Did you look at your bank statement and see 2, 3 or even 5 charges from the online store you just bought through? Don’t panic! Read this:

Before we explain how to tell if you were Double Charged or not, there's 3 important things to know:

1. Go to the website you bought through and look at the URL bar.  If the url says "https://" the site is SECURE which means the seller has NO WAY of seeing your credit card information:

This means it is basically impossible for them to double charge you BUT some merchant accounts (the payment processor for the seller) do have an option for the seller to "Add Charges" to your card.  So it may be possible for a dishonest, evil scam seller to add charges without your permission.  

2. BUT if the company you are buying through is reputable, there is no reason they would ever do this.  Good companies want your repeat business and have no desire to screw you.  

3. If the company you purchased through is NOT secure and is located outside of the USA it is indeed possible you could be double charged 

HOW TO TELL IF YOU WERE ACTUALLY DOUBLE CHARGED

Every time you “swipe” your credit card (or click “Confirm Order” online), you are supposed to be charged for the purchase but, pretty much everyone in the world has experienced a “Decline”. A decline can occur for a ton of different reasons but when buying online it usually means that there are insufficient funds in the account or the credit card information you provided is incorrect. For example, if your credit card number is:

1111 2222 3333 4444

But you accidentally typed:

1111 3333 3333 4444

This would result in the card being declined because the credit card number is not correct.

When the wrong information is entered and the credit card is declined, you will still see a charge on your credit card statement. This charge is “Pending”. Pending charges that resulted in Declines will be removed from your credit card statement within 24 hours (sometimes it can take a little longer).

With that in mind, if you attempted to place an order and typed the wrong information 3 times in a row you will see three identical Pending charges.  So, the first thing to ask yourself is if you had to click "confirm order" 2 or more times on the website.  If you did, then the company did NOT double charge you.  

NOTE: If you attempted to place an order and typed the wrong information 5+ times, your bank may automatically lock your card because it “LOOKS LIKE” someone stole it and is trying to place a fraudulent online order. All you have to do is call the number on the back of the card and they will instantly unlock it for you.

HOW TO TELL IS CHARGES ARE PENDING OR POSTED

If you login to your bank account / credit card account, you should be able to see a section called “Pending”:

Or, you will see the word “Pending" next to the attempted charge:

BUT THEY TOOK THE MONEY!!  MY ACCOUNT BALANCE IS LOWER!

Every time you swipe your card or click Confirm Order, the amount in question is put on a “hold” because the bank doesn't know YET if the charge was successful or not. Around midnight each day all of the Pending Charges are processed. This is usually referred to as a “Batch” (AKA “Batch Out”). When the Batch occurs, the successful transactions are processed and the declined transactions are deleted. When a Pending is deleted, the Hold is removed from the funds and is again available for you to spend. This is not something the seller does; this is done by the bank / credit card company. So, for example, here’s a person who placed on order on our site:

As you can see from the image above, the first time they tried to pay $189, it was declined but the second time they tried to pay the charge was successful. This means that this individual will see two duplicate charges on their card from our company, but the declined transaction will be erased when we “Batch Out”.

The following day when the buyer logs into their bank account, they will only see 1 charge from our company.

NOTE: It seems like Pending charges from Fridays take until Monday to be deleted. I have also noticed that Pending charges placed on a Holiday, or on the day before a Holiday, can often take until the day after the holiday to disappear.