Mystery solved: You buy $5 worth of gas, to find out that your card has a $50 hold on it, which can last from one to seven days until the transaction settles. Why? As this article reveals, the answer is more complicated than one might expect, but the simple answer is this: All card transactions result in a hold when the transaction is opened by the point of sale terminal. Heres where the action is: If you go into the store and buy two candy bars at the counter, the transaction is opened for $2 and the hold is for $2, the price of the candy bars. But at the gas pump, the transaction is opened without a known purchase amount. To protect themselves, the merchants set their systems to hold an amount that they think covers them for most eventualities. That can be from $25 to over $100, at the discretion of the merchant. The bank, or card issuer, has no control over this configuration point of the transaction. Therefore, if you use debit or credit cards at the gas station, and you do not want to deal with holds considerably larger than the gas purchase you want to make, take the card inside, and ask the clerk to sell you the amount you want, on the pump you want. The transaction will open at the stated amount, and the hold will be for that amount. Its that ... simple. But that simple detail can really mess you up if you are playing it close to the vest on your card balance and counting on it to be there after you make your gas purchase. If in doubt, start the transaction inside at the sales counter, not at the pump.
Posted on: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 04:59:37 +0000
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