Problem using prepaid debit card to buy Amazon gift card

seashore22

I've received and activated a prepaid mastercard from BT (when I took out their sim only phone deal).

I tried to use it to buy an Amazon gift card so that I can use the £40 on the prepaid card and add some more from my usual payment source to buy a more expensive item.

Almost immediately I received an email to thank me for my purchase, immediately followed by another email to say that there was a problem with payment and that order had been cancelled. There is no gift card order on my Amazon.

However I've checked the prepaid card balance and Amazon have taken £1, presumably as a pre authorisation. Weirdly the date for the transaction on the Pure website is 31/08/63.

Anyone have a clue what is going on here?

seashore22

In case anyone else has this issue, I've found out what caused it.

If you have £40 on a prepaid card you can only spend up to £39 on Amazon because Amazon sends out a pre-authorisation request for £1 and therefore your balance is down by £1 and won't cover the £40 purchase.

I was a bit sceptical, but doing a purchase for £1 less did allow it to go through.

jwil

I've had that before. The authorisation will be removed after a couple of days and you can top up with the £1 then.