For post-paid orders (i.e. orders paid by wire, check or other method that cannot be validated in real-time at checkout), we require that customers provide a credit or debit card to secure their order's price.
When an order is submitted, we place a hold for a small portion of the order value on the card provided. This helps ensure that if a customer fails to make timely payment on the order, there is a mechanism to collect the "Market Loss" charges associated with the order (see our User Agreement for details).
This hold is similar to the hold placed on your card if you've ever checked into a hotel. It is NOT a charge, and it just serves to validate the card and to ensure that if it needs to be charged later there is a sufficient balance to cover that charge.
The hold does impact your available credit on the card, or your available balance for a debit card. For this reason, holds automatically expire from cards 7 days after they are issued, so that customer balances are not affected long term. Once expired, it may take another few days to be reflected by your bank.
We typically only issue a single hold, if an order is paid on time. However, we reserve the right to renew the hold until an order is paid or cancelled.
If a hold is not dropping from your card, or if your order is paid and you'd like the hold released early as it is tying up too much balance (common for very large orders), please contact customer support and we'd be glad to assist.