On Fri, 5 May 2017 09:09:33 -0400, Nancy Young
wrote:

On 5/5/2017 5:46 AM, Micky wrote:
On Thu, 4 May 2017 22:04:48 -0400, Nancy Young
wrote:

I had the same thing happen with a hotel, they reserve some amount
of money in case you charge things to the room or steal the towels,
whatever.

Of course, that was a credit card in my case. The pending charge
disappeared after a few days.

Serious questions:

Did the bank send you an email alert about the hold? (Well, do you
have it set up for email alerts at all?)

I tried the email thing once and it was just annoying so I turned
off that option. Really I have no idea if they would have notified
me of a block of credit on hold.

Well, the point is not to remind me of what I spent, but to know if
someone is using my card-number. Not very likely, but that's why I do
it. It also makes it easier to note what each charge is for because
it almost always comes the day I spend the money, even when I'm in
Europe. If I wait until the end of the month, I won't know what any
of the charges are.

But now that I see there is little relationship between what they
email me and what they charge me, to a great extent is worse than
nothing. I guess the grocery stores get it right. And if anyone else
were using the number, I'd know about it.


I knew this was common practice in some industries but I never
noticed it in action before.

Did the alert call it a hold or use the same words they use for an
actual charge?

Did they send another email when the hold was lifted? Sending the
first but not the second is like sending a letter, "Your baby has been
kidnapped" and then never saying when your 2-month old child who can't
walk to a telephone and can't use a telephone is released.

Did the bank send an alert about the final actual charge from the
hotel?

I only noticed the pending charge because I checked my statement
for some other reason. I use a credit card so it doesn't overly
concern me as I can dispute it later. If I used a debit card I'd
be checking all the time because the money would disappear from my
account if there was fraud.

I asked BoAmerica once if I could dispute a debit card charge, and
I'm not sure but I think I was told yes. But it may well vary by
bank.

This is what one of the boa webpages says:

"How do I dispute a transaction on my ATM or debit card?

We recommend that you contact the merchant prior to calling us about a
dispute as it's generally faster and simpler for you to attempt to
resolve the question with the merchant directly before going through
the dispute process. [I'm sure that's usually true.]

To dispute a debit card transaction, please call us at 877.366.1121."

Of course, this doesn't actually say you can get your money back. I
wouldn't put it past them to have a dispute process where you can't
win, or if you win you don't get your money back. I don't trust boa
at all. Did you hear how they would reorder checks so that if a
customer was going to be overdrawn, they'd put the big checks first,
regardless of what order they came in on, so he'd run out of money on
the first check or two and the maximum number would bounce.

Wells Fargo did the same thing. I consider it outright stealing.
I think they paid a big fine but they should have gone to jail for a
couple years.

Not a fan. Good thing you had enough cash in the account but maybe
traveling is a good time to use credit cards.

I have two credit cards with me. I thought I decided to carry one of
them, but it's still in my suitcase in my room. And today, a closed
gas station woudln't take my card. Don't know why. I can't
understand the language on the pump's screen, and the girl I got to
help me didn't know enough English to translate. (She had had trouble
too, at first and had asked me for help.)

nancy