High end perfumer is dicking me around..,

[kemosabeimalive]

..I think!? On Monday I tried to place an online order totaling £120 on the site of a well known perfumer that sells scents, toiletries and candles. I paid using Apple Pay but got a message saying payment failed. I tried again, same thing.

Thought it hadn't gone through but when I checked my bank to my horror there were two transactions for £120 in my pending payments debiting my available balance.

I checked email - no order confirmation from shop. Tried to call them - they have no record of the order on their system. Called bank who said account was definitely debited by perfumers site and they gave me two authorisation codes to give to them.

Passed codes on - still complete denial from the perfumer. I am at a bit of a loss to know what to do now but will not lose £240 without a battle. Anyone out there with any knowledge about how Apple Pay / web transactions work - is there any way this could be my banks fault? The way the perfumer are treating me it's like they think I'm trying to defraud them. Really horrible experience of something that was meant to be a bit of a treat: buying my lovely mum a fab Christmas present.

Companies tend to respond to tweets, maybe tweet them with the issue?

Can't you now raise them as fraudulent debits with your bank? Get the perfumers denial in writing.

All good advice - thank you both! I want to be sure it's the perfumer at fault before I go in big guns- although their attitude either way has been appalling tbh - is there a way I can be sure?

Tweet them the transactions! Wouldn’t rhyme with bugsy Malone would it? They’ve done this on my debit card before but honoured my purchase when the transaction went through.

Not them no ( begins with D and French).
Good to know you had a successful outcome! Gives me lots of hope

So are they sending you the perfume? Are the transactions pending? If pending, they'll just drop off in a few days surely

No sadly they can't find details of the order on the system at the moment and I never got an order confirmation just the money taken

I had this recently and the payments were ‘pending’ for a few days and then the money appeared back in my account and no payments to that company were showing at all.

On the pending thing - I'm hoping that might happen - it will be 4 days tomorrow so I'll see but it worries me that the bank authorized the transactions and have the codes to prove it - that sounds more permanent than pending to me.

Or does the money go into a sort of limbo while pending - it's odd isn't it?

If the transactions are pending at the bank then the retailer hasn't claimed them. Bank ought to cancel it if you ask.
This has happened to me though and the payment went through a few days later.
It's odd that the company has no record of the order though. If it were me, I'd cancel the payments and maybe try another method or another retailer entirely. I'd be anxious about this.

You need to cancel the second transaction anyway surely?

I've worked in retail, it's a awful computer thing.

Their orde system probably genuinely doesn't have the order, as their payment system has rejected it (for all sorts of reasons).

But the bank has recognised you're attempting to pay, and allocated the funds as if you have. They will tell you it will clear if you ask them.

The company likely do not have your money, and will never get it. Their payment system rejected it, and will never "claim" the allocated monies.

As the bank computer will eventually realise that the retailer's payment system hasn't taken it, it will deallocate the funds.

If the company sends the order, you wont have paid. If paying a third time (through another method) is an issue, then either wait or ask the company to go through their payment system and send over evidence of the rejected payments.

I used to have to send faxes to banks to tell them we had no intention of taking the funds, so they'd free them up quicker. Fortunately we changed payment system which authorised it before it asked the bank to!

As to why the bank have auth codes - they authorised the transaction. The retailer didn't. Hence no order.

As to why the retailer didn't, they're trying to stop fraud against them and you. Not just you.

Large first order through Apple Pay, may flag as 'suspicious'. Or the billing address, name anything.

Amusingly, ours used to reject orders if you tried too many times to quickly with the same card. So by the time people finally managed to understand billing address = where the card is registered, the system rejected them regardless. And no, I couldn't place it over the phone, as it was the same authorisation system, nor could I 'whitelist' the card.

They most likely wont take the money as they have no record of it. Bank will recognise its mot been taken and return it, I imagine anyway

What @nikkylou said.

We had this all the bloody time where I used to work. The customer would ring up, raging. We would explain that it’s a pending transaction, the payment was declined (usually for security reasons) and therefore there is no order on our system, the bank (NOT the retailer) have ring fenced the funds in your account but they will return to your balance within a few days. Customer would ring bank who would ALWAYS wrongly tell them that no, retailer has definitely taken the money. So we’d get ranty phone calls daily until the funds had been released BY THE BANK.

It sounds like this is what’s happened to you. If so, it’s nothing to do with the retailer and they are not withholding your money. Wait a few days (from memory, up to 7 working days) and the funds should be released. It’s a pain in the arse but there's nothing the retailer can do.

You are all brilliant - thank you - I knew MN would be able to help on this! Now I understand the process it makes much more sense and I’m more hopeful I’ll get my money back!

If it's pending it will probably be cancelled .
I know once i bought something and was told not gone through but was shown as pending for a couple of days then cancelled . Unfortunately banks are not helpful as they say authorisation code is proof that payment gone through but it can be cancelled .
It's kind of in limbo as the supplier won't have payments but it's pending , it's like its waiting authorisation . I'd leave it till end of week and then check your bank should be cancelled by then .

I ha dad pending transaction with my hairdresser for six days then it dropped off. Annoying as I'd paid again so it had taken two lots of money but it did come back in the end! If it's been pending for that long it will come back.

This happened to me with an online florist. Payment approved in the payment gateway but it failed when redirecting me back to the florist site so the order didn't complete but payment was issued. I had to email customer services with a pic from my banking app showing the payment, they then spoke to the accounts/finance team who tracked my payment via the last 4 digits of my card number and the amount.
Could you try something similar (make sure you redact any personal information from the screenshot of your banking app!)