A sale is a paid invoice

Someone used a credit card on the towels site at the beginning of November and we sent out the order the next day. Despite not contacting us in the interim, the cardholder has now rejected the transaction saying the the card was used without their knowledge.

This is known in the trade as a charge-back. As soon as a chargeback takes place the value of the transaction is ring-fenced within your account so the sale (in terms of our receiving the money) is currently pending our appeal. We are saying that we treated the transaction as completely normal and we hope that we will eventually get the cash.

At the moment we don't have the revenues for the sale and we have to bear the costs of the appeal as well as the costs of the towels that have been sent. Just as well it is the season of goodwill to all men.