Pay Pal Smart Connect- set as first choice to pay for purchases

[Starsnsnow]

I have my Pay pal smart connect set as my primary choice for purchases, but for some reason everytime I buy something it charges my bank card. I have gone to preferences and checked it to make sure that it was set correctly. What should I do?

[ifixalot]

I buy a lot of stuff from TigerDirect and have smart connect set as primary, Still my bank is charged every time.

I read somewhere that pay pal will always take funds from the paypal balance first, bank second and smart connect third.

If that is true, how can they expect us to pay off smart connect if they drain the bank BEFORE using smart connect?

Long story short, I only have about $50 in the bank, and about $2,200 credit available in smart connect. And every time I buy something from TigerDirect, selecting smart connect, it hits my bank and I get hit with overdraft fees.

Actually looking over the statements, about the last hundred purchases have all been paid from my bank and not smart connect.  

Smart connect has not been used for anything for months now, and this is really starting to **bleep** me off.

Any one have any ideas?

[PayPal_Frank]

Hi Starsnsnow and ifixalot,

Welcome to the community! 🙂

If you have already verified that the PayPal Smart Connect account is set as the preferred funding method, then the only other explanation is that the type of the transaction in question is not eligible to use Smart Connect or the merchants being paid do not accept Smart Connect funded payments.

The PayPal Extras MasterCard and Smart Connect are not available for recurring payments.  This means that Smart Connect cannot be used with any merchant that sets up a recurring billing agreement when you first pay them.  The option to choose the Smart Connect would not even show in that case.

The best way to avoid these problems is to always check the final payment review page before a payment is confirmed.  This page will always display which payment method is currently selected for a transaction.

If you would like to view a list of the merchants who have setup billing agreements on your account, this can be accessed by

- Logging into your PayPal account

- Click "Profile" in the white bar located just below all the blue tabs. You can click "Profile" or click "More options" in the drop down menu

- Click "My Money"

- Click "Update" to the right of "My preapproved payments"

The next page will then display a list of the merchants using recurring billing with PayPal.

I hope this information helps to avoid this problem in the future! 🙂

- Frank

[ifixalot]

I have been using smart connect to pay for purchases at TigerDirect.com, and eBay.com, for about 5 years. I usually make about fifty purchases per month.

Now, the last time smart connect was charged was last October.

Why?

[DennisLynch]

Smart Connect did show on my payment and it was charged buecause I cheked my "spending power", now I look on my bank account this morning and see that it was charged instead and my bank account is now overdrawn!!