What does the status of my card payment mean?

bunq

Hey bunqers 🌈

To Make Life Easy, we’ve made card payments clearer than ever - there are now 4 simple statuses to tell you exactly what’s happening with your card payment. Here’s what each one of them means.

Refund Payment Pending

This status means that the merchant has initiated a refund to your bank account. You’ll receive the payment once the merchant sends out the funds. This usually takes around 5-10 business days, but it can take up to 30 days in some cases. This is because the refund process involves communication between us and the merchant.

Further information can be found here.

Expired

For outgoing card payments

For outgoing card payments, this status means that the funds have left your account successfully, however the merchant has failed to collect the payment from your account within 30 days. This means that the funds will be returned to your account.

In the Bank Account’s payment history you can see both statuses of the expired payment - when it left your account successfully and when it was returned to you.

For incoming card refunds

For incoming card refunds, this status means that the merchant has initiated a refund to your bank account. However, the merchant failed to send the funds and complete the refund within 30 days. Therefore the payment status changes to “Expired”.

In the Bank Account’s payment history you can see both statuses of the expired refund - when it was initially requested by the merchant and when it expires.

Further information on the matter can be found here.

Complete

For outgoing card payments

For outgoing card payments, this status means that the card payment has been successful, and the merchant has already collected the money from us.

Because of that, if you need a refund for this payment, your first step would be to contact the merchant directly. If for some reason you can’t get a refund from the merchant, you can then contact us through our Support center and ask us to reverse the payment.

Keep in mind that we’ll need to see proof of your communication with the merchant regarding the refund before we can reverse the payment for you.

For incoming card payments

For incoming card payments, this status means that the payment was successfully received to your account. Therefore the status of the payment changes to “Received”.

In the sub-account’s payment history you can see all the statuses of the payment in separate events in chronological order.

Further information on the matter can be found here.

How does the Pre-Authorization work?

A pre-authorized payment is a reservation of funds for a transaction, but the payment isn't finalized until the merchant claims the funds. The funds didn’t leave your account yet, but they were reserved for the merchant.

Once the pre-authorization is done, the merchant has to settle the exact amount. If the transaction wasn’t complete for a different reason, and the period of 7 or 30 days (depending on the merchant) has passed, you can request a chargeback by following the steps mentioned here and we'll reverse the amount.

Further information can be found here.