As you look through your Chase credit card transactions, you may notice that some charges are pending.

These are charges that have not been posted to your account yet. You may wonder what the exact status of those charges are and why they didn’t post to the account yet.

Let’s discuss some answers to your questions.

What is a pending transaction?

You are shopping online or filling up your tank with gas, and you use your debit or credit card to pay. 

Later on, when you glance at your card transactions online, you notice that the transaction was labeled as pending.

Purchases such as the ones we mentioned above can sometimes go pending instead of being processed immediately. When a transaction is pending, it means that the credit card issuer has received the transaction and allocated the funds for that transaction, but did not yet finish processing it. Even with a pending translation, the issuer already verified that you have the available funds for the transaction.

When it comes to online shopping especially, the merchant may wait for your items to ship out before they process your payment. In the meantime, the transaction is pending.

In the meantime, you can use your credit card as usual for other purchases.

If an issue does pop up with the pending transaction then you should reach out to the merchant where the transaction was made.

You can report any problem you have with a Chase transaction using the following steps:

1. Log in to your Chase.com account
2. Scroll down to Recent Activity 
3. Choose the transaction you want to report
4. If it’s a debit card transaction then choose your checking account
5. Look at the details again to see whether the merchant made a mistake with the transaction or if it’s an unauthorized transaction
6. Click on Report a problem
7. Choose the problem you want to report and answer the questions that pop up
8. If a merchant already resolved any issue, it will be reflected in the list of recent credits
9. But if the merchant has not resolved the issue, click No and then Next
10. Click Submit
11. Print this page for the record. Click on Done
12. You can check the status of the report as follows:
13. Go to the Account Menu. Under Account Services, click on Track Claims
14. The Dispute Tracker will open and give you the status of open and closed disputes
15. You can click on See details  for more information and for the progress of the report
16. You will get a response but the time it takes depends on the type of issue you reported.

Is the transaction part of my balance?

While a transaction is pending, you might see the amount go off from your account balance, but it might not. Essentially, it’s as if you already spent the money and it left your account, whether you see it or you don’t. The amount may get removed from your available credit but not yet get added to your account balance.

The exact nuances of this depends on which credit card issuer you are dealing with.

Chase does say that it is not guaranteed that the transaction will go through. This can occur in an instance where while the transaction is pending, your account goes into a negative balance, even though it was positive earlier when the transaction took place. In such a case, Chase may return the transaction as unpaid due to insufficient funds. This may happen during the Chase processing at night for that day’s transactions.

Let’s quickly break up the balances in a Chase account.

Your Present Balance

“Your present balance is the previous business day’s ending balance, plus or minus the full amount of any transaction known to the bank made during the current day (e.g., deposits, debit card transactions or ATM withdrawals); it does not include checks you may have written but didn’t present to the bank.” – Chase.com

Your Available Balance

“Your available balance is the amount of the account’s present balance that is available for immediate use. Certain pending transactions, such as deposits that contain checks, may not be immediately available and wouldn’t be included in the available balance.” – Chase.com

When will the pending transaction process?

If a pending transaction is all about waiting for it to be processed, when does the transaction actually come out of the pending stage?

Though the general timeframe for a typical transaction to process is 3-5 business days, it may differ depending on the merchant, credit card issuer, bank, and the payment processing system. Of course, different types of transactions may take more or less time to process. 

Can the pending transaction get declined?

Although even though the pending transaction is considered having been approved by the credit card issuer, and it’s just waiting to be processed, there can be cases of the pending transaction being declined. 

If at the end of the day, the transaction amount is more than what you have in your account, the transaction may be declined by the credit card issuer. 

The transaction may otherwise simply be waiting for your approval before it can be processed and approved by the issuer instead of being declined. 

Can I do something to push the transaction forward?

What I just wrote is one of the only things you can do to push the pending transaction into processed mode.

If the reason the transaction is pending is because it’s waiting for your approval, here’s what you can do.

1. Log in to your Chase account online or in the app.
2. Go to the Pay & Transfer tab, and then Pending approvals 
3. All transactions that you need to approve will come up. To approve them, check off the box next to each payment and choose Approve.
4. Review the checkboxes and payments and then click on Approve items.
5. Now that you approved the transactions, you will be notified once the transactions are processed.

Can I cancel the transaction?

A pending transaction may be considered “up in the air”. So it is not so likely for the credit card issuer to be able to cancel or dispute the transaction for you. 

It also can’t be canceled since the final amount of the transaction can still change. 

If you would like to try to cancel the transaction, reach out directly to the merchant who may be able to cancel the transaction before it posts. However, you may need to wait for the transaction to post before it can get canceled.

If you do cancel the pending transaction, it may take a few days for the cancellation to show up. The transaction may still post as pending even after the merchant cancels it. It’s not something the merchant or Chase can hurry up but the transaction should fall off your account within a few days, even up to 7 days later.

Can I cancel the credit card of the transaction?

What happens if you decide to cancel the actual credit card you used to make the pending transaction? Are you still liable for the charge?

The answer in most cases is yes. Even if you cancel the card and shut the account, you probably will still get billed for the transaction, even if the account was shut while it was pending.

You can visit Chase.com and go to the Pending section in the Deposit Account Agreement for more information about pending transactions.