House of Fraser cleared out my bank account.

[dclg]

I tried to buy a bag from House of Fraser online. At the final stage the transaction on my Visa debit card was rejected. A pink box appeared saying that the transaction had failed and that I should try again or use another card. I tried again with the same card and the same thing happened. I followed the instructions and tried my MasterCard and again it was declined. At that point I again followed the instructions and phoned the customer service number on the screen. They said they would reset my account and should try again in 20 mins. I did this and again it was rejected.

These multiple attempts which I was encouraged by the website and customer serves to make resulted in requests for funds being sent to my bank and they proceeded to remove the money to a holding account which I could not access. I only stopped when there wasn't enough money in my account to cover the request.

I have spent 3 days of my life emailing and talking to House of Fraser in order to stop this from happening to anyone else. Just say someone tried to buy a sofa? That amount of money going out of their account a number of times may mean that they can't make the mortgage or rent payments which then affects their credit rating. This is a very serious problem and House of Frasers' response has been, so sorry, it happens sometimes, here's £20, which I am certainly not taking. I wish I could show you the cut and paste emails with generic platitudes and no indication that they are taking responsibility for the misery they are causing.
Using Frasers online is like playing Russian roulette. The minute you press buy even if the transaction does not go through as I understand it, a 'pre-authorisation' request will be sent to your bank or credit card and those funds will no longer be available to you until the bank releases them days or weeks later.
I have given House of Fraser every opportunity to give me some indication that something will be done to prevent this happening to anyone else but they don't seem to care. This is a dangerous and cavalier attitude to peoples finances and lives and I am simply telling my story as a warning to the unsuspecting.

OP I had a similar issue recently. Phone Insurance took money out twice and tried telling me they wasn't at Fault (3rd Party Insurance through big named Company). I rang the Company back and was given the "Oh we're so sorry we'll credit it back straight away". Still never saw the money it's floating around between their Company and the Bank apparently I had to send them my Bank Statement to prove I never received the Credit they claimed!

Anyway can you not get back on to your Bank, my Bank Manager was really helpful with me and said the Problem was because they credited it to my Card Number it was less traceable as had they had used the Sort Code and Account Number to refund they would have been able to chase it for me themselves.

I'll admit I've hardly ever shopped online but when I've had my Card Decline in Shops I've always asked for the Receipt to prove it in Instances like this. I assume you get some electronic receipt to say it declined? and I definately wouldn't let it rest here ~

It's not House of Frasers fault. That's a fair point and I can see clearly that it has happened to many others and in a lot of cases much worse than me, across many company's.
I suppose the problem I have with Frasers is that I have asked a number of questions in order to clarify what the issue is. Why does their website encourage you to make multiple attempts when this is a known issue? Why did customer services suggest I try again given it's a known issue? A Visa verification page did not display properly which meant that I could not complete security - what causes this to happen? And three times I asked what the regulating board or authority is for their online service. They refused to answer any of my questions.
Is the problem with Visa 3D Secure systems are not robust enough? Is it because the security checks are in the wrong order in that they ask for the funds to be removed from your account before the security checks are completed.
I think these are legitimate questions some of which they can answer but are refusing to, others may require a bit of investigation which they are refusing to engage with at any point over several emails.
I think all of these company's have a certain duty of care to their online customers to ensure that the systems they use are robust enough. Security is important to all of us but this shouldn't be an either or situation surely its an 'and' we will make sure you don't have your bank account cleared out so that you can meet your mortgage payments. Big company's will only ensure these systems work if we start complaining otherwise why would they, it's not impacting them.

I would be really interested if anyone has the technical knowledge to answer the why's and wherefores of how the system fails when it does and how it could be made better so I can come up with some solutions.

Yes, I could have had the money back in my account the same day if they had sent a FAX with the bank's authorisation code which I gave them but they absolutely refused. The bank said they had no problem putting the money back in a simple Fax was all they needed. Frasers point blank refused.