Overpay Balance of Credit card

NICOLAWB

Does anyone know what happens if you over pay the balance of your credit card. i.e if your balance is £1000 and you pay £2000?

Do they send you back a cheque or do you have to use the credit card to buy things and therefore use the money?

Thanks
Nicola

mr_mitch

some actually charge a credit balance fee....

SAHD_Jim

Whenever I have paid off the full amount on one of my cards, forgetting that I have a DD set up for the minimum payment, I simply have a credit on the account that gets swallowed up next time I use it, with no fees or anything. I guess you'd need to check your specific card's T&Cs.

EastWindRain

(Longtime Lurker here....)

Hi NICOLAWB,

I did exactly this 5 years ago - My credit limit was £500 and I wanted to buy 2 flights to the USA which came to around ~£800. No problem I thought, and paid £350 onto my credit card to put me in credit so I wouldn't go over my limit when I booked the tickets.

Oooops.

First off they blocked my card (anti money laundering supposably) and then once I phoned them to confirm that I had done it intentionally and my reasons proceeded to tell me that they would still reject it if I tried it and that the only way to get my money "back" was to spend it via the card as withdrawing it would mean me paying the cash advance fee...

Hope that helps.

Catty212

I over paid by £80 on an Egg card and they sent me a cheque when I closed the account.

glennc1981

Having previously worked for American Express, all card companies have to be fully aware of money laundering. As innocent as you may be, by paying a credit card bill plus x would be more than likely to raise suspicion because of money laundering. The card issuer would expect payment up to the balance shown on the bill. However any more than that could more than likely cause more harm than good.

Bloomberg

NICOLAWB wrote: »

Does anyone know what happens if you over pay the balance of your credit card. i.e if your balance is £1000 and you pay £2000?

Do they send you back a cheque or do you have to use the credit card to buy things and therefore use the money?

Thanks
Nicola

I have overpaid on my Barclaycard and have never had a problem. I dare say if the amounts were particularly large and I made a habit of it then there may be a problem. I have only done it by mistake once or twice in twenty years. All the best

JournalGirl

I was in dispute with a fireplace company, and eventually (with the help of my CC Company) got a refund of £2000 onto my card. The CC company then wanted to charge me the cash withdrawal fee to get the money back (my card is paid up every month).

Eventually they backed off and gave me the money without charge.

smartiedriver_2

If you argue enough they will normally give it back without charge, but do you really want the hassle?

Best option is not to bother - that way you won't be suspected of money laundering, have your card stopped, or pay unneccessary fees.

exel1966

JournalGirl wrote: »

I was in dispute with a fireplace company, and eventually (with the help of my CC Company) got a refund of £2000 onto my card. The CC company then wanted to charge me the cash withdrawal fee to get the money back (my card is paid up every month).

Eventually they backed off and gave me the money without charge.

The withdrawl fee from a cash machine is an automated charge. All card companies will charge this automatically if you're in credit or not whereas no card company would charge for asking for a refund via BACS/Cheque.

jamesd

Depends on the card. Ask. Don't necessarily expect an accurate answer if the answer is that you can't do it. If you do need the money back, ask for a cheque or BACS transfer instead of cash advance.

Don't expect to be able to make a single transaction purchase larger than your credit limit even if you are in credit, those are often blocked; ask the card company if you want to do that.

There have been cards with no charge for taking money out if in credit, Egg Money, no longer available, had no such charge and still seems willing to let you take out money via withdrawing to your bank account without charge provided you don't go into a borrowing balance. This may change later as the Barclaycard transaction progresses.

NatWest (and presumably RBS also) is one that will "return" an overpayment to the current account of the cardholder. Even when the overpayment didn't come from that current account.