Wow. I haven't had to make this many inquires about pending orders with you guys, like ever...
Anyway, it is probably all my fault for ordering a bunch of stuff in separate orders, but I had differing methods of payments for them. For this particular order, I am using a gift card that was given to me. The status is showing that you have received an "insufficient funds" communication from the card company. However, I have inquired with them about issues with the account--it seems that you guys have made two requests for funds on the same account. I do not know what the issue is, but my order amount was approved by the card company and you should have received authorization from them for that amount. A second request by you guys has been made on this gift card, but it is not for the amount on the order in question. Nor have I used this gift card for any other purchases. Period.
Please investigate on your end and let me know what the problems are. I do not want to just resubmit the information on the gift card, because you should already have the authorization from the gift card company. Thanks for your service.
Wow. I haven't had to make this many inquires about pending orders with you guys, like ever...
Anyway, it is probably all my fault for ordering a bunch of stuff in separate orders, but I had differing methods of payments for them. For this particular order, I am using a gift card that was given to me. The status is showing that you have received an "insufficient funds" communication from the card company. However, I have inquired with them about issues with the account--it seems that you guys have made two requests for funds on the same account. I do not know what the issue is, but my order amount was approved by the card company and you should have received authorization from them for that amount. A second request by you guys has been made on this gift card, but it is not for the amount on the order in question. Nor have I used this gift card for any other purchases. Period.
Please investigate on your end and let me know what the problems are. I do not want to just resubmit the information on the gift card, because you should already have the authorization from the gift card company. Thanks for your service.
For some reason we're getting an "Insufficient funds in the account" error from your gift card when we try to charge the remaining $93.92. Could you have spent some of the balance somewhere else and now don't have enough? Also the reason there are 2 charges is the first one is for the .pdf and the second one is for the products.
--Jeff
I guess what I don't understand is why are you saying there is a remaining $93.32, when the entire order in question was only $99.31? Please confirm that you are not mixing up my orders or mixing them up with another customer.
OK. So I looked at my Email again and I see that you charged the gift card $5.39 at the time of the order, assuming that is for the PDF I purchased on that order.
Well, the bank holding the gift card told me this afternoon that you made a request for the full amount ($99.31) yesterday and the you are trying to put a second request for $93.32 on the same card. The deal with gift cards is that I can use them just like a credit card, but merchants cannot request payment for more than the amount on the card. And according to the bank, you are requesting $192.63. The gift card only has $100 on it. Is there any way you can fix the charges you are making so that you are not requesting more than the gift card amount?
Chief Technical Officer
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This one is a bit complicated, but the good news is that it will sort itself out—though some help from your end might make that happen more quickly.
When you place an order with us, we do an authorization (not a charge) to the credit card company for the full amount of your order, to make sure you have enough credit available. This effectively puts a hold on your account for the total amount for us to use.
Next, because we fulfilled the PDF immediately, we charged that small amount to the card. Our bank, at this point, requires that we make the small charge against the large authorization. But as far as your bank is concerned, the *difference* between the large authorization and the small charge is still on hold.
Then, a bit later, when we had the rest of the products ready to ship, we tried to charge the balance. Our bank won't let us use the first authorization anymore, so we placed another authorization for the balance—and since your bank hadn't closed the first authorization yet, and the sum of the old and the new authorizations are over the limit, we get the response that there are insufficient funds.
So the bad news is that there's nothing we can easily change in our system to solve this problem. Our bank won't let us reuse a partially used authorization (they used to, but they deliberately changed that a couple years ago for reasons unknown to us), and if we set our system to do separate authorizations for the PDF and the balance, there would be a greater chance that fraud prevention measures at your bank (triggered by multiple authorizations within a few seconds) would cause your card to be put on a fraud prevention hold by your bank.
But again, the good news is that once that first authorization is closed by your bank, we should be able to successfully charge your card. Unfortunately, I can't tell you how long that will take—it's up to your bank. In many cases, it happens overnight after the first charge, but it could possibly take longer.
If you'd like to try to help move things along, you could contact your bank, explain the situation, and ask them to close the partially used authorization for the full amount. I'm not sure if they can or will—they may require that it be closed by whatever automated process they usually use—but they might be able to do it... or they might at least be able to tell you when it will happen.
Vic,
I really appreciate your taking the time to detail out the process like that. It makes a whole lot more sense now. Thanks.
I just called the bank that holds the gift card account. They do not show any pending charges and the balance available is the correct amount for the remainder of the purchase. It seems that their system cleared the pending charges pretty quick.
So I will re-submit the card number as payment and hopefully that will fix things. Please keep me apraised of any more issues that arise. Thanks again for your stellar service!
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Director of Sales
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Vic,
I really appreciate your taking the time to detail out the process like that. It makes a whole lot more sense now. Thanks.
I just called the bank that holds the gift card account. They do not show any pending charges and the balance available is the correct amount for the remainder of the purchase. It seems that their system cleared the pending charges pretty quick.
So I will re-submit the card number as payment and hopefully that will fix things. Please keep me apraised of any more issues that arise. Thanks again for your stellar service!
Cirdan,
I just checked the order and it appears that everything has been sorted out and (barring any further unforeseeable hangups) we will be shipping your order out to you soon.
Thanks,
cos