• Confused by Whitelist, aka recurring payments

Hi,

I am confused about how Recurring payments work.

As I understand it, although I may set a global daily limit for, say, €1,000, if I attempt to make a payment through an online merchant who is not on the Bunq maintained trusted list, then Recurring payments are invoked automatically even though the sum may be for only €25.

Then, assuming the payment is approved, the vendor, i.e., the seller, automatically joins the "whitelist". The maximum sum that can then be paid to that seller in a further transaction is set at the level of the first transaction.

Is that right? If so, I have several observations and questions.


Here is my recent experience :

I made a first and only payment to La Redoute online on the 11th, it went through fine and I thought nothing of it. Then this morning, (13th at about 07:15), I get a whitelist notification. My payment was for €13:80 and examining the whitelist, I see the transaction limit set for €23:70.

Last week I paid for two airline tickets from Easyjet as separate and distinct transactions. Both transactions were whitelisted, one for a sum 10 x greater than the other. No whitelist notification was received.

Last week I bought a TEFL course for a relative and had my card declined. When I eventually checked the whitelist, (again, no notification received), I saw that the vendor had been whitelisted at a sum 1/10th of the price of the course.

Here are some further questions based on this experience :


Perhaps someone can confirm the way whitelisting is supposed to work that would help. (I have read the 'how to whitelist' post).

Thanks in advance for helping me through my confusion !

    Hey there,

    First of all, the limits. With our recent move to centralised limits. There's 2 limits to keep an eye on when it comes down to online Mastercard payments.


    You're correct on the bunq whitelist, we have a big list of companies that we were able to whitelist. This means that the payment goes through as planned. When it does not because of the missing whitelist, you can simply tap the transaction and whitelist the merchant.


    The word Recurring Payments are meant for subscriptions and other payments that are not directly initiated by you. To what limit would you like to allow that specific company to retrieve money from your account?


    Also thanks for the big example, any merchant should indeed also be whitelisted in your own account, even if it was already in bunq's list. Why? You can set what kind of payments you'd like to do to any specific business.


    Regarding your other questions, I'd head over to the support chat to let us check that out. As we'll need a bit more (private) details to check that out.


    I hope this helps! 😄

      "When it does not because of the missing whitelist, you can simply tap the transaction and whitelist the merchant."


      I have never done this, the merchants were automatically placed on the whitelist by you and a limit set by you. How is this supposed to work?

        Ah yes! You have a good point there, I see my explanation was a bit incomplete because of the recurring payments.

        The first payment will indeed go through, the whitelisting is needed for payments that the company initiates, like subscriptions. I've edited the reply, so that others will see it straight away.


        Thanks, Nick! :)

          OK, so you use the phrase "Recurring payments" because this list, (what you are calling the whitelist), pertains exclusively to payments initiated by the vendor? This has nothing to do with subsequent payments initiated by me??

            Jep! That's correct 👌

              Soooo... if I make a payment and have no intention of letting the vendor initiate a subsequent payment, why would you put them on recurring payment list without asking me? Surely that's the reverse of what I want for any dodgy merchant?

                Is it normal that vendors are automatically added to my whitelist, which as I now understand, allows them to initiate payments from my account? How can I stop vendors being added automatically?

                Thanks

                  Hey there,


                  By manually doing the first payment, you automatically set up a whitelist for that amount 👌 After that, you can open the payment itself to change it right away 😄

                    Clearly I am being very slow today... but why do you add a vendor to a whitelist automatically?

                      Well, if you're setting up a subscription it's very nice that it doesn't automatically fail the very first time they try to deduct the money the month after activating it 😄

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