Quoth Teskeria
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My alternative method for clearing this out is to phone a 1-800 number for our credit card management company. They then forward me to an automated line where I have to punch in the information. It takes about 3.8 minutes if I speed through it and about 5 minutes if I fully listen to each prompt. The only problem here is that you have to follow the prompts exactly with no way to make corrections. Make a mistake and you have to hang up and start all over. Additionally the automated system is just holding the #s to check later so there's no verification of typos or invalid #s or anything. Furthermore the credit card company runs these through their system but never bother to send us any status updates on whether the pre-auths get released or not. So basically I phone a line, enter numbers and cross my fingers.
The real problem in my opinion is these credit card companies who are including pre-authorizations on a person's credit card statement in the same manner as a charge. It confuses the customer and sometimes leads to shouting matches over the phone ("No we haven't charged your card. That is a hold on the funds. No I don't know why it looks like a charge. We haven't charged your card. *repeat*). If they want to show the customer that information, fine (my personal credit card doesn't list them as transactions, pre-auths just come out of the "funds available" line), but stop presenting the information wrong... especially since it's YOUR company that came up with this scheme of different credit card operations in the first place.
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