Seeing a card payment twice on your account can be confusing, but it's usually a temporary issue that fixes itself.
Common reasons for duplicate charges
Technical hiccup: A network or system glitch might’ve sent the payment request more than once.
Multiple Attempts: If you accidentally click the payment button more than once or refresh the page during the payment process, it might result in duplicate charges.
Merchant retry: If the first attempt takes too long to confirm, the merchant might resend the payment request.
What actually happens?
When a duplicate payment happens, you'll usually see both transactions as pending. Only one of them will go through — the other will stay pending and disappear on its own. This usually happens within 30 days and you don't need to do anything.
Here's something worth knowing about how card payments work behind the scenes: there are two types of charges — authorizations and clearings.
An authorization is like a temporary hold. Deblock can act on these — for example, we can decline an authorization if you don't have enough funds.
A clearing is the actual, final charge sent to us by Visa. Once a clearing comes through, it cannot be declined — by us or by anyone. That's just how card transactions work across the Visa network. We're simply informed by Visa that the charge is happening, and we pass it on to your account.
Also worth noting: Deblock doesn't control the amounts of either the authorisation or the clearing — those come directly from the merchant.
Why is my charge still pending?
Some transactions take longer to clear - up to 30 days - depending on the type of merchant. This is normal for:
🏨 Hotels & lodging (e.g. Holiday Inn, Hilton) - they often place a hold to cover incidentals
🚗 Car rentals (e.g. Hertz) - funds are held for the duration of the rental plus processing time
✈️ Travel agencies & tour operators - complex bookings can trigger longer holds
🚢 Cruise lines - extended trips often lead to extended authorisation periods
This happens because merchants place a pre-authorisation hold (often more than the final amount), or process transactions in weekly batches rather than daily. Large or international payments may also go through extra fraud checks.
After 30 days, most banks will automatically cancel the hold and return the money to your available balance.
What can you do?
Most of the time you just need to wait. These charges sort themselves out. Still, it's a good idea to check your app or bank statement after a few days to make sure the extra charge has disappeared.