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So, the other day I was charging my prepaid VoIP account from sipgate.de via credit card payment. I chose 10 Eur which is the default and entered my card details. As usual, I was redirected to a different payment processor which itself redirects me to a page hosted by my bank asking me to confirm the payment (Visa Secure). The confirmation dialog showed an amount of 1 Eur instead of 10 Eur. To confirm the payment, my banking app on my mobile got notified. The app also showed 1 Eur. I confirmed, because I thought the worst that could happen is the payment failing or me getting 10 Eur balance for 1 Eur. It succeeded and I got 10 Eur added to my VoIP balance. But when I looked at my banking account later, it showed that indeed I was charged 10 Eur, not 1 Eur. Somehow the Website of my Bank and the App (different devices) were showing the wrong amount charged. I contacted my bank, but I haven't heard back so far.

So... Are there any legit (but obviously not obvious) explanations for that? Or is the payment system of my Bank broken?

Disclaimer: This MAY be specific to payment used in Germany... Not Sure how this is handled in other countries.

xsrf
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  • If this occurred like you described than it is clearly broken, at least in terms of usability. While it might be that the 10 got somehow just cut off to 1 when displaying it in the specific UI, this is just pure speculation. – Steffen Ullrich May 15 '21 at 10:38
  • @SteffenUllrich It showed "1.00 Eur", so no display error – xsrf May 15 '21 at 10:52

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Got a reply from my bank yesterday.

They confirmed that I authorized a 1 Eur payment to sipgate and that sipgate charged me 10 Eur instead. This is possible because sipgate cancelled the 1 Eur transaction I authorized and then sent a 10 Eur transaction afterwards. The cancelled transaction doesn't show up anywhere in my account and I did not have to confirm or was notified of the 10 Eur transaction.

The bank confirmed this as valid process.

For me this shows how broken the payment system is. The authorization I have to do is just to guarantee the merchant that I gave him valid credit card data he can charge me from. But I have no control at all. The merchant can charge whatever amount, whenever he wants, as often he wants. The fact that I just authorized a 1 Eur payment is worth nothing.

xsrf
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