# Unexpected Refunds **URL:** \ **Category:** Help\ **Created:** [20 May 2018 04:46 UTC](https://community.monzo.com/t/unexpected-refunds/38335 "2018-05-20T04:46:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 34
**Author:** ![nanos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c89c15/32.png) [@nanos](https://community.monzo.com/u/nanos)\ **Post date:** [21 May 2018 12:06 UTC](https://community.monzo.com/t/unexpected-refunds/38335/34 "2018-05-21T12:06:25Z")
We’ve had this before: > [@"Delayed from" payments](https://community.monzo.com/t/delayed-from-payments/33369/22): > > Instead of changing the expiry limit for everything, would it be possible to come up with some way of letting the use re-ringfence the sums for any of these ‘refunds’? Say I’ve spend £50 on something and know I’ve received what I’ve paid for, but the merchant doesn’t collect on time so I get a ‘refund’. Knowing that I have ‘spent’ the money, I tap on the transaction in my feed, and tap on the ‘keep ringfenced/awaiting collection/still owing/call it what you will’ button, and the refund is reve… Also, see this post a bit further up which really explains the situation very well … > [@"Delayed from" payments](https://community.monzo.com/t/delayed-from-payments/33369/17): > > When you make a payment by card, you’re providing your authorisation for the merchant to take money from your account. When this authorisation is approved on our end, we move the money into a ‘hold’ account to ring-fence it from the rest of your money, typically for 7 days as most merchants come to collect it within around 2-5 days. This makes things clearer for you, since (assuming the merchant collects within 7 days) you can’t spend the same money twice. > > It’s worth bearing in mind here that as far as a merchant is concerned, they never see that we’ve ring-fenced the money in your account and deducted it from the balance you can spend, and at this point, technically no money has been taken from your account - the money you see as ‘taken’ from your perspective is really just ring-fenced within your account. From the merchant’s perspective, you pay by card and authorise the payment, and some number of days later they come to collect the money owed - it’s pretty simple on their end. > > If they don’t collect the money within 7 days, the ring-fenced money is automatically released and available to spend again, but at no point yet has it actually been collected by the merchant. > > You’ve still given them authorisation to debit your account, though, and presumably have the goods you paid for, so you still owe them the money; this is why they can come in and (from your perspective) take the payment a second time. In reality, they’ve only ever taken the payment once - in the meantime the money was just ring-fenced by us to stop you from spending it twice, and automatically released from this status because the merchant has collected it later than they really should have. --- _[View the full topic](https://community.monzo.com/t/unexpected-refunds/38335)._