction (also called settlement), or the hold "falls off" and makes the balance available again.
For debit cards, authorization holds can fall off the account within 1-5 business days after the transaction date, depending on the bank's policy. For credit cards, holds can last 5-30 days, depending on the rules of the card’s issuing bank.
When a card is used online or in a store, the shopping cart of a website or credit card terminal in a store connects to the merchant's card processor company, who verifies that the customer's account is valid and that sufficient funds are available to cover the transaction. At this point, the funds are "held" and deducted from the customer's credit limit (or bank balance, for a debit card), but are not yet transferred to the merchant.
When we are ready to ship your package, we “settle” the transaction which captures the funds to transfer them to our account. This begins the settlement process in which the funds are transferred from the customer's accounts to the merchant's accounts. This process is not instantaneous (although many believe it is). The transaction might not appear on the customer's statement or online account activity for a day or two, and it can take up to three days for funds to be deposited in the merchant's account.
For example, if your bank balance or credit limit is $100 and you make a $40 purchase on the website, you will soon see that your balance or limit has reduced from $100 to $60. Depending on the bank that issued your card, when we settle the order and capture the $40, your statement may show 2 entries of $40. They will not be labeled as authorization and settlement due to the obsolete nature of the technology involved in American banking. The $40 entry that we settled will remain. The $40 entry that was an authorization will disappear on its own. It will disappear within 1-5 days or 1-30 days depending if it was a debit or credit card, respectively.
If you contact us about this issue there is nothing we can do other than explain to you what has been described above.
