Wrong card charged

[Sir_Cliff]

Hi All,

I just made a very large purchase through PayPal and am super annoyed to see they chose to charge my non-preferred card despite, even when I look at the transaction details now, it gives the correct card as my preferred.  I'm very annoyed at this as I specifically loaded cash onto one card for this purchase, and have now had to do the same to the other card to avoid the interest fees and have thousands of Euros just sitting on a credit card balance now. 

From searching around, it seems like PayPal can randomly charge whichever card it decides on your account and never takes responsibility or remedies the problem. Has anyone found a way to get them to actually resolve the issue and redirect the charge? I know you can delete all but one account so they can't do this, but I honestly liked the ability to choose my method of payment. Without that ability and without ever quite knowing what card they'll charge, I really think it's time to ditch PayPal as this is just bizarre.

[PayPal_Bindu]

Hello @Sir_Cliff 

Thank you for visiting PayPal Community Help and welcome!

Sorry to hear about the issue with your recent purchase. I know seeing the charge debited from a different payment method can be concerning! Every time a payment is processed through PayPal, it goes through a series of filter for the possibility of risk. If the system deems risk, it may temporarily block the payment or change the payment method. When this happens, it's not a reflection of you or your account activities, but rather the system have noticed a pattern associated with higher-than-normal risk.

Apologies for the inconvenience again!

Bindu

[Daver1622]

over and over.  Why bother with a preferred selection if it doesn't work.  It's my job to pick not paypal's.  I have close to $200 in overdraft fees thanks to this.   Who will cover that?!

[Sir_Cliff]

I think this is the real issue that can arise. The issue with the explanation is that if PayPal determines a ‘risk’, they don’t tell you and give you the option to pay using the other cards/accounts linked to your PayPal. Instead, they just go ahead and process the transaction using a card/account you (likely purposefully) did not select for the transaction without informing you. So, if there is a risk of overdrafts, etc. on any account linked to PayPal, you probably just shouldn’t trust PayPal with that transaction.

[Silvermind]

I had this issue too, earlier today