minusonebit

Oh, I love customers like you. I really, really do.

I would NEVER waste time calling (worse yet, some banks now demand FAXES) card issuing banks to release holds put on customer's accounts by charges they made. If I "refunded" the order, closed the batch then the issue was done. Its an issue between the customer and THEIR FUCKING BANK, in this case, ePassporte.

Which is not surprising that you'd have this kind of problem with ePassporte, because they are well known for pulling this scam among others, you will NOT see that money for a month now... because ePassporte plays a game I like to call "hide the settlement". You see, there are TWO parts to EVERY card transaction, the authorization and the charge. NO RESPECTABLE COMPANY OF ANY SIZE charges your card before they SHIP THE PRODUCT because they would LOSE THEIR MERCHANT ACCOUNT if they did. Smaller companies do it because they are under the radar for this kinda shit. The authorization checks your account for sufficient credit or funds and if available, gets an authorization number from your bank. Its basically a serially numbered IOU. Your bank then puts the hold on your funds, NOT the merchant, to make sure it can cover the IOU if/when it gets called. Now the merchant, when they ship the order, they close the batch which is the equivalent of sending in the IOU for payment. No money has moved until this is done.

Now, THIS IS ALL DONE ONLINE, IN CLOSE TO REAL TIME.

If they told you they "refunded", they simply processed a void against that auth (basically, said they dont want thier IOU anymore) and closed the batch, thus transmitting it to the issuing bank and for a large company like buy.com, they probably close batches every hour or maybe even every 15 minutes. In that case, its ePassporte that is playing keepaway with the funds and you should bitch to them, because they know damn good and well the auth has been voided and that it can be released.

Its not Buy.com's problem that you deal with a dipshit company like ePassporte. I one of my credit card companies is a bitch about this as well, they tend to hold auths out for a long time. Though, like most banks, they are also very dumb. If the merchant printed the auth number on the reciept, I call the call center, ask to speak to merchant services to void an auth (which will be the rep you are talking to, but it makes it sound much better) and with a simple exchange of pleasantries I can get them knocked off.