The Life Foundations
Nexus
THE DANGERS OF AN
INTERNET PURCHASE
This past week I made a
purchase over the Internet using my bankcard.
When I was done it seemed like everything was fine…but it wasn’t.
A couple of days after my
purchase I attempted to use my bankcard to buy some food…but the food purchase
could not be authorized. I was
baffled. I called my bank and found
that a freeze had been put on all of my available cash by the company I used to
make the Internet purchase. Over the
following week, I was told repeatedly by both the Internet company and my bank
that I would have to wait a week before the freeze would be lifted. In the meantime, I would have been starving
had I not had some cash on hand.
Everything that happened
was, to the best of my knowledge, perfectly legal. What I refer to as “freezes” businesses and banks refer to as
“preauthorizations.” Banks also refer
to these as “holds.” These are
agreeable-sounding words but words that can have devastating consequences.
My advice to everyone is
to avoid purchasing anything over the Internet. Incidentally, trying to pay by check over the Internet can have
worse consequences. If you are really
determined and/or really need to make an Internet purchase, bear in mind that,
as I have been told by my bank, as many as 20 duplicate preauthoriztions have
been reported being put on an Internet purchase. This means that, if your purchase was for $50, a business can be
paid the $50 and then put a freeze on an additional 20 X $50 = $1,000 of your
money. If you must make the purchase,
just be sure you have enough cash on hand to meet any of your expenses without
using any money in your bank account.
If you get stuck in a
“duplicate preauthorization” situation, my best advice to you is to conduct a
three-party conference call involving you, your bank, and the Internet
company. The Internet company can fax
over information to your bank so that the freeze can be lifted off of your
money sooner rather than later. Unless
you do this, you might have to wait a week before your money becomes available
to you. Also, your bank might NOT allow
you to settle the problem through a conference call.
Finally, I don’t want to
put a damper on all Internet purchases.
Therefore, keep in mind that you are more likely to have a problem when
making purchases using BIG Internet companies.
The reason this is so is that these companies have a more complicated
method of collecting your payment. This
extra complexity creates a greater likelihood of mistakes, errors, and
glitches.