UKC

When you pay for something with a credit card, is there a time limit within which the company/person from whom you bought the goods/service must collect the payment?

I've just realised that payment for some fuel that I bought (sadly only a top-up rather than a fill-up) from a well-known petrol station chain a couple of months ago has never actually been taken from my account. I've got the receipt so know that I definitely paid for it with a certain card on a certain day. I can also see that purchases made from the same retailer before and since are showing up on the card statement so it should be on there.

In reply to Foxache:


As far as I am aware this comes under basic contract law so the time limit is six years plus the time for reasonable diligence discover of error or mistake.

In reply to Foxache:


I bet it varies from card to card.

I've had Amex payments not pop up for a couple of months... puzzling.

Anyway I'm guessing that sometimes vendors keep the slips in a drawer for a month or more before processing them.

6 years! :-o

That could be a nasty shock if it was something expensive and you'd not been very diligent with checking your statement.

In reply to abseil:



Not Tesco! If they could I'd bet they'd process it the day before your purchase!

Having said that good cash flow is sound business sense.

Maybe the OP should do the honourable thing and remind them........?

In reply to Foxache:

I've always found petrol stations bad for this, in lots of different countries.

There's no real world time limit. Just annoying. I suppose the other way of looking at it is that you've been given credit by the petrol station at very favourable terms. Invest it quickly in something that will appreciate - food would be a good investment at the moment I think?

In reply to Trangia:


I lost my credit card in Manchester airport and didn't notice until I landed again in Bruges. Called the company and they cancelled the card.

Fine, except the last payment I made (shortly before I lost the card) has never shown up despite me calling up three times to tell them.

It's been three months, no sign of it yet.

It's odd, but when I call up and tell them, they treat me like I'm a bit strange for wanting to pay it...their opinion is 'just forget about it'.

Don't intend to call them about it again - three times seems like a reasonable amount of attempts.

In reply to Foxache:



Yes but it would not work that way in reality as that will be outwith the validity of the card. If the petrol station are just slow, any "late" submission of the sale to the CC company will be subject to fraud checks before it would hit your statement and you will or should know about it first if very late!

In reply to Foxache:

They are shit for this in Germany, it takes about a week often. The annoying thing is I can't have an overdraft so have to keep in mind what I've paid for over the past week when it gets low..