So I suspended my subscriptions for a few months and recently had them reactivated, and an order for the missing items generated. The total, including shipping, came to $259.19. I was sent a confirmation email telling me that an authorization payment of $216.23 had been charged, which has left my account. This morning, I was sent another email telling me that a second payment authorization of $123.73 had been rejected due to insufficient funds, and that my subscription would be cancelled if I did not resolve this.
I resubmitted the payment, as the funds were, in fact, there. I'm just wondering, though, why are two payment authorizations totaling $339.96 required for an order totaling $259.19? I am now unable to use those excess funds.
Hello Totus,
When the order is placed we ping the bank to make sure the card is valid. When this happens most banks put a hold on the funds. When we ship the order we finalize the charge. Usually this means the bank just finalizes that authorization into a charge. Since we don't charge for anything until it ships, when an order is going in more than one package the charge will be broken up into the charges for the items in each package. Typically when we ship the first package that is the one the authorization finalizes into (so if the authorization was larger it finalizes at the lower amount of that package).
What is happening here is that when we are trying to ship the first package, instead of finalizing that authorization the bank is trying to open and finalize a new one. The smaller amount you are seeing is the amount for that package.
I have issued an authorization reversal request for the original authorization. This just lets the bank know they can release the authorization. They should be able to see it right away, but it will be up to them how long it takes to process it.