RobT,
Absolutely, I believe the customer should be able to get their money back immediately, but like you, what I believe doesn’t matter much to anyone. The processors have started the “zero” pre auth, but the release of funds after the authorization/refund process still takes much longer than it needs to. Common sense dictates that “if you can take the funds immediately, why then, can’t you release or refund them immediately.” I agree with all of you that the system is flawed.
I HATE CARDS!!! Debit or Credit. 25% of my buisness comes in on cards. I have to wait for the money , pay fees, and deal with peope accusing us of fraud or theft when they have a question about a charge or their account being comprimised. I had a women accuse us on 2 different occasions of stealling her account information. Peopel have called the same day to question a charge on their account. It is ridiculous.
Cold hard truth…we live in a plastic world. I personally “rarely” carry cash anymore. I wish I was at 25% credit cards. I’m at 60% and that’ up from 50% when I first opened in 2007. As times get harder, I’m sure that percentage will continue to climb.
But it’s a necessary evil. I couldn’t operate without taking CCs. Unfortunately, the CC companies don’t give the merchants much of anything, even though we’re the ones that bring them their business.
I hate the fact that the CC companies will not allow merchants to enforce a minimum on the transaction. There are many times when I would get a customer say (after they placed their order and paid for it), “oh can I add a soda to that.” Then they whip out their credit card to pay for it. So much for my profit margin. And I cannot refuse taking their card per the CC’s terms of service.
If my plastic volume surpasses 45%, I’m going ATM and not accepting plastic.
are the CC police gonna come after you?
I would look at the costs of going ATM closely. My extra insurance premium to have an ATM more than doubles what I pay now. I would have to process 30 transactions per day just to cover the extra insurance costs. To me it is cheaper to accept plastic.
I don’t know the answer to this. If a patron decided to call their credit card company and said, “XYZ pizza would not take my credit card because I only wanted to spend $1.79 with them.” This is clearly against the CC’s TOS. What consequence could a merchant face for doing this? I have seen some merchants clearly post messages that say something like “$10 minimum for CC purchases.” I know this would be in violation, but maybe the risk is worth it. It definitely would if the CC companies are soft with their TOS enforcement.
We get this problem on a pretty frequent basis. I had a carry out come in and get a pizza go home and check his online statement and then call me back accusing me of stealing from him. I tried to explain it to him and he didnt believe me, and of course threatened me etc…
People in my opinion are completely insane, if you are that darn close to your credit limit or are that worried about your stupid card to check everything RIGHT away then dont use the card!!!
We still get people who dont want to give us their CCV number on the back of the card when we are running their card on the phone. I understand there is fraud and you really cant trust anyone anymore with anything but again if you are that worried about it then dont use the stupid card!!
Of course a few days later those same people dont call us back and apologize for accusing us of stealing from them. Credit Cards in general may be a neccessary evil but they are without a doubt EVIL! It burns my a** to the nth degree that we get charged close to $1000 a month (we do about $30k in credit card sales) just to accept their card, its amazing that the government hasnt stepped in to curb this outrageous abuse, first by charging merchants such a substantial amount of money to accept their cards including all the little hidden fees etc… and on the back end charging the card holder all that interest fees etc… Of course we don’t spend billions a year lobbying the corrupt politicans and lining their pockets to protect our interests…
I don’t know that we should put all the blame on not releasing funds immediately on the CC processor. I think a good portion of the blame should fall on the banking system as well. In my opinion, the banks don’t want to turn the funds back over immediately because when those funds are “held” it makes it more likely that the account will become “overdrawn” when it really isn’t, thus, they make more money.
Diana: When a transaction gets voided, does the terminal notify the processing company at the time of the void? If so, does the processing company release the hold on the customers card?
When our sprialing out of control country and all their bad habits really hits the fan, people won’t have plastic and we will go back to cash. When you run out, you can’t spend anymore…what a concept.
I am a fan of the higher ticket averages because of plastic, but on many occasions I would love to trade all of that increase for a much easier cash transaction!
BRING BACK CASH…it still works and everyone accepts it.
Tony
Including robbers.
If the transaction is truly a void, and you haven’t settled yet, the authorization should come off the customers bank in 24 hours. The hold is strictly at the discretion of the customers bank, not the processor. If it is a true refund, it can take up to 3 days for the refund to show up. It puts the merchant in a bad position because as we all know, the customer isn’t going to call their bank to complain, they are going to call you.