Why can't online transactions be completed outside of business hours?
Generally, unless you're doing a wire transfer, bank transactions are processed in batches overnight. So the credit card company won't be able to confirm your transfer until the next business day (it may take even longer for them to actually receive the money).
"This is not a normal occurrence, and you have every right to be annoyed, but the technical way it usually happens goes like this: What can happen is when the merchant incorrectly completes the transaction without referencing the pre-authorization transaction. The bank effectively doesn't ""know"" this is the same transaction, so they process it the same way they process any other purchase, and it has no effect on the pre-authorization and related held/pending transaction. As far as the bank knows, you purchased a second set of blinds in the store for $200 and are still waiting on the first order to come in, they have no idea the store screwed up. The reason this is possible is the purpose of the pre-auth in the first place is that it is a contractual agreement between the bank (credit card) and the merchant that the funds are available, will be available except under rare special circumstances, and thus they can go ahead and process the order. This lets the merchant be secure in the knowledge that they can collect their payment, but you aren't paying interest or monthly payments on something you haven't even gotten yet! This system works reasonably well for everyone - right up until someone screws up and fails to properly release a hold, makes a second transaction instead of properly referencing the first one, or the bank screws up their system and fails to correctly match referenced pre-authorization codes to purchases. The problem is that this should not be a normal occurrence, and the people you are speaking with to try to sort out the issue often do not have the authority or knowledge necessary to properly fix the issue, or its such a hassle for them that they hope you just go away and time fixes the issue on its own. The only sure-fire solution to this is: make sure you have so much extra credit line that this doesn't effect you and you can safely let it time out on its own, or stop doing business with this combination of merchant/payment that creates the problem. Back when my credit limits were being pushed, I would never pay at gas pumps because their hold polices were so weird and unpredictable, and I would only pre-pay inside or with cash to avoid the holds." Interesting. The real surprise here is preference. It seems not only do people but in person, they actually seem to mostly prefer it that way.   Most spending being offline isn't too surprising, especially if you count corporate purchasing. The average consumer spend most of their money on things like gas and food, two products not normally available online. Also, big purchases like cats and houses aren't online either. But companies also often don't ship online. Think about a building contractor. He goes to the contractor store in the morning before going to the job site. Or about the heavy manufacturer. A lot of steel manufacturers require the customer to speak to a sales rep or even to meet in person, depending on the size of the deal. One thing I didn't see mentioned - my major bills are all electronic transfer, i.e. there is no check mailed. A bill due in 2 days can be set up now, and still paid the day after tomorrow. Try that with a check. There are smaller companies that are not done that way and a check mailed, but you state the due date not the mailing date. So the bank still has the obligation to get it there. This is how my particular bank works. Any institution that issues checks and is connected to the ACH system can be the passive side. Any institution that clears checks and is connected to the ACH system can be the originating side. Not any institution that can be - in fact is. Your credit union doesn't provide this service because they don't want to. It costs them money to implement and support it, but they don't see the required benefit to justify it. They can. My credit union does that. I don't know how fast are wire transfers between bank accounts in the US, but here in Europe we can have them in under an hour usually for an extra fee (during bank working hours) - so you could take a laptop with Internet connection to the transaction, make a wire transfer and wait that hour drinking coffee for the transfer to arrive before handing the keys and papers and the buyer driving away. Thanks it is problem for class and I don't want to give the problem I just want to understand how to actually do it and the book hasn't been much help. Only additional information I can provide is   In Inventory – 15 days Accounts Receivable outstanding – 35 days Vendor credit – 40 days Operating Cycle – 50 days "Yes, so much for audit. We are audited yearly by one of big-4 and me being in IT Management was asked by the Auditors prove that ""the system will not allow to enter an order for a customer that does not exist."" ?!?!?!  As for finance, I was once asked to setup credit card processing of a new type of orders. Done and tested! I then asked them to tell me when they start accepting the new orders, because I need to setup a job to send the charges to the bank. They did not inform me and accepted orders for $100,000s. Suddenly, after a year they discovered that we do not get paid by the bank.   You would think that one of the basic jobs of accounting it to make sure Total Sales = Total Payments.   We had write off $100,000s because I can only charge customers for orders in the last 30 days, before their credit card authorizations expires." Stop orders and stop limit orders typically do not execute during extended hours after the general market session has closed. Stop orders are market orders and market orders especially are not executed during extended hours. Although there are exceptions because a broker can say one thing and do another thing with the way order types are presented to customers vs what their programming actually does. The regulatory burden is a slap on the wrist, so you need to ask the broker what their practices are. Orders created during normal market hours do not execute in extended sessions, different orders would have to be made during the extended session. Your stop order should execute if the normal market hour price stays below your stop price. So a stop limit would actually be worse here, because a stop limit will create a limit order which may never get hit (since it is above the best bid best ask) As far as I'm aware, PINs are only used for in-person transactions, not 'remote' (over the Internet or phone). "Even worse: many more times, companies will go through an $8 million project to fix an ""issue"" that costs $20.  Just 2 examples from my company:   1. A big project to automate the entry of 2 invoices per month from a supplier. Is would take an employee less than 10 minutes a month to enter those 2 invoices manually into the system.  2. A big project to provide a website for employees to buy the company's products (""employee sales""). I showed that on average, less than 1 order is placed per day, except December when the company has extra discounts, and then there are 3 sales a day. My solution: offer a coupon for employees to buy the same products on the existing B2C site.  P/S: Yes, I did the 1st project. Why would I complain and point out the obvious? Those silly projects are more than a job security for me. I would probably even get a prize for ""job well done!""." I have always assumed that there is a regulation that either prohibits, or makes noncompetitive, internet bank business accounts.  All of the 1%+ savings accounts offered at the banks listed are internet only.  If you broaden the search to include other internet only banks like Capital One 360, American Express Savings, Goldman Sachs Savings, Discover Savings, you'll find they all also only offer accounts to individuals (some may allow a trust to own the account) not businesses. "You'd have to check the rules for your broker to make sure that the term is being used in its usual sense, but the typical answer to your question is ""no.""  A GTC will execute during market hours.  You would need to explicitly specify extended hours if you want to execute outside of market hours (which your broker may or may not support)." Some businesses verify the shipping address with the credit card company, and refuse to ship to an alternate address without additional, offline verification.  Of course, this is only useful for physical goods. If I designed a system that handled multimillion dollar orders, I'd have the foresight to include a timestamp / order #, so resubmissions didn't generate duplicate charges. But that's probably just me and my small town ways. I've had a card cloned 15 years ago and used to buy over 5k of goods in another country. So the inconvenience of having a card closed and re-issued is quite annoying even though the charges were reversed and I was made whole. But these days most CC fraud isn't from a card scanned by a waiter and cloned then used elsewhere. Mostly it is poorly secured databases or point of sale terminal malware. The latter is getting curtailed by chipped cards and the largest source of fraud is now online transactions (so called card not present) where the merchant has your CC number. If their system is breached the bad guys have a wealth of card numbers they sell in an E-bay like site on the dark web. This is where the Citi virtual CC comes in handy. Here's how it works to protect the bank and the hassles you go through when a card as to be re-issued. Citi's virtual CCs let you generate an actual credit card, complete with security code and expiration date. What is unique is that once the virtual CC is used it can only be used subsequently by that same merchant and is declined by any other. You can also set a total limit on what the merchant can charge as well as an expiration date. I use them for all my online accounts because they are, for all practical purposes, immune to the malware that steals CC info. Even if somehow the virtual CC is used before the merchant makes the initial charge that locks in the CC to their account the charge can be reversed without closing your actual card which has a different number. You can manage multiple Citi virtual CCs and view charge status, close, or adjust limits over time so managing them is quite easy with no risk to your primary account.