Hi igelkott
Sorry to hear that your account is in jeopardy.
I guess though, if you only pay for a small proportion of the items that you put on hold you're stopping others from buying them and that's not really fair. I almost never bother with going on a waitlist if something has sold out (cheque hold would register as a sale, I suppose) and to be honest I'd be a bit miffed if I was missing out on things that were put on hold and then the sale was withdrawn.
Sorry - not the response that you wanted to hear but if I was one of the suits at QVC and had targets or turnover to reacch, especially in these tricky economic times I would be looking at people who back out of cheque hold items. You can't put stuff on cheque hold in a shop, can you?