Crap, I accidentally paid the CC bill twice

[hamchan]

Both times were over the weekend, so they didn't post till this morning. Now I am showing a balance of -$461. I didn't even know they would let you do that. I suppose ultimately it's not a big deal, since we'll have charged that much by the end of this week, and would have made another payment anyway. So I suppose there is no harm in just leaving it, right? Except for maybe a miniscule amount of interest we might have earned on it.

[HappySaver]

No harm, as long as you have the money in your bank account to cover it.

[hamchan]

Yeah, we're not going to come up short on anything.

[kork13]

Yeah, I've had that sort of thing happen a number of times for various reasons... rebates, refunds, over-payments, double-payments... If you use the card regularly, it doesn't matter. It just means your next bill is going to be lower than normal. Now if you don't use the card often, you CAN always request that the CC company refund the overage. I've done this a couple times, and they just sent me a check for the positive balance.

[Jerry91]

I agree with what Kork13 has said. It will be better to contact the credit card company and request for a refund of the amount. Most CC companies will oblige you with the refund.

[hamchan]

It's not really worth getting a refund check because I have to buy a $440 plane ticket tomorrow anyway, plus pay a couple of bills, so I will be more than using up the "credit" before the week is over. I use this card for everything I possibly can for the rewards points and then pay it off once a week or so. If I used it less often I'd ask for a refund.

[Chris Leese]

I don't think it is necessary to notify your cc company especially since you are not asking for them to refund it, you use your card regularly (will be charging that amount by the end of the week) and your practice is to make payments weekly as well.

[neatdesign]

Just FYI that when a large credit balance is created by an overpayment, the credit card system may flag that as potential fraud and put a hold on the funds (or even the whole account) for a few days to ensure the payment will actually clear.

Please understand that I'm NOT implying that the OP had fraudulent intentions; I'm sure the duplicate payment was an accident just as she described. However, this is one of those things where the bad acts of a few results in it being harder for everyone, so I just wanted to throw it out there.

[hamchan]

That's crazy! How would someone use this as fraud?

[neatdesign]

That's crazy! How would someone use this as fraud?

Here's just one example I can remember seeing when I worked at a credit card company:

Joe Schmoe had a credit card with a $500 limit. He sent in a check for $2,000, which posted to his account a few days later. This meant that he had $2,500 at his disposal, not $500. As soon as the check posted, Joe went out and bought $2,500 in gift or pre-paid cash cards -- which is effectively a way of getting cash in hand without hitting the daily cash advance limit, which is usually $300-$500/day. The overpayment also guaranteed that Joe was able to charge at least $2,000 above his credit limit before his card would get declined.

A week later, Joe's $2,000 check bounces. The credit card company never hears from him again, his account goes into collections and is eventually written off as a loss.

If the credit card company had placed a hold on his $2,000 overpayment for 14 days (the typical hold period), then his check would have bounced before he'd had a chance to use those extra funds.

For the record, I AM NOT posting this to encourage anyone to try this or do this. What Joe Schmoe did is commit credit card fraud. I'm just describing one method I'd seen employed by someone scamming the system.

[hamchan]

Wow. People are inventive. My CC is with my credit union, and I pay the bill via a direct transfer, so I guess they wouldn't have to worry about that.