Ordering From Digikey

[TANAKASAN]

eHam readers ordering from Digikey for the first time need to be aware of the following.

After you submit your order Digikey will send TWO debits to your credit card, one for 1 USD / 1 GBP / 1 EUR or whatever currency your card is in and one for the rest of the amount. This may trigger fraud procedures at your bank after which the transaction will be rejected.

Digikey then require you to fax your card details to them as verification.



Tanakasan

[KA5N]

What is "the rest of the amount"

I've never had the slightest problem with Digikey and credit cards.  Is this a real problem
or just a fluke???  Whichever it is, your explaination of the "problem" lacks clarity.

Allen

[AA4PB]

This seems to be a fairly common practice at gas stations. You put in your card and they debit $1 in order to veryify that your account is good. After you pump the gas they debit your card for the total cost of gas and then they issue a credit for the $1. I can understand why they do that because if your card is declined they have no way to take the gas back out of your tank.

I'm not sure why DigiKey would do the $1 test since they know the total and can debit your card for that amount before they ship anything.

[K8AXW]

Apparently Tanakasan is correct.  I've never had this "problem" but went to Digikey just now and asked them.  They verified this account and said it was for "fraud prevention."  The $1.00 is credited back to the credit card.  Rather this leaves a $1.00 credit on the card or if it is calculated back into the final cost, I don't know.

[KE4DRN]

hi,

this type of transaction is a 'pending charge', they will submit a
$90 charge when you fill up your car at the pump with a credit card,
send a charge for the actual amount and the $90 charge will
disappear in 24 hours or so.  If you pay at counter this is not done.

This explains it a lot better then I can

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_hold

73 james

[N4NYY]

Never had a problem. It is common for a vendor to charge $1 or such for pre-authorization, which actually is used to see if the card is valid, stolen, etc.