Pay for small items with your debit card instead of using money
I recently found out that if you pay for small items(eg bread or milk)that cost lower than about £1.20 on your debit card, then every so often large corporations can forget to take the payment and after a week or so it will be reversed back into your account. Sometimes they will realise a few weeks down the line and so take the money out then but sometimes they won't. It's not stealing and it's not fraud.

I discovered this when I queried a small amount that had vanished from my account. Myself and the guy from the bank couldn't quite believe it when he looked into it for me and realised why. I believe he planned to buy a packet of Starbursts when he finished work. Happy days :-)
(pooster found out how long a piece of string was on, Thu 10 Nov 2011, 22:16, 11 replies)

Do you live in a third world country?
I ask because everywhere I've been that takes debit cards has a network-connected machine which means the payment registers either instantly or a little later that day.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Thu 10 Nov 2011, 22:20, closed)

Heh, I live in Wales.
As I said, the money gets reversed back into your account after a week if the company forget to take the payment. It sounds a bit crazy but it does happen. I'm afraid I don't know why, but if I had to guess I'd say magic.
(pooster found out how long a piece of string was on, Thu 10 Nov 2011, 22:47, closed)

I was almost right then, heh.
I'll keep an eye out for this in Blighty.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Thu 10 Nov 2011, 23:04, closed)

Sounds like shit to me.
Just saying, like.
( blaireau69 , the Cumbrian Travis Bickle., Thu 10 Nov 2011, 22:41, closed)

I know, it really does
I wouldn't have believed it either if I hadn't queried a quid that was in my account one day and had disappeared the next with no transaction to account for it. I phoned the bank and got them to investigate and this was the explanation. As I said the bank guy was a bit dumbfounded too so I presume it isn't common knowledge.
(pooster found out how long a piece of string was on, Thu 10 Nov 2011, 22:56, closed)

You'll need to run that all by me again.
Money disappeared from your bank account?
There was no transaction to account for this?
And this is because large organisations "forget" to accept payments?
Mmmmmmm...
Strokes chin...
Jimmy Hill.
( blaireau69 , the Cumbrian Travis Bickle., Thu 10 Nov 2011, 23:07, closed)

Okay, before I go to bed
In August(for example), I use my card in Tesco for a pint of milk. My bank takes the money out of my available funds to await Tesco's request for it and the payment shows up on my August statement. A week later, with Tesco not collecting the money my bank then reverses the transaction thereby making the funds available again. In October, Tesco realises and requests the money. My bank pays it out but, because this is for a transaction that happened weeks earlier, nothing shows up on my account as it was already on my August statement. Sometimes though Tesco(or suchlike) will forget to take the money at all, meaning I got my pint of milk for free. Again, I know how ridiculous it sounds that a company like Tesco or similar would forget to take payment, but it's something to do with the minimal amount of people that make payments for this sort of quantity on their card. A banker or someone that works in the finance department of a supermarket could probably explain it better than me, but that is how I understand it to be.
Hope this makes sense of a sort, goodnight.
(pooster found out how long a piece of string was on, Thu 10 Nov 2011, 23:50, closed)

The only explanation I can think of for this is that there's a threshold
...under which it costs more than the payment to accept it. Say the bank charges the shop 50p per transaction, then anything you buy in the shop for less than 50p loses them money (cost of goods not counted). If they can reject certain transaction sand are not charged for them, then it saves a few pence. But then the time trawling through to choose those transactions would probably cost more than the savings.

Yeah, I've changed my mind. In a sane world, where big companies are big because they make money, this couldn't happen.
(sabre-tooth monkey, Fri 11 Nov 2011, 9:33, closed)

In the old days
before chip and PIN

I was told that big shops such as supermarkets took your card details and signature, assumed everything was OK and then processed all the payments in one go (end of the day or overnight).
The card details were checked realtime to make sure they weren't cancelled but the balance wasn't.
Randomly, the card company would not allow the transaction automatically and they shop would have to ring up to get it authorised (I don't think this is the same as the fraud detection phones calls these days).

Might be bollocks, but if the supermarkets still process all the payments overnight then some might get lost in the system somehow.
( thistle, Fri 11 Nov 2011, 21:59, closed)

Large Shops have what is known as a "Floor Limit" above which things need authorisation. This is, mainly, due to the sheer volume of transactions. So the card details are only checked against a hot cards file, and left to sit to be authorised later that night. This can be quite a small limit, so it stands to reason, that if they are charged 50p for a debit card transaction, and you've spent
( Alex Save a Tree, Eat a Beaver!, Sun 13 Nov 2011, 2:06, closed)

Could be.
When you rent a car and pay the deposit with a card, they don't actually take the money. Instead they earmark the amount in your account, so it's still there, but you can't get at it and you have authorised them to take it later if they want to.

Perhaps some similar sort of deal works with Tesco, and the till transaction earmarks the funds for later collection?
(ubergeekian, Fri 11 Nov 2011, 19:29, closed)