Wish completed the payment without asking me to confirm

[Remains]

Hello

I've recently bought several things from wish (couple of months ago) using my paypal. Today after buying an item I was immediately charged without any confirmation. When I checked in settings for payment management there wasn't anything linked there. How could they instantly access my paypal/credit card information?

[sharpiemarker]

@Remains 

Anytime you make an order online, PayPal creates a temporary authorization which is an agreement to pay merchant and the funds are held until the merchant claims the money. If the merchant does not claim the money because payment or order failed to complete for whatever reason, the temporary authorization remains until it expires and drops off from your account activity entirely with funds released in longer than 30 days or no sooner than 3 or so days. Look in your bank or card activity, the transaction will say it is pending.

So even if you didn't confirm your order, the authorization still goes through. That's how your payment method can still be tapped into. This is called the "authorization and capture" method of processing payments:

https://developer.paypal.com/docs/classic/admin/auth-capture/

There is nothing illegal about this method and is nothing new to the world of payment processing.

Just keep an eye on the pending authorization at your funding source or on PayPal if you see it there. If it completes, then you may dispute it as Item Not Received at PayPal or report it to your financial institution or even contact the merchant to reverse the charge. But I don't foresee you having to do that. The pending authorization will just expire.