Holds are only good for up to 30 days...

This message was sent from: General Support
http://forums.oscommerce.com/viewtopic.php?p=228217#228217
----------------------------------------------------------------

and even then it really depends on the customer's bank.  Some bank holds fall of in a couple of weeks and released back to the customer if it is not captured.  Others use the full 30 days.  Knowing this, some merchant providers may have a requirement to release holds that are not captured within a certain period of time.  Regardless of your merchant account, you should know about the 30 day period since for your situation, you would need to do an auth/hold.  You can't do an auth/capture since a savvy customer would notice a premature capture and dispute the charge within days if the product is not yet shipped.  Then you'll be up the creek with fees and crap from your merchant provider.  Like wizards said, it is illegal to capture the funds and not ship them out within 24 hours.