Can companies charge CCs before they ship?

They aren’t supposed to charge you until the order ships, but they can put an authorization hold on your account to make sure enough funds will be available when it actually ships, if that makes sense, so they don’t ship something out and then have your card decline after the item is already on the way. I believe there might be an exception to that for customized goods that are being made to order, they can charge right away for those kinds of things.

If there happens to be a problem after the item was ordered and charged but before it shipped, they have to let you know right away to give you the option to cancel or wait, and if you want to wait for the thing then they have something like 30 days to get it shipped out from the date they notified you.

I would call AmEx to ask.

On the sites I manage, we pre-auth when you order and charge when we ship. But, we have to ship/charge within 7 days of the pre-auth. We normally ship within 1 business day (we don’t take orders for items that are not in stock).

I have noticed that larger companies are good about not charging your card if the item hasn’t shipped yet. In my experience, it is the smaller ones that seem to charge your card right away. They call it a “preorder” and they claim it is to secure your spot on the list. In fact, my SO just ordered something that turned out to be out of stock. The Company notified him and asked if he wanted to cancel the order or wait till shipment in June. He is going to wait but they still charged his card now. We shall see if he gets it within 30 days.

Most of the small businesses I buy from charge prior to shipping.

I just ordered a freezer. I knew they were back-ordered until June. The guy called me to tell me that they wouldn't charge my card until they received the freezer and they set up a delivery date. I told him that was fine, I just wanted to "get in line". I think it's business dependent. I ordered masks that won't ship until 05/31 and they charged my card.

I'm in Canada and I find you usually get charged but things don't ship for at least a few days. It's no big deal. But a month, I wouldn't like that unless you knew it going in. Ordering furniture to be made and you prepay is different and you know that, something backordered that isn't right.

I don’t see why not.

I’ve been ordering a ton of fabric off Etsy lately, and my card gets charged when I place the order, not when it ships.

When I had an Etsy shop that was custom items (family trees, so they would have to give me the info and then I would create it) I received the money when the order was placed, but it was easily a two-week turnaround before it was actually printed and shipped.