WHAT THE HELL PAYPAL!?

First, Omaeka, sorry you have received such a battering in this thread. Not the forum's finest hour.

Regarding the idea that the £3 charge may have been paypal's verification process:
Yeah maybe it is that, but £3 seems a little steep, and an odd number, I'd understand 50p or £1 or even £5/£10, but 3? :confused:

Gumpymoo accurately pointed out above why this cannot be the case. Like others in the thread, I forgot the way it works.
What happens is: paypal deposits a small charge (pennies) into your account, then takes it back.

Paypal doesn't withdraw extra money. So that £3 has to come from somewhere else.
If you don't have online banking with the card you used, you need it so you can check every transaction made. The online banking service should show you an itemized statement, lkisting every charge and credit as it happens. (Some charges may take a day or two to appear; paypal charges often take up to a week, so it's not perfect.) Don't just check steam transactions - if your bank has assigned a charge, it wont show up there.

There must be another £3 charge on there that you have forgotten or don't know about, or a mistake on the bank's part. In all cases, it's nothing to do with paypal.
 
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First, Omaeka, sorry you have received such a battering in this thread. Not the forum's finest hour.

Regarding the idea that the £3 charge may have been paypal's verification process:


Gumpymoo accurately pointed out above why this cannot be the case. Like others in the thread, I forgot the way it works.
What happens is: paypal deposits a small charge (pennies) into your account, then takes it back.

Paypal doesn't withdraw extra money. So that £3 has to come from somewhere else.

If you don't have online banking with the card you used, you need it so you can check every transaction made. The online banking service should show you an itemized statement, lkisting every charge and credit as it happens. (Some charges may take a day or two to appear; paypal charges often take up to a week, so it's not perfect.) Don't just check steam transactions - if your bank has assigned a charge, it wont show up there.

There must be another £3 charge on there that you have forgotten or don't know about, or a mistake on the bank's part. In all cases, it's nothing to do with paypal.

Every forum has its good days and bad days. :)


Well I only blamed Paypal as it was the first time I'd ever used them, not just on this card but on anything, least we've gotten rid of that theory. The only problem is that no money has appeared in my account whatsoever since signing up to Paypal, yet it is the only step left stopping Paypal validation.

This is the weird part, I'm probably gonna sound stupid but I'm not sure if I set up the online banking, I mean I was on the phone for over half an hour with a very pleasant woman who ran me through all the steps of setting it up via their website. 3 working days later I received a letter with all the details I needed to log into nationwide.co.uk, and I can log in as I have several times recently, that's how I knew Steam wasn't charging extra, as I'd compare the price of what I bought to the price that left my available balance. I phoned them earlier and was told we only receive monthly statements, but I'm really not sure if the person understood my question, because from what people on here are saying its pretty standard for banks to give you step by step statements. The only statements I can find in my online bank account are 'internal transfers' that I've completed within my own accounts and from card to card. Nothing at all about Steam or Paypal, and my actual balance and available balance are still different. I'm gonna have to try and get an advisory appointment asap like people have said, I really hope Nationwide don't just generally suck, because I've used them for a long time. I can absolutely promise you on anything you wish me to, that I haven't made a single transaction I don't know about.
 
I sincerely apologise for my lack of spelling/grammar checks across my posts.

I do hope that I have not offended you.

Oh by the way, Hitler called from beyond the grave. He said something about having his high horse back?

I dunno, didn't make sense to me either...

edit: Its funny, my post is ironic. I just singled you out for being on a high horse for Grammar, yet I am on one calling the OP an idiot.

Oh world, you entertain me. Circles etc etc.

:D :D :D
Internet-Warrior-500x400.jpg
 
I'm not sure what's wrong with 'what would have happened' :confused:. It seems like pretty basic English to me.

Hate to be pedantic here but this mistake is pretty common these days. "would have" is not proper English at all and this has come around because of people thinking that "would've" is written down as "would have" because they sound similar. The correct way of saying it is "would've" or "would have". I'm not a Grammar Nazi by the way, just posting this because you asked, though I see it was also answered a few posts above.

Anyway, more important things, did you call your bank? :)
 
Hate to be pedantic here but this mistake is pretty common these days. "would have" is not proper English at all and this has come around because of people thinking that "would've" is written down as "would have" because they sound similar. The correct way of saying it is "would've" or "would have". I'm not a Grammar Nazi by the way, just posting this because you asked, though I see it was also answered a few posts above.

Anyway, more important things, did you call your bank? :)

My mind was blown when I was told my mistake. :p

I'm gonna pop into my bank tomorrow, see what I can do about some kind of advisory erm, I don't know what it's called... Interview? :D

As for the money, £3 has came back into my account, the weird thing though...

15 Jun 2012 Visa Steampowered.Com 425-889-9642 £5.20 £166.44
15 Jun 2012 Visa Steampowered.Com 425-889-9642 £5.59 £160.85
16 Jun 2012 Visa Paypal *Humblebundl 4029357733 £5.84 £155.01
16 Jun 2012 Visa Steampowered.Com 425-889-9642 £14.99 £140.02
16 Jun 2012 Visa Steampowered.Com 425-889-9642 £24.99 £115.03
17 Jun 2012 External Deposit £10.00 £125.03

That's my statement online, which updated yesterday.

There is no mention of my Paypal verification deposit, so I don't have any idea how to do that now, Paypal said they sent the money on the 15th...

Neither does it explain where the £3 went, infact that is denying it ever left my account.

:confused: This is just, I don't even know. According to that my initial balance was £166.44 but it was actually £174.69, so this whole banking thing is a mystery to me. Definately need some help from the bank.

The dates of that statement is totally incorrect too, I deposited money on the 15th, not the 17th. As for the Steam/Paypal, can only assume those dates were either when they decided to claim the money, or when the statement was made.

Maybe my bank is just rubbish? I don't think anyone in here is even on Nationwide are they? Just my luck! :rolleyes:

Oh well, least now we can consider the case closed... Or do I find out where exactly the money went in the first place. :confused:

Meh.
 
You got to the bottom of it, well done.

And well done for taking up the option of learning a little more about the banking system, it will serve you well in future I'm sure.

Best of luck.
 
There is no mention of my Paypal verification deposit, so I don't have any idea how to do that now, Paypal said they sent the money on the 15th...

Neither does it explain where the £3 went, infact that is denying it ever left my account.

Maybe it was just a mistake, and the online site reported £3 less than was there for some reason. A glitch.

On the dates: I'm not sure why the date of the deposit is wrong, maybe it took them 2 days to clear the deposit for some reason. The money doesn't enter your account immediately, it has to work through the bank's internal system - I would have expected to still show the same date as you delivered it, but maybe it was just slow being processed.

Regarding the steam/paypal payments: this isn't your bank. Paypal payments are always processed later; anything from a couple of days to a week (I think they've adopted the Faster Payment system, so should now usually be 2 maybe 3 days; in the past 5-7 days was the norm).

The lesson is this: if you have made a payment via paypal, and it doesn't show up on your account immediately, don't worry. Check again in 3 days (or look at your paypal account: if it shows up properly there, it will appear on your bank statement a few days later).
 
Maybe it was just a mistake, and the online site reported £3 less than was there for some reason. A glitch.

Regarding the steam/paypal payments: this isn't your bank. Paypal payments are always processed later; anything from a couple of days to a week (I think they've adopted the Faster Payment system, so should now usually be 2 maybe 3 days; in the past 5-7 days was the norm).

The lesson is this: if you have made a payment via paypal, and it doesn't show up on your account immediately, don't worry. Check again in 3 days (or look at your paypal account: if it shows up properly there, it will appear on your bank statement a few days later).

Your half way there (and a close enough that most of it doesn't need correcting...) but PayPal payments only take a few days if they come from your bank via direct debit, if you use a credit or debit card they should be almost instant (although the bank may not show it to the next working day)

In terms of what happened to the £3:

At a simplified level credit and debit cards have a two part payment system called authorization and capture.

Authorizations 'hold' a certain amount of money for a merchant - it doesn't actually leave you bank but can't be used for anything, and as such this is usually taken from your bank balance.

A capture then turns the authorization into an actual charge, it releases all (or more or less) of the money from the hold and moves it to the seller.

Its most often (and obiously) used when you check into a Hotel - they authorize your card for a couple of hundred quid to make sure you can cover your mini bar bill (and dressing gown theft) then capture against it when you check out.

What will have happened in this case is Steam or Humble Bundle authorized £3 more than they needed (this can be for several reasons, most of them too complicated to go into here) then captured the actual amount at a slightly later point - probably when they successfully generated a download code or similar.

The money never left your account, it just wasn't 'available' as it was reserved by someone for a while to cover a potential payment.

[source: 5 years of working in online payments as a tech specialist and integration consultant :)]
 
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