Look as I say, I have NEVER had a "pre-authorization" test charge. I've been shopping online since 2004, buying things from dozens of stores all around the world... this is the first time I've ever had this happen. Which is why I am so suspicious.

/J

Look man, believe what you want. Open a fraud investigation with your bank. I know what I know not only from my own personal experience but also professionally working in banking law and operations. Usually these small phantom charges are never posted, just replaced with the actual charge, and usually it happens in a way that's transparent to customers unless the party making the test authorization is not one recognized as legitimate or rather, is one suspected by the bank as being possibly fraudulent based on past activities or alerts within the industry. The volume of transactions handled by the world financial system staggers the mind and all of this stuff is automated and based on proprietary algorithms that are tweaked based on transaction patterns that change daily or even hourly.

But hey, believe what you want. I only do this stuff for a living.

I had the same thing happen at my local supermarket.

I allways had to bring cash because my card got declined every damn time. I ended up calling my creditcard company and it turned out that for some reason they had put a block on the card beeing used in that store + one other store that I had never actually been to.

I have no clue why they would even do that, but ever since the day I called, the card has been working at the store in question.

Well after talking to my bank they said the reason they blocked the initial transaction was because it was so unusual for someone to process a transaction of ZERO dollars. I have registered a complaint with them for not calling me first about the transaction. Not really a point for debate.

Now my issue is Gamestop's customer service not replying & confirming the details of my order - whether cancelled, indifferent or still in process...