Amount Debited from my Card but not Credited to merchant account

[sureshrb3]

Hi,

Use Case : I'm in need to pay 200 in a shop.The amount is debited from my debit card, but it is not credited to the merchant account. He asked me to pay again, so i did. Totally 400/- is debited from my account.(200/- for 2 times). After 25 days, 200/- is credited back to my account.

Here my doubt is., is there any possibilities for these kind of use cases with Authorize.net. If so , How to handle with this.

Thanks,

Suresh Babu R

[Lilith]

@sureshrb3 -- there are two steps to the credit card payment process, authorization and settlement.

When a charge is authorized, the card issuing bank typically places a hold on the funds, and while the money hasn't left your bank yet, it is deducted from your card balance, on the presumption that it will settle.

The funds don't actually transfer from your card issuing bank to the merchant account until settlement occurs. And if an authorization is not settled, the card issuer will eventually return the funds to your card balance. How long this takes depends on the card issuer, but most will return unsettled funds within 30 days.

In your use case, the merchant submitted an authorization request for $200 but didn't settle it for some reason. Since it never settled, your card issuing bank returned the $200 to your balance after 25 days.

On the Authorize.Net platform, by default, we automatically capture successful authorizations so they will settle the same day. However, it is possible to request an authorization only, and then manually capture the transaction for settlement later. Some merchants cannot settle the transaction until they ship the product, due to laws or merchant account restrictions, so we provide the option not to automatically settle.

If the merchant doesn't settle those authorization-only requests within 30 days, we will presume the card issuing bank has returned the funds to the cardholder, and will mark the transaction as Expired.

So it's possible to see a use case such as you describe within an Authorize.Net account, but only if the merchant decides not to automatically settle.