We sent an NFA trust and 2 form 4s in a couple weeks ago. My credit card was charged for both stamps last week, but they were both pending and are now not showing on my statement. Any1 had this happen before.
NFA credit card question.
- Thread starter Precision S.W.A.G.er
- Start date
They ALWAYS take your money 1st. Then you get to wait. Remember it's a government agency.
No, but credit cards work in weird ways. I don’t recall ever seeing a charge of any kind show as pending and then not show as a charge later unless an order did not go through or was canceled. The problem here is ATF won’t know about it because a vendor handles payment first before the forms ever make it back to ATF. I’d say give it a couple of weeks still.
It happens all the time. Regularly.
For example: I went and bought gas before and the transaction was pending for quite some time. Later it just up and disappeared. Then a few weeks later it was 'unexpectedly' deducted from my account.
The reason: Mainly it goes back to how they process debit/credit card transactions, meaning the vendor. When you run your card (at the time of sale) the vendor (in this case the government) gets a numeric code called an approval code from your bank/credit card company. Everything regarding that transaction is temporary until the vendor sends over (electronically or otherwise) a settlement of the bill.
Before charges are 'finalized' the vendor has to settle their machines up. In a normal situation this is done daily for the most part. But in my case with the gas purchase the lazy ass owner of said gas station settled his up once a month. So the temporary 'debit' fell off, but later on when they submitted the final transaction it was actually debited.
The same thing happens all the time with restaurants. They swipe your card for $28.52 and you leave a $5 tip. If they don't settle up the machine in a timely fashion the $28.52 'temporary hold' will fall off your account. But when they get around to settling the machines a debit for $33.52 will ultimately appear.
How long 'temporary' is I am not sure. I think it varies by your financial institution, but generally it's long enough time to allow a vendor to settle their machines up. This usually happens daily, but there is no promise whoever you bought stuff from will do it that often.
If you are using a credit card or a debit card either one, especially if you are using a debit card though, you should deduct the money from what you 'think' you have right away, otherwise when someone gets off their ass to settle up those transactions it can over draw your account and screw up your accounting big time. This generally applies if you run your checking account dry, but when those over draft charges start to happen they rack up quick.
Thanks for the replies. I understand the typical pending/temp charges. I just want to make sure I’m not waiting on the ATF for nothing. Eg: they CC didn’t go through and now the application is stalled due to nonpayment. I’ll give it a week or so and then attempt to call them and get a status update. Maybe have to take a day off so I’ll have time to wait on hold.
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