Digital Image Studio wrote: > I recently made a payment for an eBay auction with my Personal Paypal > Account using my linked credit card and now my bank reports an > additional fee of AUD$1 to Paypal with the same eBay reference number. > However this additional fee is not recorded in my Paypal transaction > history. > > Can anyone shed any light on this? I've had a Paypal account now for > quite a few years and my status is reported as "Status: Australian - > Verified (6)". Following is the Paypal response to my query on the > matter: > > "Hello my name is Andrew, I will be happy to assist you with your > question regarding the $1.00 charge to your debit card. > > The $1 transaction is a preauthorization or a temporary hold for > verification purposes. Once the full amount of the purchase is > processed, it will show up in your account history, as a 'completed' > transaction and the $1 preauthorization hold will be released. > > If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us again." > > Merchants often attempt to verify certain aspects of a transaction. In the US, it's primarily address verification and CVV2 (that 3 digit code on the back) verification. With every pre-authorization transaction, along with approved or declined, is the response from the verification. The merchant pays a "swipe fee" for this transaction. It's usually a small fixed rate. Hopefully, within the next 24 hours that transaction will settle with the rest of the transaction in that day's batch. It's at this point that the merchant actually collects on the authorized amount and pays the percentage based "transaction fee".
If you dispute the charge at a later date, the merchant has a significant burden of proof and must show his processor and your issuing bank that he followed the rules. If he can show that the address and CVV2 verification matched, and that he shipped your merchandise to that verified address, he's probably going to get to keep his money. If he dropped the ball anywhere along the way, he's probably going to have to give you your money back, pay a chargeback fee, and possibly pay a billback on his monthly statement. It's in a merchant's best interest to collect as much information about the transaction as he can. They could also get on the phone and call their processor's verification department. This is time consuming and often costs the merchant more than a swipe fee. Thus, $1 transactions that are voided before the batch settles. Also, if a mistake was made you've only got a $1 hold (authorizations that last 30 days are typical with a credit card). It's easy to fix and try again. Keep in mind that the merchant has absolutely no way of "releasing" an authorization. They simply remove the transaction from their batch. The authorization will expire on its own. Of course, this is the abbreviated, over simplified version of the way mail order transactions are processed in North America. There may be some small differences elsewhere. -- Scott Loveless www.twosixteen.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
