Why do International Credit Card transactions take so long to be processed by the merchant?
Posted on September 24th, 2009 by admin
I’ve had this happen to me with all my credit card transactions I did in Japan (although I noticed my Malaysian transactions were pretty quick to process). They’ve come onto my credit card up to 3 months after the purchase was done, and subsequently, putting my credit card over the limit – even though I had funds in my card when I made the purchase! Plus on top of that, my bank charged me an Over limit Fee for it! I think that sucks, as I had money on the card when I was in the store – I didn’t ask for the transaction to take so long to process.
Is there anything I can do to stop this from happening in the future?
(Besides using my card overseas).
Would the same thing happen if I were to use a Debit/Credit Card instead?
Each one uses his/her redit card differently. I use mine to spend my money, -not theirs- and never have a problem.
If you want to do the same as I do, as soon after you have made the transation, get into your internet banking account and pay that money from your bank into the card.
That’s it.
I understand that if you are abroad for a month and you don’t want to use internet cafes, then it might take a month before you do this, so you could transfer the money you are thinking of spending BEFORE you leave for your trip.
Yes, this beats the point of -borrowing- but I said it at the beginning what I do, I don’t see any point in borrowing as such..
September 24th, 2009 at 11:11 am
I have wondered the same thing and often thought they would process the transaction when the exchange rate was most favorable for the country in which the purchase was made!
In truth, credit card processing is a very complex process even within the same country, with many different organization working together. See link below for an example.
When you add multiple currencies the process gets even more complex. The speed of a transaction really depends on the companies involved in a given transaction.
With that said, 3 months is a very long time – a merchant is supposed to "authorize" a payment, meaning the merchant reserves that portion of your credit, your cc company should reserve that amount of credit for the "authorized" transaction. Those reserved funds are then "captured" – meaning they are actually paid to the merchant’s processing bank when the merchant or its processor sends a capture request.
It sounds like company in Japan either didn’t authorize your card and charged you later or authorized the funds, didn’t capture them in time so they resubmitted them.
Hope that helps – you could call your cc company and ask for a transaction history for that purchase – they should reverse all the extra fees. Your card wasn’t present with the merchant 3 months later – you were not likely even in Japan at that time – so the cc company shouldn’t have processed the charges.
References :
http://www.globalcollect.com/methods/cards.html
September 24th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Each one uses his/her redit card differently. I use mine to spend my money, -not theirs- and never have a problem.
If you want to do the same as I do, as soon after you have made the transation, get into your internet banking account and pay that money from your bank into the card.
That’s it.
I understand that if you are abroad for a month and you don’t want to use internet cafes, then it might take a month before you do this, so you could transfer the money you are thinking of spending BEFORE you leave for your trip.
Yes, this beats the point of -borrowing- but I said it at the beginning what I do, I don’t see any point in borrowing as such..
References :
http://credit—card.org/