Credit card ping

Shakin_Steve

I know that certain companies 'ping' your credit card account for £1 just to check that it's genuine, but this seems to be happening on a quite regular basis with ours. It's with MBNA and shows a 'pending transaction' of £1 about once every three months. It disappears after about a week.
The thing is that we paid off the balance of this card a good while back and, while it has a credit limit of £13000, we only use about £150-£200 a month and pay it off each month.
I find myself constantly checking to make sure that no funds have gone missing. I can't see any reason for these 'pings'.

Ben8282

What company is doing these 'pings'?

SnowTiger

Shakin_Steve wrote: »

I know that certain companies 'ping' your credit card account for £1 just to check that it's genuine, but this seems to be happening on a quite regular basis with ours. It's with MBNA and shows a 'pending transaction' of £1 about once every three months. It disappears after about a week.
The thing is that we paid off the balance of this card a good while back and, while it has a credit limit of £13000, we only use about £150-£200 a month and pay it off each month.
I find myself constantly checking to make sure that no funds have gone missing. I can't see any reason for these 'pings'.

Do you use the card to buy fuel or shop online at a supermarket? These places will often reserve £1 to verify a card.

DCFC79

Ben8282 wrote: »

What company is doing these 'pings'?

MBNA for 1.

Ping, theres another from me lol.

Its not something Ive experienced.

Ive had some Tesco petrol station will reserve £1(as SnowTiger says) but im not sure if its just credit cards.

Ben8282

When I use Sainsbury's pay at pump the authorisation (pending transaction) is for £1 then the pending transaction disappears and the account is debited for the actual value of the transaction. But the pending transaction for £1 is clearly identified as Sainsbury's and it disappears when the transaction is debited next day, not a week later..

Shakin_Steve

I think I've got to the bottom of this. My credit card is linked to my son's google play store account, and regularly spends £1.49 or the like on in-app purchases. This shows up immediately as £1 pending payment. However, Google only bill him/me occasionally, say when his total reaches over a fiver, so the £1 disappears after a while and is then taken at a later date.
Thanks for all your input, I knew about the petrol thing.