[olug] [OT] PCI authorize without actual posting

[Rob Townley]

PCI for this convo isn't Peripheral Component Interconnect, but
Payment Card Industry.  There should be a few pros on the list
considering this is Omaha.

There are authorizations to withdraw money and a few days later, the
actual withdrawal - termed a post.  Pay a bill online Friday morning
and it shows up Friday morning via your banks website immediately.
Saturday, the transaction disappears from your online account.  Monday
you wonder if you actually paid the bill.  Tuesday, it appears again
and the money is actually withdrawn.

Have any of you had low level experience with a merchant processing
system platform?  gnucash may be an example, maybe.   My banker said
that sometimes the authorization goes through, but the merchant system
does not go back and do a successful post to actually take the money
out.  I find that a little hard to believe - i mean there are bugs and
then there is giving money away.  Capitalism makes that bug
impossible.  The battery backup could die, but the transaction
processing would fix it later, boss.

Consider some frat boys renting a hotel room.  The hotel may require a
credit card and request authorization to withdraw for a hefty room
deposit.  This creates some kind of authorization number that usually
goes unused.  The frat boys check out Sunday morning calmly thinking
management won't notice the hole in the wall and the missing faucet.
Sunday afternoon, the cleaning lady reports the damage.  Management
cashes in that deposit authorization number, effectively converting it
to a sale.

I can see that authorizations and capturing a previous authorization
would be two different steps, but nobody ever forgets that second
step, right?  No website is that dumb, right?

For more info, do a search for tran_type on the following page.
http://secure.netbilling.com/public/docs/merchant/public/directmode/directmode3protocol.html

i have been up far too many hours ... sorry for the rambling.