Using 3V vouchers problem...

Red Sleeping Beauty

Hi , sorry if there's already a 3V thread, couldn't find one....

A while ago I got a 20Euro 3V card to buy a 20Euro dvd from play. I thought "hey, 3V aren't charging for the 20euro cards and an Xfiles dvd box set for 20 quid is grand" Well it didn't go according to plan. I bought said dvd, entered the 3V card number and all and then waited. (play.com don't process payment immediately as you may know)

Then I checked the balance of the 3v card on their site and it seems that play.com had taken away about Euro 1.50. Some sort of "authorisation charge or something" Anyway, the balance left on the 3v card was of course then 18.50, not enough for my box set and the payment hadn't been processed.

Of course then when play.com did try to process the payment it didn't go through and I got a generic email saying the order had been cancelled due to insufficent funds. I emailed 3v and they said that the phantom charge had nothing to do with them. Play.com however have no email address for customer queries , only a premium rate UK phone number.

The exact same thing has happened to me with paypal and HMV's website. Paypal were useless in getting back to me, each time saying that it was an authorisation charge that they have a right to make but that isn't actually debited from the card. HMV were a bit nicer in their wording and said kind of the same thing as paypal but in their first email (I'd emailed paypal about 10 times regarding the issue)

So basically if you see something online for 20 euro, you then buy a 20 euro 3v card and try to buy it, the site will put a (temporary) charge against the card (that isn't refunded for another month) and thus rendering the whole reason that you got the 3v card absolutely useless.
Maybe I'm just too angry a person or something but that pissed me off something fierce and I've not got a 3v card since. Unfortunately there's nowhere seeling dvds online that accepts laser (cdwow seem to have a shoddy reputation at present) so I'm assuming I'll probably give in in the end and get another 3v card, but I think that 3V should make it known to customers that these "authorisation charges" affect the balance of the voucher.

Has any other experiences negative or positive with 3V ?

matt70iu

Yeah I had a similar issue with play.com, to say I was annoyed would be an understatement as play make no mention of this charge from what I could see. Had 15e left on my voucher and wanted 15e worth of goods, play charged an auth fee and as a result, did not have enough for the goods. Cancelled the order and got the same goods for cheaper else where, moral of the story... Don't use 3v on play.com:)

jor el

Every time you set up a new card on Play, they verify it first. This involves a small charge, which should be refunded a while later (maybe a week or so). With 3V, or any pre-pay card, this can be very annoying. The 1.50 should come back eventually, hopefully before the 3V voucher expires, so you can actually use it.

**Timbuk2**

This happened to me with play.com as well (it was a £1 charge).

It came back after about 1.5 weeks. Although, considering that the OP posted this thread on the 4th of September, they should have got their money back by now

Red Sleeping Beauty

I never went back and checked if I got the refund but I just got another voucher there and used it on sendit. Their auth fee is a penny but I'm going to keep an eye on it and see if it gets refunded. I think the hassle is on 3V's part or possibly Visa's. The auth fee isn't kept by the merchant as it's refunded straight away but it seems to take a real long time for a refund to process.

"Normal" credit card rules being applied to "prepay" credit cards isn't really working I don't think. It's a pain in the hole and quite the inconvenience.

3V have started including the exchange rate commission fee in the card transaction history which they didn't include before. Their Terms changed slightly there a while ago.

Red Sleeping Beauty

How's this for a sickener.... trying to buy a DVD and I'm shy 6 cents. Worst thing is I've an obsolete voucher with 2quid and change that's useless cause it costs €2.50 to transfer.

heathersonline

Amazon do the same, £1 authorisation fee. Nearly cost me my new PS3 slim!! :eek: