When purchasing credits with a debit or credit card, the cardholder information you supply is validated by the bank that issued your card. When this validation takes place the amount you intend to spend is ring-fenced on your account. This is known as a pre-authorization and will appear on your statement as a pending payment.
If your billing address detail and Verified by VISA or MasterCard SecureCode details are subsequently validated this amount will be removed from your account when the actual debit is performed, which takes place overnight. This settlement should clear the ring-fenced amount thereby removing it from your online or ATM statements and making the funds allocated available again.
The settlement only takes place on weekdays, so purchases made on Fridays or over the weekend may not actually appear on your statement until Wednesday the following week.
For example, if you purchased 1 x 10 late on Friday, then 10 on Saturday, and 10 on Sunday, all three may appear to debit together on Wednesday or Thursday following their settlement instruction on Monday.
Again, if you purchased 1 x 10 early on Friday, then 1 x 10 later on Friday, and 1 x 10 on Sunday, you would see 1 x 10 debit on Tuesday/Wednesday and 2 x 10 on Wednesday/Thursday.
This is how transaction settlement works for all online retailers.
The easiest way to reconcile your card/bank statement with your purchase history is to dig into the detail of the transaction and locate the actual transaction date, not the "posted" date or "statement" date that your online history or ATM printout is showing you. Similarly, you need to differentiate pending transactions from actual debits.
Printed bank statements you may still receive by post always have the facts right and do not include transient or pending transactions/authorizations but ATM printouts and online banking can often be misleading.
If you are convinced things are not correct, locate the digits after the word "awork.co.uk" (again you may have to view the details of the transaction to see this) and provide them to us along with the dates and amounts.
A form will appear when you click Close Window or use the "Contact" link, available at the bottom of each page on the Site.