Question : Bank approved debit card payment, says money is leaving my account; merchant says payment declined. What next?
I tried to pay my medical school tuition (a five-figure sum) yesterday using my debit card. There were a number of technical problems during the process which might explain the resulting fiasco…
First, when the university official (i.e. “merchant”) telephoned the bank for approval, the call got cut off just after I’d answered the security questions and passed the phone back to him. Second, when the “merchant” phoned for approval a second time, the bank clearly pulled up the wrong account since I answered all the security questions incorrectly. Finally, when the “merchant” phoned a third time, I answered the security questions correctly but the payment was still declined. OK, time to phone the bank myself then…

BUT, my bank told me that a payment to the university had indeed been APPROVED! What’s more, the grand sum of 5 figures was cleared to leave my account and nothing could be done about it! The lady at the bank did try to help me, frantically contacting everyone she could get hold of, and she sounded like she was almost going to cry (honestly, I did want to send her a hug over the phone despite my frustration). But alas, the problem was with the payment processing centre, not the bank. Nothing could be done, so the bank lady told me to wait for my statement and brandish it to claim the education that is rightfully mine (ok, my words, not hers).

So, what next? Has the payment been approved or declined? Will the money leave my account and then come back into it, or will it leave my account and go into the university’s account? And will the university have any way to match up the payment on their books with the person who paid? Will my bank statement be good enough as proof of payment?

Sorry for the flood of information and deluge of questions, and thank you so much for reading this and replying :)
merchant payment processing

Best answer:

Answer by Andrew
i’m not exactly sure about the situation, but it sounds like you’ll be ok in a few days. hopefully your tuition isnt due too soon and you can deal with this before the deadline. if the money was cleared to leave your account, the merchant should be recieving it soon and will update your bill accordingly. if the money was NOT approved to leave your account, it wont, and your balance will be restored soon. either way, money doesn’t disappear. you WILL get it back eventually. banks are really weird sometimes with the way they “hold” your money during a payment or a balance discrepancy. i’d say just wait a few days and it should work itself out.