Pre-order payment

[caddyroger]

If I pre-order a Tivo Premiere XL is my cc charged today or when it is shipped? I know places it when it is shipped. I don't do to much pre-ordering.

[worachj]

If you buy from TiVo then ...
You will not be charged until your order ships. An authorization for the order amount will be placed on your credit card or debit card as soon as you place your order.

https://www3.tivo.com/buytivo/popups/instock-message-premiere-ajax.html
https://www3.tivo.com/buytivo/popups/popup_tivo-premiere-ships-faq.html

[TrueTurbo]

If you buy from TiVo then ...
You will not be charged until your order ships. An authorization for the order amount will be placed on your credit card or debit card as soon as you place your order.

https://www3.tivo.com/buytivo/popups/instock-message-premiere-ajax.html
https://www3.tivo.com/buytivo/popups/popup_tivo-premiere-ships-faq.html

A-ha, this explains exactly what I observed! Thanks. When I placed my pre-order, I saw the authorization appear immediately on my bank account. Then yesterday, the authorization disappeared! I wondered what was going on. :)

To be honest, I'd prefer them to take the money now and be done with it. This way, I have to remember to make sure there is enough funding there when they actually charge my account for real and I won't know exactly when that will be! :eek:

[caddyroger]

If you buy from TiVo then ...
You will not be charged until your order ships. An authorization for the order amount will be placed on your credit card or debit card as soon as you place your order.

https://www3.tivo.com/buytivo/popups/instock-message-premiere-ajax.html
https://www3.tivo.com/buytivo/popups/popup_tivo-premiere-ships-faq.html

Thanks for the information

[MichaelK]

A-ha, this explains exactly what I observed! Thanks. When I placed my pre-order, I saw the authorization appear immediately on my bank account. Then yesterday, the authorization disappeared! I wondered what was going on. :)

To be honest, I'd prefer them to take the money now and be done with it. This way, I have to remember to make sure there is enough funding there when they actually charge my account for real and I won't know exactly when that will be! :eek:

unless larger vendors get something different than us little guys->

visa/mc rules are generally that a vendor can only get an authorization that sticks for 7 days. But they typically are not supposed to charge the customer until the order ships (although there are some exceptions). So if the ship date is going to be more than 7 day's out that's pretty much how it's going to happen.

The whole cc authorization system seems stuck on the system they first invented when the store clerks used to call in and get voice authorizations. (probably was set up that way becasue 7 days would be long enough to be sure if you sent in the old carbon copy forms that the mail would get them to the clearing house on time). A vendor can't request an authorization for more or less than the ~7 days. (even dumber is you can't cancel an authorization once you request it- so you can inadvertanly screw your customer under certain instances- hence the signs warning debit card holders at car rental counters.)

But thinking about it, I'm not sure why tivo even bothers with the entire authorization up front. They could do the gas station trick or authorizing 1 dollar to make sure your card is valid. Must be just how their website is set to automate things. The vendor can just "claim' the authorized funds electronically if the authorization is still 'alive' but if the original authorization expires you have to start over and submit a new transaction anyway. So they will have to redo all the work when the boxes ship. But I guess it's a rare occurance for them to be taking pre-orders so its not worth reworking their website.