AllesAmerika.com Forum

We send what is called an authorization request to your credit card company. Your credit card company verifies that the card is valid and that the amount of your transaction is available. If the card number is valid and the funds are available, they put an authorization hold on the funds. An authorization is only a hold on the funds for a possible future transfer. This hold is temporary, and if the transaction isn't settled it will expire without any action. It is not a completed transaction and no funds are transferred at that time.

Your credit card company may still show a temporary authorization hold on the funds after your transaction is completed. It can take several working days for them to process the void on the authorization. The time will vary from one company to the next. Unfortunately, many customer service people at the card companies don't understand the difference between a settled transaction and an authorization hold. They will tell you that it was a valid transaction even though we have processed a void on the authorization.

Credit card companies process authorizations and charges immediately; however, they do not process voids or credits as fast. We do not know why they take longer to process voids and credits.
It seems fairly obvious from the content of this message that the anonymous author (someone who doesn't normally "use my check or credit card for gas except when we are on vacation"), while viewing credit card activity on-line, saw a $10 authorization hold placed against his or her card by a service station, called the bank to inquire about it, either misunderstood or was misled by the bank representative's explanation, and came away thinking that it was a separate amount charged to the card beyond the cost of the gasoline purchase. No scam, no rip-off, no shady sales schemes, just a misunderstanding spread far and wide through the magic of the Internet.