Debit cards are processed differently from
credit cards by banks. When you place an order using our web site, we do
not bill you until the item ships. This is because many of our items can
take days or even weeks to ship and we do not want to take your money that far
in advance.
When a credit card is used the funds are
"authorized" but not actually added to your bill. Essentially,
the funds are reserved for the planned future billing by reducing your
available credit. If the future billing never occurs (such as if you
cancel the order before it ships) the authorization rolls off your account
automatically, usually after 30 days, and your available credit is restored.
With a debit card however, there is no
available credit line. Therefore, to ensure the funds are available for
the future planned billing, your bank will immediately withdraw the money from
your account and hold it. We believe this is unfair to you, especially
for long lead-time items. Another problem sometimes occurs with debit
cards. If the final actual billing amount is different than the amount
the bank originally withdrew from your account, they may think it is a
completely separate order and withdraw that much more money from your
account! We have seen this happen on orders where we reduced the
shipping charge or where an item was deleted from the order. Then, you
see two debits on your account statement and think we billed you twice, when
in fact we only billed you once and your bank is still holding the other
amount. These are some of the reasons we do not want debit cards used
for purchases.
