Credit Card Processing Rules

Giant Merchandising utilizes Bank of America and CyberSource credit card processing services for online authorization and fraud screening.

Please read below so that you fully understand how online card processing works.

  • When you place your order from our website, we send what is called an authorization request to your credit card company. This request includes the amount of the order as well as the billing information you included on the order form. At the time you place your order, this is only an authorization, not a charge against your credit card.
  • Your credit card company not only verifies that the card is valid and that the amount is available, they also verify the full billing information that was entered. If the card number is valid and the funds are available they put an authorization hold on the funds regardless of whether the billing information entered was also valid.
  • Our automated credit authorization procedures require that you enter your EXACT billing information as it appears on your credit card statement. Failure to do so may result in your bank performing an authorization hold against your credit card account that is ultimately rejected by our banking systems as a valid transaction. If you try placing your order multiple times with incorrect information, you run the risk of placing multiple authorization holds against your credit card account.
  • If your credit card company returns a valid authorization to us with a message that the billing information did not match you will receive an error message after you submit your order stating that your order was not processed. DO NOT attempt to reprocess your order unless you correct your billing information.
  • Although your credit card company will show that they authorized the request, they will not stand behind the charge if the information does not match and as such we cannot process an order with the information not correctly matching. They are more than happy to process the charge because they hold no liability if the transaction is fraudulent as they have notified us that the information is not correct.
  • Many international issued credit cards and a few domestic credit cards do not support the industry standard AVS (Address Verification System) for card processing. In these cases, your card may be declined by us.
  • An authorization is only a hold on the funds for a possible future transfer of funds. 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 the time you place your order. The time it takes for an authorization to expire on its own is dictated by your bank. Times vary between 3 and 30 days, with 7 to 14 days the average. The banks do not provide any mechanism for us to "drop" an authorization against your account. Please do not ask.
  • If all of your address information matches and the bank authorizes the transaction we will begin processing your order. Once the order is ready to be packaged and shipped the transaction is settled. Only after the transaction is settled are any funds transferred. We do not settle your transaction until your goods are ready to ship.
  • Each time you submit the order and receive an error message another temporary authorization hold will be placed on your card, we highly recommend copying the information directly from your credit card statement to the online form to avoid this.
  • We do not recommend verifying your address with your card company over the phone as many address terms will appear different to their processing system, however they tend to sound the same over the phone; such as: "Ave" and "Avenue" or "PO Box" and "P.O. Box". For this reason we recommend using your printed card statement for the address verification.
  • If you have tried more than once to process your order through our systems and are unable to obtain a valid authorization, you may contact us and we can inquire to our banking systems as to why your request may have failed. However, if the failure is strictly due to an address mismatch, there is no way for us to tell you what portion is wrong.