I&#x27;m not so sure that these are abuse. For instance, (2) is effectively an escrow service, hotels and a few other types of service use this quite effectively. I honestly wish restaurants would also just auth an extra 20% on my purchase in escrow and settle the actual tip amount later, and similarly bar tabs.<p>In (3) its also sort of an escrow service, but not really.<p>Similarly, this is why merchant processors are required for a lot of companies to do business over credit networks. They too hold money for some N days before it is released to a merchant (after clearing) - as escrow to the card issuers in the case of chargebacks and other fraud.