Are you forgetting this is the second time this has happened to me? It also happened with Street Fighter IV. There is an old saying, once bitten twice shy.
Also I know from GOG and from the Impulse forums that I am not the only person this has happened to so I am not an enraged and slighted customer. I am one that is taking their business elsewhere. I am also entitled to tell people about by experience as they are undeniable facts that Stardock cannot dispute.

Then that's definitely not an active account check, unless they're really -really- stupid or something's gone horribly wrong in the system somewhere. Can't offer you much advice other than to get back on them, I'm afraid. :(

Wouldn't that be admitting that their actual customer support system is broken?

I'll point him to this thread for you. Sheesh.

We provide support through a number of different avenues. support@stardock.com and sales@stardock.com are often the most direct ways to get support, but there are several of us who are just "out there" keeping tabs on things beyond our own forums and ticket systems.
The pre-auth issue is one we've tried to explain to varying degrees of success in the past. The first charge is a check for available funds (the full ammount to ensure the funds are all there). This is not a full charge. Some banks properly list these as "Pending" or "Pre-Auth" transactions. In your case, it looks like your bank is NOT making the distinction on the transaction display. This is an issue in how your bank displays information
How long a pre-auth stays on the account also depends on the individual bank. Some banks (like mine) drop the pre-auth charge same-day. Some can take a while to clear them out.
I want to reiterate that this is NOT a double-charge. We do not receive twice the money. That first pre-auth charge when you placed the pre-order is not actual money that enters our accounts.
I've spoken to our sales support and in your case they've gone in and manually issued an order to your bank to clear that pre-auth to be extra-sure. That was at the start of this week. If your bank is STILL showing the double-charge, you have to talk to them because there is literally nothing else we can do at this point. It's all in your bank's hands.
-Mike

^^^^^
What Zoomba said!
I'm the "snotty woman"/"rude lady" that helped you via our eSupport system.
In reviewing your ticket, I responded to you with information about exactly what happened. If you feel that plainly stating the facts of the case is "snotty" or "rude", that is on you.
In previous tickets you opened with us, I was nothing short of cordial and informative, including the case you opened regarding your Street Figher IV order. I apologized for the inconvenience and fixed you right up, to which you replied, "Thank you very much. I greatly appreciate the effort." Now you say that my responses to you were "snotty"? Interesting.
It is worth noting that your second message to us in your most recent ticket contained the F word. You had to log into eSupport to leave this message since our mail filters would have bounced an email containing profanity. Taking the time and making the effort to leave a message for us containing the F word could be considered rude. Perhaps you think I am rude because I called you out on your own rudeness?
The authorization should have dropped from your account by now. If it has not, reply to your ticket and I can reply with a document showing the void we placed on the authorization. Showing this document to your financial institution will take care of the issue.
And yes, Stardock went on vacation for the holidays. Brad is very generous in allowing us to spend time with our families, and we are all very thankful for this.

Out of interest, how come you do pre-auths for the same amount as the actual charge, when virtually every other place I've ever used only does a minimal charge of under £1/$1? I use pre-pay credit cards (which hold all pre-auths for about a week as visible on your account) and the highest I've ever seen was £1.50.

EDIT: Er, sorry, I was confused. I don't know enough about credit card processing practices to provide much insight here.

The authorization being the full amount is something I'm not personally sure on so I can't comment on it.

This may be helpful:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_hold
Also:
http://www.3rdpartyprocessors.com/creditcardpreauthorization.shtml

Well thank you for that. I would like to point out that I have not trolled your boards over this issue. For the record the charge is still listed on my online statement. As I have said before this is not the first time this has happened and it has happened to other people as well. Interestingly the only people this pre-charge seems to affect are outside the US. It's something that seriously needs to be looked into. For example if I had pre-ordered Dragon Age Origins DDE for €64.99 I would in fact be out of pocket to the tune of $128.98, the cost of the game and the cost of the pre-order. Stardock/Impuse need to either charge for the pre-order at the time of order or charge at the time of release as at the moment something is broken between the system you currently use and certain banking systems.
I say Snotty/Rude because in the first instance of Street Fighter IV. Your response was along the lines of "I can put this charge through now if you want?"
There was no apology offered, there was no attempt to understand why this issue occurred. Simply do I want it or not? Well yes I had been waiting months for the release of Street Fighter IV so I was not going to wait while a refund was processed. I assumed this was a one off thing so I said KTHXBAI and went off to install SFIV 3 days later than everyone else. By that time I was just glad to have the game at last. I would also like to point out that if you check your own message boards you will find others were also affected by this with Street Fighter IV.
Now I would like to apologise for my use of the F word in my second ticket (My first I believe was rather polite as I usually am) and it was not directed at you personally but Stardock/Impulse in general. I even mentioned here that I did it. This was born out of frustration by the fact that while I was told you were all off on holiday there was someone still there working at Stardock sending out holiday offers, updating Twitter and updating the Impulse Now client. I can understand you are a business and need to generate sales but not at the expense of your existing customers. My second ticked was sent AFTER being told by the chap/chapess on Twitter that customer care would 'get around to it'. As a previous poster Navagon pointed out that is simply not good enough when dealing with money. Internet transactions as I pointed out are based on trust, trust that is not engendered by saying 'we will get around to it'.
Now remember that this pre-purchasing malarky is none of my fault. Let me tell you how good customer service works. A good friend of mine wanted to buy Deus Ex thinking it may be on GOG which it wasn't. I directed him to Gamersgate. He purchased and installed the game but couldn't get it to work and contacted Gamersgate customer support about it. They told him that the game may not work on 64-Bit OS and apologised for not stating that on their main Deus Ex page. They then offered him a full refund. While waiting he tried it again and for some reason this time it worked so he got back on to them and told them to cancel the refund to which they replied "Merry Christmas". Needless to say he has been shopping a lot on there lately.
Now this whole situation could have been diffused with a simple reply along the lines of "We are terribly sorry for this situation and Stardock will make every attempt to ensure this doesn't happen in the future". You don't actually have to do anything just saying it is enough. As it stands all I am getting is well that sucks, doesn't happen to most people. "The pre-charge will drop off in a few days" (Your words) clearly has not happened.
As a company I happen to like Stardock as I am a fan of your games but the Impulse system really is bad in my experience and I can only vouch for my experience. It certainly has not in anyway made me feel valued as a customer and it is my right as a customer to express my feelings on my experience. I certainly cannot recommend the service and unless a game is specifically tied to the Impulse client then I shall not be using it again.

How is that even possible? I was only rude to you once and it wasn't even addressed at you. Pretty much explains why I have had no satisfaction.

Sad tale, this is. Brad, if you do stop by here from time to time, I really hope you get it together and can get the publishers to do more meaningful deals on Impulse. You guys deserve a chance.

I am glad this was resurrected. Thanks. :)