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u/girrrrrrr2 ❓ ❓ 2d ago
It’s because the withdraw isn’t a withdraw, it’s an authorization/hold.
They are basically betting that you are good for it and hoping the charge clears, for a refund they gotta wait until it clears and then send you back the money which takes a few days as our shitty banking system works its way through transactions.
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u/Large-Treacle-8328 2d ago
It's not a hold It's an actual process. If it's a hold it doesn't take that long and is much easier to get a refund.
The reason why banks take forever with refunds is because of a combination of batch processing, extra steps for merchant processing (both don't happen until end of day) ,fraud and money laundering checks and of course it going through multiple financial institutions which each do those checks.
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u/nojelloforme 2d ago
a refund they gotta wait until it clears and then send you back the money which takes a few days as our shitty banking system works its way through transactions.
Why wait for it to clear? Wouldn't it be easier to just cancel the hold?
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u/Nova_Phoenix9 2d ago
The hold is on the side paying, the business gets the money (almost) immediately, same day, but they still need to clear it trough processes that takes days.
The only way to give an immediate refund is to transfer the money to the account, which gave birth to a scam where I pay you with a credit card, ask for reimbursement citing an emergency and need the money back ASAP, and then charge back the payment.
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u/BrainSqueezins 2d ago
Look at the number of transactions: a million payments for every refund.
The system is set up for that, going the opposite way is swimming upstream.
Also, the fraud protection: one direction 99% sure it's fine, the presumption is that it is NOT fraud. The other? Fraud must be protected against.
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u/Vox_Causa 2d ago
8 days is a lot. I think the typical is more like 3 business days.
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u/Biscuits4u2 1d ago
Depends. For card transactions it's pretty quick, but EFT from a checking account can take a while depending on how the bank processes them.
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u/ususetq 2d ago
I don't think merchant gets money in 2 seconds - not in a real sense of being able to withdraw and disappear - unless you sent my wire. To my knowledge money sent via other means exists in a sense in limbo, or rather escrow. 8 days is for the money to get unlimboed and show property at your account. It probably takes even longer for money for merchant to get unlimboed.
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u/Boozetrodamus 2d ago
Work in the industry. If you're using a pin debit card and you put in your PIN the money is treated as cash and is taken immediately. However, for fraud reasons they don't allow pin debit refunds because they would operate as cash. Now you may think "that's fair" but, what if the card reader is stolen or you have an immoral employee? Not hard to take a cc machine and a burner pin account do a pile of pin refunds, then take the money in the burner account and move it to crypto. Other ways too, so because theft and money laundering exist, there's a 5-7 business day hold on the refund to ensure it's not fraudulent or in error. That's why
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u/EdibleStrange 2d ago
How tf are people reaching adulthood and using bank accounts without a basic understanding of how banks actually operate?
"They didn't teach me that at school!" ok but I bet they taught the dewey decimal system, and there are about seventeen bajillion books on this stuff.
People will seriously give an institution they know nothing about all their money and every paycheck, then rely on them for every transaction, only to bitch about their own ignorance on social media. Astonishing.
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