I made a few different purchases on the e-commerce site Amazon.
There’s 3 different transactions totaling an amount of around £333.00
I have provided the team with a e-mail showing the authorisation codes and that amazon have no intention of taking the funds.
My concern is.
During this time obviously £333.00 could be classed as essential funds.
Are banks within the United Kingdom aloud to legally hold ransom customer/s funds and restrict the use of those funds held even if the merchant has no intention of taking the funds and you’ve provided proof of this?
The money is allocated for Amazon. So until the transaction drops off, Amazon can still claim it if they wanted.
Therefore if Monzo advance it to you (which is what you’re asking) - you could then go to Amazon and say “please proceed with my order” and Monzo would be out of pocket.
There was a few other orders that got cancelled but they automatically refunded back to the card, but these didn’t, why have some payments been refunded and others haven’t?
I don’t have access to your account to see that information I’m afraid. This is just how it works in the banking world.
The situation has come around by either you cancelling the order or Amazon messing it up. None of which are Monzos issue. They’re just waiting for the dust to settle (so to speak) then they will do whatever is required.
I’ve had something like this happen with Nationwide before.
They advised me to never cancel a order during a pending state and always let them take it before refund as it can take a considerable amount of time to be credited back, I believe for MasterCard it can be up to 13 days (iirc)
But Monzo and Nationwide have both asked for letters/e-mails from the merchant showing the amount and authorisation codes and a brief statement informing them they have no intention of taking that payment to release the payment quicker.
I have provided Monzo with this information, and I believe their disputes team are dealing with it, however as Amazon hasn’t actually taken the payment I would have assumed it would have been a speedier process.
MasterCard rules govern the time-frames here (I believe) and even with written things, any bank is still taking a risk in refunding money earlier than the rules allow for. Under those rules, the money could still be taken regardless of what is written down, and then Monzo would need to pursue you to get it back again if it wasn’t in your account.
If Amazon had cancelled the transactions properly, the money would have bounced back to availability already. Companies always seem so reluctant to do proper cancellations.
I think this depends on what stage the payment is at during the processing.
If Amazon have claimed the money, they can refund it and that usually shows up pretty quickly. If the payment hasn’t been claimed (which Amazon don’t usually do until the item dispatches), then they just release the pending charge and don’t claim it. Sometimes it can take a while for Monzo to release those funds on hold back to you.
This isn’t always so clear cut. I have a transaction that’s still stuck as pending in PayPal Credit dating back to April. After a lot of back and fourth between pay PayPal and the merchant, PayPal determined the money was actually returned to me, and there is an issue on their end which is still being investigated with delays due to covid. At least they don’t charge interest on pending transactions!
