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Is it possible for scammers to charge your credit card but make it not show up as a transaction?

Red Squirrel

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
I paid my card off about a week ago, and now my balance is like $600. I went through all my transactions and I can't account for that. It should be like $300ish if I add up the transactions after the last payment. Something does not add up.

Starting to wonder, is there some trick scammers can use to charge a card without it showing up? Maybe by using special characters in the transaction that breaks the system or something? My CC company was not really much help they just said it's probably some pending stuff that did not show up yet. But seems odd to me. Should have showed up by now.
 
... transactions may take a few days to show up. Unless there is a transaction, how can the cc company charge you for it?

They should have names of merchant and charge date on the transaction no?
 
That's the thing, if I add up all the transactions and then deduct the payments, I just can't account for what it shows my balance is. So that's why I'm wondering if there is some odd way for a transaction to go through, but not actually show up. I emailed them again to double check that everything is normal though.

I almost wonder if some of my payments are somehow not applying or something.
 
Red Squirrel said:
That's the thing, if I add up all the transactions and then deduct the payments, I just can't account for what it shows my balance is. So that's why I'm wondering if there is some odd way for a transaction to go through, but not actually show up. I emailed them again to double check that everything is normal though.

I almost wonder if some of my payments are somehow not applying or something.
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Just pay it when the statement is ready, this is how they handle it. Unless you can point to a suspicious transaction, everything is just the way it is. Your payments should be listed as well.

Basically you are doing CC wrong.
 
RLGL said:
Keep all receipts and check them off the statement!
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That's not a bad idea actually.

TBH I never even look at the statement, I just login at least once a week, and pay whatever it shows the current balance is and look at the transaction log. But I think that's working against me because how how credit cards are weird in how they delay transactions, so it makes things seem off.

They looked over my account and everything looks fine. I was probably carrying a bigger balance than I realized so every time I thought I was paying it off there was probably some pending stuff, and it just caught up with me. Would be nice if it showed the balance next to each transaction though as it would make it easier to track. Kind of like the bank does.

I have it set to auto pay the full balance once a month now, so think that will be the easiest way to go.
 
???

Never said that at all.

I've had a credit card since I was 18 and never had a late payment or never had to pay interest. It was just the first time for this to happen where the balance shoots up when I thought it should be zero, and it still seems odd to me as I still can't account for the balance it shows, but whatever I'll just pay it.

This is the first CC where there is an option for auto pay, so I will take advantage of it. I recently switched to this card so only saw the option now.

I've never gone with the statement PDFs as the balance it shows on that is not live, so I always go by what the actual live balance shows, and just pay it off.
 
Red Squirrel said:
???

Never said that at all.

I've had a credit card since I was 18 and never had a late payment or never had to pay interest. It was just the first time for this to happen where the balance shoots up when I thought it should be zero, and it still seems odd to me as I still can't account for the balance it shows, but whatever I'll just pay it.

This is the first CC where there is an option for auto pay, so I will take advantage of it. I recently switched to this card so only saw the option now.

I've never gone with the statement PDFs as the balance it shows on that is not live, so I always go by what the actual live balance shows, and just pay it off.
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... like I said, you are just creating problem for yourself if you don't stick to the statement time frame.
 
sdifox said:
... like I said, you are just creating problem for yourself if you don't stick to the statement time frame.
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No hes not I pay mine off every week too, if not twice a week, been doing it that way for years. Its easier for me to keep track of checking transactions and paying it off every week than it is to go back a month and make sure there were no fraudulent/screwed up charges. Plus FICO scores like not seeing a balance at statement close. I always check my pending charges and pre-pay those with the balance. So what happened to him doesn't happen to me.
 
Skull, unfortunately you're totally wrong. If you pay that often you are not desirable to creditors.

The best thing to do is wait until your statement closes, and pay the statement balance. Never pay the current balance. If you do this, you never will pay interest and you'll be more desirable to creditors.
 
deadlyapp said:
Skull, unfortunately you're totally wrong. If you pay that often you are not desirable to creditors.

The best thing to do is wait until your statement closes, and pay the statement balance. Never pay the current balance. If you do this, you never will pay interest and you'll be more desirable to creditors.
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My credit card limits would beg to differ.
 
deadlyapp said:
Skull, unfortunately you're totally wrong. If you pay that often you are not desirable to creditors.

The best thing to do is wait until your statement closes, and pay the statement balance. Never pay the current balance. If you do this, you never will pay interest and you'll be more desirable to creditors.
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I doubt they'd cut off his line of credit. Remember, they're still making $$ every time the card is used.
 
highland145 said:
I doubt they'd cut off his line of credit. Remember, they're still making $$ every time the card is used.
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Not much since I max my rewards, they hate guys like me I'm what credit card companies call a transactor. Its not beucause of how often I pay, its that I never carry a balance and pay interest. They still want my business because they hope that one day I'll fall into their trap, its why they're always sending me those 0% balance transfer offers and such.
 
sdifox said:
I keep turning down their offer to up my limit :awe:
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Why would you turn them down? Don't you want to be attractive to creditors? Creditors especially ones like mortgage companies love seeing high limits and no balances. It means you can handle large amounts of credit responsibly.
 
skull said:
Why would you turn them down? Don't you want to be attractive to creditors? Creditors especially ones like mortgage companies love seeing high limits and no balances. It means you can handle large amounts of credit responsibly.
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Cuz I don't need it. Never had issue with mortgage either. Limit is already at 20k.
 
deadlyapp said:
Skull, unfortunately you're totally wrong. If you pay that often you are not desirable to creditors.

The best thing to do is wait until your statement closes, and pay the statement balance. Never pay the current balance. If you do this, you never will pay interest and you'll be more desirable to creditors.
Click to expand...
This aligns with what I've always heard, they like to see some balance there, but not over 50% of your limit.
 
skull said:
Not much since I max my rewards, they hate guys like me I'm what credit card companies call a transactor. Its not beucause of how often I pay, its that I never carry a balance and pay interest. They still want my business because they hope that one day I'll fall into their trap, its why they're always sending me those 0% balance transfer offers and such.
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Why would they hate you if they are still making like 2-3 percent off of every transaction you are making? They don't hate you at all, they love you because you are still making them a lot of money.
 
Red Squirrel said:
That's the thing, if I add up all the transactions and then deduct the payments, I just can't account for what it shows my balance is. So that's why I'm wondering if there is some odd way for a transaction to go through, but not actually show up. I emailed them again to double check that everything is normal though.

I almost wonder if some of my payments are somehow not applying or something.
Click to expand...

I had this same issue recently, but it usually happens when you make a payment in the middle of cycle, rather than paying off the monthly balance. Transactions overlap from cycle to cycle, and your previous cycle payment is registered with the current, open cycle, so it will never add up if you just account for all payments on one posted cycle.

I realized this some time ago and went a bit mad about it, so just resigned to only pay off the balance each time and refrain from mid-cycle payments. ...but then I did it again and it really seems to have not registered with current balance. Issue is that I made a $900 payment from electrical work in the house, a day before putting about half of my new car down-payment on the card, lol. ...that's a $3.6k charge on the card. I never make such charges, but I did it for the points. The balance "should have" been about $100 after paying off the electric service, but after the car payment, it was ~$4.7k, and I never could figure it out.
 
highland145 said:
Why would the online transaction log be different from the statement? I do the same. The only reason I look at the statement is because the wife's medical/charitable contributions so I can highlight them.
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They aren't different, just that the statement log doesn't represent the current balance accurately--just the balance for that statement. So, when making a payment in the middle of a cycle and trying to calculate the appropriate current balance, you can't rely on the statement log, but a collection of the entire transaction log across statements.

The reason I don't like to make payments outside of the monthly statement is that it's harder for me to track what the actual balance is and insure that the payments and transactions are adding up.

I don't know...I get the feeling that those of you that like to make these multiple payments probably still like to balance checkbooks every week or something? Is that what you old people are doing? lol
 
zinfamous said:
They aren't different, just that the statement log doesn't represent the current balance accurately--just the balance for that statement. So, when making a payment in the middle of a cycle and trying to calculate the appropriate current balance, you can't rely on the statement log, but a collection of the entire transaction log across statements.

The reason I don't like to make payments outside of the monthly statement is that it's harder for me to track what the actual balance is and insure that the payments and transactions are adding up.

I don't know...I get the feeling that those of you that like to make these multiple payments probably still like to balance checkbooks every week or something? Is that what you old people are doing? lol
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lol No, I haven't balanced a checkbook in years. It used to be done religiously but I was dirt poor and needed to know the $$ and online banking was not even available.

And, habitually, I log into the business/personal accounts every day. 1) bounced checks from customers, the bank takes 2 weeks to send me the hard copy. 2)Had the old business account hacked for $4K+, twice. That will get your attention.
 
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