A TEMU.COM charge on your card: a pending hold, an order, or someone else’s

TEMU.COM is how Temu’s orders print on the state cards of Delaware, and no other spelling is in that data.⁸ Temu says that when you place an order it asks your bank to reserve the amount, and that reservation shows on the statement at once even though “it isn't an actual charge”.¹ The money is taken when the order ships, and for an order from a Marketplace seller it can be taken at purchase.⁵

What the state’s card data shows

The State of Delaware publishes every purchase its employees make on state cards. Its data has 66 lines named TEMU.COM, from 13 January 2023 to 21 September 2026, on the cards of nine public bodies: 59 charges between 3.10 and 499.39, and seven credits that add up to 200.53.⁸ The lines that look like what people ask about:

The data does not say whether the nine lines of 19 May 2024 were nine orders or one order in nine parts, and we do not know. Temu’s page for a double charge says “Temu only charges once per order” and that the other transaction may be a pending authorization.⁴ What the data does show is that a buyer can see many separate Temu lines on one day, and that credits come back as their own negative lines: one of 42.59 the same day as a charge of 42.59, others smaller than the charge they sit next to.

A pending amount that is not a charge

Temu’s own help pages say the same thing four ways. An unknown line may be a bank authorization.¹ A pending line after a failed or cancelled payment is an authorization hold being reversed, and takes 3–6 business days.² A duplicate pending line for one purchase is usually a hold still being processed, and the bank, not Temu, can remove it early.³ And “unused authorizations are always canceled, and will be released according to your card issuer’s policy”.⁵ If the amount has a date and no order, call the bank and ask whether it is pending or posted: that one question settles most of these.

What cardholders say they found

These are people’s own accounts on Reddit, not our findings, and several are not about the pending hold at all. The question comes up in a few shapes.⁹

• A bigger amount than the order. A post of 5 April 2024 says $108.77 was charged for a $42.77 order, and mentions “two separate payments of $33”; the poster writes that Temu only has bots to explain it, and says they paid with PayPal.
• A charge the cardholder did not make, and Temu says is fine. A post of 1 December 2024, with amounts in pounds, says a payment of £17.49 came out of the account, that Temu’s team “found the order as not fraudulent” and that the poster had to contact the bank; a second purchase of £85 followed after the poster had deleted the Temu account.
• An order to a stranger. A post of 1 August 2025 from Canada describes a $16.85 charge on a father’s card and a package nobody ordered, with the purchase location shown as San Francisco; the card was disputed and replaced.
• Items shipped that were never bought. A post of 27 December 2025 says two shipping notices arrived for items the poster says they never ordered, on a card saved in the app.
• Charged days after a “free gift” event. A post of 25 September 2025 says $111 was charged to a credit card a few days after an order was confirmed that the poster says they did not choose, and that Temu’s support found no unauthorized use of the account. That fits Temu’s own line that it takes the money when the order ships.⁵
• An order placed from a full cart. A post of 14 January 2025 on r/southafrica says the poster had items in the cart and Temu placed the order for them. Temu’s pages do not say this happens; it is the poster’s account.
• A charge that does not say TEMU. A post of 24 September 2024 says that a day after paying Temu with Apple Pay, a $100 withdrawal appeared under Apple Cash, and the poster says they do not know whether the two are related.

How to find out which one it is, and get the money back

1. Ask the bank: pending or posted If the order was cancelled or the payment failed, a pending line from Temu is the hold. Temu says it takes 3–6 business days to go.²
2. Ask the people who use the card Temu’s page on unknown charges says to check with family, friends or coworkers who had access to your device or permission to use your card.¹
3. If the Temu account may have been entered Temu says to sign in and change the password under Account security, and its page has a “Click to report theft” button for the case.¹ Do not put your full bank account details in the report, Temu says.
4. If you returned something Temu says the return window is 90 days from purchase for most items, and that depending on your bank a refund can take 5–14 business days, up to 30, to reach the card. You can instead take Temu credit, which is quicker but, Temu says, typically cannot be reversed and cannot be turned into cash.⁷
5. If it is still not yours, call the bank Ask the bank to dispute the charge and to send a new card. Pick one road: Temu says that when a chargeback has been filed it cannot issue a refund for that transaction, so as to avoid paying twice, and it cannot say when the card company will return the money.⁶

Is this a scam?

The name is real: nine public bodies in one state paid it from 2023 to 2026.⁸ That does not tell you the charge on your card is yours. Several people above describe lines they say they never made, and in one of them Temu’s own review found the order not fraudulent. The test is the order list in your own Temu account, not the name on the line.

Why this page is on a site about held money

This site records payment companies that hold back money that belongs to someone else. Temu is not in the incident record; the part of this page closest to it is the pending hold, which is the bank holding your money for a few days for an order that is not charged. Other marketplaces are on the pages for AMAZON MKTPL, EBAY O*, ETSY.COM* and WALMART.COM, and a charge that starts PAYPAL * is explained on the PayPal page. Other lines are in the table of statement names.

Sources

1. Temu Support, "Unknown charges": the unknown charge is a bank authorization that “isn't an actual charge”; check with family, friends or coworkers; change the password under Account security; “Click to report theft”. temu.com. Read on 20 October 2026.
2. Temu Support, "Why are there pending charges after my payment failed or the order was canceled?": “You will NOT be charged”, hold removed automatically, “usually between 3-6 business days”, Temu cannot remove it. temu.com. Read on 20 October 2026.
3. Temu Support, "Why am I seeing duplicate pending charges for one purchase?": usually an authorization hold still being processed; the bank should remove the extra lines in 3–6 business days. temu.com. Read on 20 October 2026.
4. Temu Support, "Why was I charged twice?": “Temu only charges once per order”; the other transaction may be a pending bank authorization. temu.com. Read on 20 October 2026.
5. Temu Support, "What is an authorization hold?": “we don't actually charge you until the order ships”; “Orders from our Marketplace sellers may be charged at the time of purchase”; “Unused authorizations are always canceled, and will be released according to your card issuer's policy”. temu.com. Read on 20 October 2026.
6. Temu Support, "What are chargebacks?": “Temu does not make the final decision”; if a chargeback has been filed “Temu cannot issue a refund for the transaction”, and cannot give a timeframe. temu.com. Read on 20 October 2026.
7. Temu, "Return and Refund Policy": 90 days from purchase for most items; refunds “can take 5-14 business days (up to 30 days) to be credited to your original payment account”; Temu credit refunds are faster and “typically cannot be reversed”. temu.com. Read on 20 October 2026.
8. State of Delaware Open Data, State Employee Credit Card Transactions, fields "merchant", "trans_dt", "merchandise_amt" and "dept_name". Lines whose name contains TEMU. Queried and counted on 20 October 2026: all 66 lines read TEMU.COM; the other match, CASCIO *INTERSTATEMUSC, is a music shop and not counted.
9. Reddit posts, each the poster’s own account: r/mildlyinfuriating, “$108.77 charged for a $42.77 order…”, 5 April 2024 (reddit.com); r/Scams, “TEMU Taking Money Somehow”, 1 December 2024 (reddit.com); r/Scams, “Random Temu package and charge on credit card”, 1 August 2025 (reddit.com); r/TemuThings, “Have you been charged for things you didn’t order?”, 27 December 2025 (reddit.com); r/TemuThings, “Order placed without my knowledge??”, 25 September 2025 (reddit.com); r/southafrica, “warning : Temu debited my credit card without me placing the order”, 14 January 2025 (reddit.com); r/Scams, “Used Temu for the first time yesterday and my card had $100 taken off today”, 24 September 2024 (reddit.com). Read in a web browser on 20 October 2026; Reddit answers the web archive with a bot-check page, so no archived copies could be made.