It was an item that was never in stock to begin. They weren’t sure how I managed to place the order. I paid with a straight bank transfer, no debt or credit.
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There is a common scam where you are selling something online, and a person offers to buy it, overpays, and asks you to send the balance with the item. Then it turns out that their original payment was not real, and you are now out both the item and the ‘refund’.
If a company did offer instant refunds, it would be possible to use that to pull off this scam, and scammers would very quickly discover when an item was listed but out of stock.
It takes time to transfer money – and this time exists in both directions.
When you pay for something, a **hold** is placed on your account for that amount. This way, the retailer is ensured you have the funds to pay for the product, and your bank ensures you don’t spend more money than you have while the transactions are clearing. In a few days when the transaction clears, the hold is replaced with the actual charge – you just don’t notice it.
The same process happens in reverse when a refund is issued. The retailer has a hold placed on their account, and in a few days when the refund processes, that hold is replaced with the executed refund.
Because they make money from YOUR money while they have it. And what are you gonna do, sue them over some small amount if you don’t get it immediately? The definition of “Over a Barrel” – most people first experience this in college, where you HAVE to pay by a certain date, but they can spend their sweet time getting it back to you when they owe you. It’s just the way of the modern world. It has nothing to do with logic and everything to do with greed,
Up to 10 working days means it can be done faster, but you are protecting yourself against any possible delays.
Say there is weekend or some holidays during this period. If they promised you anything close to how long it actually takes any sort of delays would get them over the limit.
Also bank transfers take time in many banks. You might see the money already gone from your account, but that doesn’t mean the company already got it.
It’s mostly just precaution. It realistically won’t take longer than 2-3 days for them to process the refund and for the bank to make the transfer. Everything else is just for possible delays.
Together with the correct answer about “holds”, depending on the size of the company the person you have contact with isn’t the same person that clears the money. E-mail gets sent, e-mail gets received, e-mail gets read maybe a day later and then the person who has to take action might decide theres more urgent things to do.
I have worked for ecommerce companies in finance.
Everything in an online sales company is built to have money and data flowing in one direction, and that is out of your bank account and into theirs. From internal processes to payment and software solutions to approval structures. All of it is built unidirectionally. Everyone who works at that company is mentally prepared every morning to improve that flow of money into the company. Clearly refunds and returns are possible, but they are far more rare than what the company does all day every day. The person who approves returns might be out on vacation. The employee who is reviewing your case might have to send it through customer retention first. There may need to be an internal discussion for your particular problem to see if it even warrants a refund, or if they are going to offer in-store credit. Maybe the refunds ACH or credit process only runs once per week so the company can batch such activity since, as described above, it is rare and probably less automatic than when you paid.
It takes a lot more work to kayak upstream than down.
There are a few ways that this could play out. Imagine you buy an item from an online store. You check the bank and your money is gone. But in reality, the money isn’t gone yet. The transaction has simply passed through a network of processors, to reach your bank. Your bank knows that someone is going to claim this money soon so they prevent you from spending it. They will also not show this money when you look up your balance.
The next step is for the merchant to “settle” your transaction. Here is where they will take a big batch of payments, and send them to their processor. (In some cases, they don’t actually do this and it’s just taken care of by the processor automatically). It’s at this stage that money starts to move from one account to another, but it can take a few days.
If you do a refund after settlement happens, it’s generally the same thing in reverse. The money is placed on hold in the merchants account, goes through the settlement process, and eventually gets back to you.
Its also possible for a refund to be instant. If the original transaction has not been settled, then it can be voided. In this case, there are a couple of ways that it can happen. Traditionally, a void would have just been removing the transaction from the settlement, and after a few days, the hold would expire on your account. Then you can spend your money again.
It’s becoming more common nowadays for voids to be “online”. In this case, the void is sent through the network, makes it to your bank, and the hold can be removed immediately.
Source: Am software dev for a payments company
My understanding is that this is usually due to the banking institution holding on to your funds so they can lump it in with some kind of profit generating investment so the longer the wait, the more potential for profit. This happens with Favor and DoorDash orders that are refunded, where the funds have been released almost instantly by the vendor yet it still takes 2 weeks to show back up in your account.
It doesn’t take time to transfer money like others said, the real reason is that if you get one million now and need to return it asap, you can say your asap is in 10 days, you earn with that one million for that ten days, return the million and you’re on profit simply by holding the money.
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