Got charged twice for an order I didn't get

[Pogiforce]

Today I tried to purchase the starfinder core rulebook PDF, pact worlds PDF, and alien archive PDF. It declined my card. Twice. Not in my downloads.

Check my bank account, and I have 2 charges of 29.97. this needs to be fixed.

[David knott 242]

See this FAQ.

[Pogiforce]

How does it authorize if my card is declined? Moreover I want to know why my card was declined in the first place. I'm scared to try again only to have another 30 dollar "authorization on my account, only to still not get my product.

Also, it says PDF orders are authorized immediately because they deliver immediately. So how can I be sure that's not a completed transaction instead of a hold?

[Redelia]

How the sequence works is that Paizo sends something to the card processor, saying 'this person wants to charge this much to this card.' The card processor sends the message on to the bank. The bank then puts a hold on the money. The bank and card processor then communicate back and forth in some way, and in this case, the card processor reaches the conclusion that the card is declined. The card processor then sends that to Paizo.

To be briefer, the hold is placed on your funds early in the request, before it's known if the charge is going to be declined or not.

[David knott 242]

If you don't know why your card was declined, it might be a good idea to call your bank and ask them so that you can get the problem corrected before you try to put in the order again. I had to do that recently.

[Diego Valdez]

Hello Pogiforce,

Both Redelia and David are correct. Your card was being declined because it was failing the address verification system. Usually this means that the billing address attached to the card is not matching what the bank has on file.

What you are seeing are not charges. Each time you tried to submit the order the bank gets pinged to make sure the card is valid. When this happens most banks will put a temporary hold on the funds, which can look like a pending transaction on your end. These will disappear like they were never there when your bank expires and releases them.

Redelia's explanation is correct. When you push the submit button our card processor pings your bank and says, "We're going to want to charge this card this amount of money. Will it go through when we do?" What's happening here is your bank is saying, "Yes, it will. Here is the information we have for you to compare it to." and they put the money aside, which is what you are seeing. Then our card processor looks at that information and says, "These billing addresses don't match up. We can't accept this card because it might be fraudulent." and the card gets declined by our card processor.

It looks like you corrected the billing address and got the order submitted a little while before we opened this morning.