Actinic Payments and Pre-Auth Mode

[siwalker]

I'm currently trying to evaluate a possible move from Protx (run in 'authorise' mode), to Actinic Payments in pre-auth mode. Whereas Protx simply captures card details with no checking, for us to charge against later, AP in pre-auth mode will fully auth the payment and create a 'shadow' or 'ring-fence' of the funds for us to later release.
As we have a significant number of orders that can take up to 4 weeks to fulfil, I'm slightly concerned about how this will work in practice.

Actinic tell me:
"The 'shadow' or 'ring fence' on the card is actually good for 3 days
for Visa and Mastercard and 2 days for Amex (you should confirm this with
your bank). If you commit the pre-auth in this time frame then all is straight forward.
If you commit outside of this time frame you will still get the payment but
will be charged a late settlement fee by the bank (again get details from
your bank), the cardholder may also have additional charges if the payment
takes them over their credit limit."

Leaving aside the fact that 2-3 days can expire between an order arriving late Friday afternoon and being processed the following Monday; is anyone else operating a similar environment and finding any problems?
This is the first I've heard of late settlement fees. I'll try and get some sense out of Streamline but are other people paying such fees? How much?

As far as the note there about charges to the cardholder is concerned is there any reason why the card company would allow a transaction over the credit limit in this scenario?

We also do a lot of business abroad - anyone finding any problems with foreign transactions and the pre-auth system? I seem to recall some problems from the Protx pre-auth days when the shadow no longer matched the payment requested due to currency fluctuations - or was I dreaming this?

I'd welcome private discussion on these topics if necessary.

BTW, anyone on Actinic Enterprise who wants to discuss matters is more than welcome to get in touch. Just about to face the upgrade from v8 Enterprise to V9....

Cheers,
simon

[PeterW]

Hello,

I was trying to find out more about pre-authorise with AP an came across this thread. I also have products that could take (sometimes several) weeks to be delivered.

Is the 2-3 days authorisation correct?

Where do I stand if I charge the customers card so far in advance?

Kind Regards

Peter

[siwalker]

Not so much a thread, more a display of indifference. I don't think pre-auth is popular - most sites take the money up-front regardless of whether they can ship immediately.

Actual facts were very hard to come by, I don't think anyone at Actinic really knows chapter and verse on all this. However, in practice it turns out to be relatively problem-free. We pre-auth, and then commit the payment anywhere from a few minutes to a few weeks later (or even months in some cases). The shadow period ring-fences payment, but once this expires, there doesn't seem to be a problem committing payment. Presumably there could be a problem if adequate funds are no longer available but we haven't come across this yet. General experience with AP is reasonably positive, though there are several weaknesses.

Where do I stand if I charge the customers card so far in advance?

You mean with pre-auth? You're not charging so there's no problem.

simon

[Sean Williams]

We use exclusively Pre-Auth as so much of our stuff may be a backorder and for an order value of 5-800 squid, some customers can get a bit antsy (although most profess not to mind).
The 3-day shadow is correct according to Secure Hosting.
We have never been charged a late fee or anything for Authorising later on (Cardnet).
For authorisations after 28 days, we make an Additional Transaction to the card as the original one expires.

[PeterW]

Hi,

Thanks for the info.

Sorry I did not make myself clear. I was concerned about taking full payment for goods (not pre-authorised) that would not be delivered for 9 - 10 weeks.

Would customers be put off by this, I know I would.

I shall give it some more thought as these particular products are not yet on the site. Our other products are all from stock.

Peter.

[Sean Williams]

One way to handle these items is to clearly describe them as Special Orders and show on the product how long the back order is. Presumably since the backorder time is so lengthy you wouldn't want someone to cancel their order.
Permitting you to take the payment is the customers way of making a commitment.
If you label these items as Personalised Orders you circumvent the DSR and the customer forfeits the right to return the goods within 7 days.

[PeterW]

Thank you Sean.

That is definitely food for thought and is probably the route I will take.
That is a great idea labeling them a personalised order. They will have options so can be classed as personalised.

All being well, I will supply the goods at a very reasonable price that it will worth the customer to pay up front and wait.

Time will tell.

Kind Regards

Peter

[Mike Hughes]

If you label these items as Personalised Orders you circumvent the DSR and the customer forfeits the right to return the goods within 7 days.

It might just be poor expression, But 'labelling' something as personalised if it isn't in fact personalised will have no effect on the DSRs.

Here's the relevant definition from the DSR:

(c) for the supply of goods made to the consumer's specifications or clearly personalised or which by reason of their nature cannot be returned or are liable to deteriorate or expire rapidly;

Mike

[Sean Williams]

Hi Mike
not wishing to gainsay, but I did clear this with our local Trad. Std office - if it is made clear at the time of purchase that an item is ordered specifically for a single customer, as a result of their request/order, it can be classified as Custom or Personalised.

Peter - perhaps you should check with your local T & S office for their version .

Blinking DSR's - we've just had yet another customer use one of our motorcycle seats for his holiday and then return it under the DSR 7-day rule.

[Mike Hughes]

Hmm.

I can see that if a customer requests you to get something for them that you don't normally sell, then that could potentially be treated as a one-off or special order outside the DSRs. In such cases you can ask for non-refundable deposits, etc, etc. I don't know quite how or where this is defined in Law but I'm sure it is somewhere.

I would say though that this is quite different from offering something for sale and then trying to declare it as being outside of the DSRs. In this case, I think the facts suggest that:

a) you are offering it for sale on the website (an organised distance selling scheme)
b) the contract is concluded at distance (i.e. not face to face)

which means it would be covered by the DSRs.

I'd suggest you clarify this with trading standards as there may have been some misunderstanding on the details here.

Mike

PS. I understand about customer returning goods they've used. It shouldn't be allowed, and isn't. The difficulty comes with the payment suppliers often backing the customer. In this case though, If you have some way of showing that it's been used you should get their support (but then again I suppose we all know there's a big difference between 'should' and 'will').

[cbarling]

It doesn't solve the immediate problem but in Actinic Payments you can mark that something has been charged back and if you consider that it's dodgy.

So the next time that the same person tries this on, if they had done it several times before, The Third Man is likely to show the order as potentially a problem. Given that Argos, Tesco Direct and many other majors put all their transactions through The Third man, as do Actinic Payments, persistent behaviour like this should eventually show up.

It was in order to try to give merchants a little bit more power in this situatiuon that I pushed to get the feedback mechanism included in Actinic Payments.

Chris

[Darren B]

It doesn't solve the immediate problem but in Actinic Payments you can mark that something has been charged back and if you consider that it's dodgy.

Now thats interesting, i was not aware of this chris