question about Credit card processors

JOhnH

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Why is it that when I make a charge on my credit card it shows up on my on-line account in seconds, but when a merchant gives me a credit it take 3-5 (or more) days?
 
Why is it that when I make a charge on my credit card it shows up on my on-line account in seconds, but when a merchant gives me a credit it take 3-5 (or more) days?

Because CC companies make money on interest, late fees, and over limit charges. It is to their advantage to be slow posting credits. American Express posts my credits with 24 hours.
 
when a merchant gives me a credit it take 3-5 (or more) days?
Because the merchant usually does not receive the money back for several days in some cases. That is how my CC gateway worked when I had it: minutes when charged and 3-5 working days when a credit is given.
 
Yep, I can tell you that I see the charges as "Settling" as soon as the card is run on the merchant side, but it can be a few days before they get to my bank account.
 
Why is it that when I make a charge on my credit card it shows up on my on-line account in seconds, but when a merchant gives me a credit it take 3-5 (or more) days?
You'll probably notice that charge which shows up immediately in your on-line account is a 'pending' charge. I don't think they will process the credit until the charge to which it is crediting back to has finished processing.
 
You'll probably notice that charge which shows up immediately in your on-line account is a 'pending' charge. I don't think they will process the credit until the charge to which it is crediting back to has finished processing.
Good point, but then why doesn't the credit show up as pending. When someone issues me a credit that should show up in several days, I wind up forgetting about it and not following up if it doesn't appear.
 
Why is it that when I make a charge on my credit card it shows up on my on-line account in seconds, but when a merchant gives me a credit it take 3-5 (or more) days?

Sometimes it's not the credit card company, but the vendor. I'm still waiting for a credit from Lowes (two weeks and counting). I probably won't make any future purchases at Lowers - and if they continue to screw up this credit, I'll never buy from them again.
 
but then why doesn't the credit show up as pending.
Because the refund is initiated via a different process and is coupled to the vendor's return policy and card issuer/gateway agreement. The quickest I could issue a credit/refund was 3 days provided I authorized the transfer of funds back to the gateway provider/card issuer within 24 hrs of the purchase. Basically there are more steps to issuing a refund then there are to you purchasing an item with a CC. Some gateway providers and pay service providers like paypal can take up to 30 days to issue a refund to your card.
 
A refund is considered an offline transaction. The refund does not require an authorization from the issuer, therefore the issuer does not get notified immediately about the refund. It isn’t until reconciliation happens that they find out the refund even happened. The charge shows as pending immediately because the issuer had to authorize it before the transaction can happen, so they know about it immediately.

By “issuer” I mean the bank that issued you the card.

<- more than 2 decades in the CC processing biz
 
I see prime territory for a class action.
I hope not. Making refunds an online transaction will do nothing in reality, and cost millions if not billions for the industry to change their processes, and every call will cost the merchant more money as well. And, as you know, the merchants and the CC industry are not the ones that pay that cost....

You may want to pay an extra penny on every thing you ever buy so that you can see a return on a website somewhere 3 days sooner, but I don't.
 
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