Originally Posted by wyldblyss

I would highly suggest that ALL webmasters outside of the U.S. pay very close attention to their epassporte accounts and look for "double dipping".

7 days ago I go into a local Canadian Tire store and make a purchase for $106.04 Canadian using the Visa Electron card. Canadian Tire requests authorization for the charge, they are given the authorization code of 012823. Epassporte deems that charge to be $98.96 U.S. and they remove that amount from my account. When the actual charge is processed the exchange rate has changed, and it is now only $98.49.

In the past, epassporte would put through the second charge, using the same authorization code as the first. You could call them, and they would see, the exact same original currency amount, on the exact same day, with the same authorization number and they would clear the duplicate charge.

Now, epassporte should automatically remove that double charge, but they never have...I have waited over 30 days in the past and they never removed it. I have always had to call and tell them to remove it which is a big hassle. They always removed it though (but I wonder if there are a lot of accounts where they just never removed it because the account holder didn't notice).

Here is the good part though. Epassporte has now changed things. As I said, they used to put the *duplicate* charge under the same authorization code which made for easy removal of the duplicate charge. Now they put it through with an authorization code of 000000.

Speaking with their supervisor of Customer Service today, Rene, she tells me that they can NOT remove charges because the authorization codes are different. Rene insists they are SEPERATE charges and that they will not return the money without Canadian Tire removing the charge.

I phoned the Canadian Tire company who looked up ALL transactions under my card number and say there is only ONE charge and it was under the authorization code of 012823 and they NEVER put through a second charge and are extremely pissed off that epassporte is claiming they put through a second charge because as Canadian Tire told me, it is basically accusing them of double charging/fraud on their customers and they said that if epassporte did not remove the charges and cease this activity they will have thier legal department contact Epassporte and make a formal complaint with Visa.

I called Rene back and told her what Canadian Tire said and that Canadian Tire can NOT request removal of a charge they never placed and that the 000000 is not a VALID authorization code and it is not a code they would ever get. Rene basically said, we aren't giving you the money back, let Candian Tire's legal department do whatever they want.

So folks, check your epassporte accounts. I'm out $98.96 U.S. You know, I love epassporte, it has a lot of good things going for it, and it is great for those of us in adult....but man.....you just can't do things like this to customers.