What is a temporary authorization charge and why should I care?
Temporary authorization charges are used by credit card issuers to approve transactions. When an order is confirmed, a temporary authorization charge is placed on the account to verify that the account is active and that it has sufficient credit to complete the purchase. This charge remains on the account until the order is fully processed, at which time the temporary charge is replaced by the actual charge. Why should you care? Normally you wouldn’t because you would never see this temporary charge on your statement, just the actual charge for the purchase. It does matter however when an order is cancelled and the actual charge is never settled against the temporary charge by the credit card issuer. The temporary charge can remain on your account for up to 30 days before it drops off automatically. This can be a problem because the temporary charges reduce your available credit, and with debit cards, it can lock up funds, preventing access to some of your cash. Unfortunately this is s
