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from the FAQ
• I've been charged twice for my order!
• Why is there a hold on my credit card when the order hasn't shipped yet?
• I saw a charge on my account, but now it's gone. What happened?
We don't charge your card until your order ships. However, when you place an order, we immediately authorize your card to ensure that it can be charged when we ship your order. An authorization is a non-monetary transaction that merely checks with your bank to ensure that the card is valid and has sufficient funds. Again, no money is charged to the card until we ship your order.
However, at the discretion of your bank, an authorization can (and almost always will) put a hold on that amount of your credit. The duration of this hold is entirely up to your bank. If you are checking your balance via online banking, this authorization may show up as a "pending transaction" (or it may not show up at all). We do not have any control over the duration of these holds.
An authorization will only remain open for a set period of time that depends on your bank's policies. For debit cards, an authorization will usually expire in 1–5 days, while a credit card's hold can remain open for up to 30 days (again, the duration of these holds depends upon the card issuer's policy).
If an authorization expires before we ship your order, we must re-authorize the card before we can settle the charge. Since the average order on paizo.com takes anywhere from 2 to 11 business days to fulfill, some orders will necessarily be authorized twice. This is especially true for preorders, backorders and items coming from a distributor.
If, when you place your order, your card is declined because of insufficient funds, and you think this is in error, you should check your balance with your bank and/or contact Paizo's customer service before you attempt to place the order again. There are cases where we will receive a decline notice, yet your bank will accept the authorization and place a hold on your funds. In this instance, if you try to place the order again with the same card, it will probably fail again and put another hold on your account. If you keep resubmitting the order, you can quickly tie up your available credit on multiple authorizations for an order that cannot be completed; instead, you should consider using an alternative payment method.
As a side note, orders for items that are fulfilled immediately (such as PDF purchases) will be authorized and settled immediately.
For more information about authorizations and authorization holds, check out the Wikipedia entry on authorization holds.
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To keep my thoughts away from the official stuff: each time your card was declined, an authorization was attempted (thats how they know its declined)
And for your second question, you only get a free PDF if you buy the book as part of a subscription. (note ultimate campaign is the current RPG line subscription book, so you could sign up for the subscription and cancel it after they ship Ult Campaign to get the free PDF as soon as it ships)
Customer Service Representative
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Hello Conner,
Kristov is partially correct, your card has not been charged; what you are seeing on the account are authorizations. We authorize your payment method when you submit an order, but do not charge until your product ships or your PDF becomes downloadable.
In this particular case, the authorizations are being stopped due to the billing address not matching what the bank has on file. Since this is a prepaid card, you will need to go to the card's website (or call the number on the back of the card) to discover what is the billing address for the card. You will need to enter that address exactly as it appears into our website when you enter your payment method for an order.
I have placed authorization reversal requests in on the three cards you used, and usually these funds are released within 5 business days. However, it is ultimately the card's bank that decides when these authorizations expire.
If you have any further questions or concerns, please let me know.
~Justin Riddler
Customer Service
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Customer Service Representative
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So just to confirm, the amount charged to my cards (or requested) will be removed in a few days, so now that I did activate my cards could I use my card that still has available funds to purchase the PDF?
Thank you so much for your help.
Yes. You just need to make sure your billing address is entered into the site exactly as it appears on the card's website.
If you have any issues, feel free to shoot us an email: customer.service@paizo.com
~Justin Riddler
Customer Service