[ SECRET POST #2597 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2597 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.


__________________________________________________



02.


__________________________________________________



03.


__________________________________________________



04.


__________________________________________________



05.


__________________________________________________



06.


__________________________________________________



07.


__________________________________________________



08.


__________________________________________________



09.


__________________________________________________



10.


__________________________________________________



11.


__________________________________________________



12.


__________________________________________________



13.


__________________________________________________



14.


__________________________________________________



15.















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 047 secrets from Secret Submission Post #371.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - titc ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: Anybody here work in the banking industry?

[(Anonymous)]

Do you by any chance know if most of the problems are with a specific bank or handful of banks?

The way authorizations are handled does depend somewhat on an institution's finance department, and also somewhat on the software that an institution is using. I worked for a bank whose software for some reason had a tendency to process auths twice for certain vendors, so some significant charges (such as hotel and airline tickets) would wind up triggering multiple holds, some of which would sometimes remain in effect after the actual charge had cleared. Our workaround was the manual removable of holds (many institutions do not allow for that, however).

On the other hand, authorizations can be wonky due to the way the merchant/vendor sends them rather than due to the way the institution processes them. For example, many gas stations have started sending auth requests for a pre-determined amount when a customer uses a card at the pump rather than at the counter. So, holds of anywhere from $50 to $150 wind up being triggered despite not matching the actual transaction amount. There are also merchants now that put debit transactions through as credit even when the customer has selected debit (saves the merchant on interchange fees), which triggers a hold rather than immediately charging the account. And there are other merchants whose systems, for whatever reason, send through multiple auth requests for the same transaction. To further complicate things, if a merchant delays sending through a request for actual payment (which is separate from the initial auth request), then a hold can linger without the charge actually clearing (this is typically something that happens with smaller merchants who reconcile their credit/debit transactions weekly rather than daily). I worked for a credit union where wacky holds were generally vendor/merchant-side, because both our software and our finance department were otherwise very good at pushing through POS/debit and/or taking care of incorrect auths.

So: if the customers having these problems tend to have their accounts with one particular bank or with a couple banks, then the problem is most likely on the banks' end. If it seems to be happening with a random assortment of banks, then the problem might actually be with how your company is sending through auth and payment requests. It may have changed, which would explain the sudden uptick in problems.