Free funds VS blocked funds

Imagine a situation when you are planning a date with your sweetheart and going to take her to watch a comedy. You are going to book seats in the back row at the cinema’s web-site using the online-form andbuy tickets for 200 hryvnias. It seems that everything goes as planned, so the amount is immediately blocked in the account and is no more available.

However, in a matter of days, you see that the balance of account somehow decreased by another 200 hryvnias. You check the statement in I-Bank and see something wrong: the amount paid for the tickets is still blocked, but a similar transaction is displayed as “done”.

What does it mean and what to do? It may occur if the cinema made a technical debit from the amount available in the account instead of debiting the blocked amount. In this case you should wait for the amount to be automatically released after 31 calendar days of the transaction date. On the 32^nd day, you will not find this transaction in the list of Blocked amounts, but your balance will rise by 200 hryvnias. As an alternative, you may contact the cinema’s help desk and ask them to release the amount since the payment for the tickets has already been effected.

What if they refuse? Indeed, sellers refuse to do that from time to time. There is no reason to be nervous, since the funds will be released anyway. In order to speed up the release of funds, you may contact the bank’s customer support, and your issue will be quickly resolved by Contact Centre operators.