Help me with something
I placed an order on Barnes & Noble.com for two books. They're used so they were shipping from two different places. The total for both books including shipping was $20.77. I checked my bank statement and I have a charge for the $20.77 and also a charge for $12.39. I call B&N to ask about it and the impatient customer service guy, George, tried to say it was a hold my bank does because I used my debit card. Is this typical? I asked him to explain it a second time and he got testy with me. Well I'm going to keep checking my statement because I don't trust that the second charge is going to just magically disapper. Oh and the a*holes at B&N charge $3.99 to ship each book. It still ended up being cheaper (at least I thought it was) than getting it from textbooks.com which offered free shipping but it's a pain in the neck.
posted by UhLisa | 2:35 PM
5 Comments:
I have heard of some merchants/banks putting a hold on your credit/debit card, but I'm not 100% sure how it works... it should disappear now that the real charge has cleared though...
Yeah, I know my bank account has looked wonky after I've used my card like that, but it's always cleared up in a day or two. But I would definitely advise you to keep checking on it to be sure, like you said.
I just have a tendency to get ripped off sometimes so maybe I'm being overly sensitive.
Hotels do that a lot if you use your debit card, but I have never had a problem with the fee getting reimbursed. It is almost like debit cards have been almost as looked down upon as checks! :)
It's called "blocking" and it's legal, and largely unregulated, at least for the moment.
Here's the FTC's info on it.
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