Entropay Visa - funds missing

Recently I set up an Entropay Visa Electron (Stg) virtual card for the purpose of purchasing Ryanair flights and avoiding the credit card fees.

I saved a small amount of money by doing so. In order to purchase the last 2 Ryanair flights I had to top up the card by an extra £10 as you can see below. At the time of the purchase I ended up with about £5 left over on the account.

A few days ago I logged in and saw that my available balance was zero. And as you can see below in the statement - the last Ryanair flight appears to have coincidentally matched the remaining balance in the account! If you check the Euro costs of the flights against what Ryanair charged in sterling on the Entropay card you will see that the exchange rates do not add up.

To me it appears that Entropay (or Ryanair but I can't see how) simply cleared my account.

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Problem above is where the 2nd Ryanair flight brings the balance to exactly zero.

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support are happy above to say it all worked out quite nicely.

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no problem with my normal visa above - 3 amounts taken out to fund the Entropay card.

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Above are the euro costs of the Ryanair flights.


Can anyone shed any light on this? Am I missing something? Someone on boards.ie has experienced the same problem i.e. thinking a few quid were left on the card but returning to see the balance was exactly zero...

Thanks for any help.

I know they caught me with a 2.50 dormant account fee for not using it within 6 months. Then they done it again! seems nuts seeing as it's my money in there, not credit.

Same here,

I was amazed that I funded the card with the exact amount charged by ryanair (taking exchange rates into consideration)!!

Though it only happened the once? but is hard to track when you dont see the rates used in the conversions etc..

S.

So they charged you STG£129.52 for a Euro purchase of €143.32 is that right? If so the exchange rate would be just about right.

Also there is usually a 3% foreign exchange charge hidden in the rate used.

TheShark said:

So they charged you STG£129.52 for a Euro purchase of €143.32 is that right? If so the exchange rate would be just about right.

Click to expand...

Yes, agreed - taken on it's own. However..

Take the first flight - the 40 euro flight - Charged £37.48 for this on Entropay - which equates to an exchange rate of €1 = £0.937.

Second flight (purchased the same hour same day) - €143.32 flights - Charged £129.52 on Entropay - equating to an exchange rate of €1 = 0.9037.

Assumptions:

1. The exchange rate would not have moved that significantly within the hour (or day).

2. If the 2nd flight had been charged the same rate as the first flight (.937) Entropay would have charged £134.29 - (143.32*.937). Therefore the first rate must be incorrect because, as you can see from my statement, I would have been short nearly a fiver trying to pay for the 2nd flight - unless they "let me off".

3. Therefore, if the 2nd rate is correct, I should have been charged slightly less for the first flight.

4. Where coincidences come in -

a) regardless of changing rates that the 2nd flight EXACTLY equals my remaining balance - as Suzie has also miraculously done earlier on as well !

b) possible red herring - that between the 2 rates used on purchases within the same hour, one rate = 0.937 and the other = 0.9037 (i.e. zero missing (or added) typo? manual intervention rather than automated systems?) - still would not explain me balancing to zero though

c) that I am SURE, back when I was purchasing the flights, that Entropay showed me as having about £5 left on my balance - which is now zero. This is because the 2nd flight would not go through until I loaded the last tenner to cover a shortfall of about £5.

This ties in with a boards.ie user who has stated in a thread over on boards (which prompted me to post here):

"Im in total agreement with you there podgeandrodge. This has happened to me the last 4 times I have booked using Entropay. ..I could be out a few pence with the transaction and have to load the extra £10- next time its gone !...and my transaction history is the same as yours...I'm glad i'm not the only one with this problem. If I add up roughly what I 'lost' when the balance was unconvincingly reduced to nil...then I reckon I lost about £35 i'd say...I'm with you on posting for advice on askaboutmoney.com,maybe the whizzes over there can shed some light on it...i wont be using Entropay again until they cop on !.there is definitely something dodgey about it.. "



So I remain convinced that there is something more than fluctuating exchange rates and fx charges going on here. But I'm still entirely open to the possiblity that there is a perfectly good explanation that I have missed!

You are doing a Euro transaction on a Sterling card, so the conversion rates can move around by the time the transaction is "settled" and posted to the card (the conversion rate at time of initial authorisation may not be the final rate used). Still odd that it worked out exactly!

apologies.........need to google first

Strangely I have received an update from Entropay - without me going back to them at all - so they must be getting queries about this. Still seems strange to me but read it for yourselves...

"Further to our previous email I would like to clarify why your EntroPay card balance is 0 after the 2 settlements from Ryanair were received.
Do note that with any transactions there are 2 stages.
1. The pre-authorisation - whereby the funds are reserved but not take yet taken to ensure
that these same funds are not spent elsewhere.

2. The actual settlement or charge -whereby the transaction from the pre-authorisation
is confirmed and the funds debited from the EntroPay Card.

In your case we received 2 pre-authorisations from ryanair in the amounts of GBP35.61 and GBP127.60 and these funds were ‘reserved’ from your EntroPay card. When we received the settlement from Ryanair the amounts they charged us was actually more than the pre-authorised amount – GBP37.48 and GBP134.30
The GBP37.48 was settled successfully and the funds deducted from your EntroPay card however this only left you with a balance of GBP129.52 on your EntroPay card. Therefore you did not have enough funds on your EntroPay card to settle the remaining amount of GBP134.40 so in situations like this, in order to settle the transaction we take what funds are available on the card, in your case GBP129.52 which brought your EntroPay card balance to 0 and we take a loss of GBP4.88.
I hope this helps.
Should you require further assistance please do not hesitate to contact us.
Kind Regards "

So, whats ryanair up to then? playing silly buggers? the exchange rate couldnt be an explanation?

I guess thats why they charge the 5% loading charge..

S.

So it's FX drift between (pre)auth and settlement, as I suspected. Ryanair or Entropay aren't doing anything odd - though it is possible Ryanair are using a different route for settlement which gives them lower bank fees, at the expense of higher FX rates for cardholders.

If you booked a flight originating in England (a native Sterling transaction on a Sterling card) then this couldn't happen.

I have had that happen with Wirecard also but they do chase you for the shortfall caused by FX drift as it appears as a negative balance which is settled when you top up your account the next time.

Ryanair are not the quickest merchant to settle so in the few days between auth and settlement there could be considerable FX drift. On the other hand I have actually gained money that way when the drift was in my favour and the settlement amount ended up being less than the preauth amount.

Swings and roundabouts.

MugsGame said:

So it's FX drift between (pre)auth and settlement, as I suspected.

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Indeed. I have learnt something new.

Entropay caused the confusion by not answering correctly the first time. They said that "The funds covered the costs exactly" which clearly was not the case at all as we now know!

For info I have checked with Entropay and asked if, when I next load my account, they will recoup the lost funds. They replied "We understand your concern however rest assured that we will not take GBP4.88 from your account, we have taken the loss."

Top marks for customer service from Entropay (apart from their first support agent).

It does suggest one thing though - you are better off ONLY loading the bare minimum to get the purchases through. Had I loaded more funds than the last tenner I would have been down £4.88 now.

Finally, to put things into perspective - I used Entropay to save €30 - 3 flights at €5 a pop credit card charge each way.

I spent €204.10 loading the Entropay card.
I should have spent another say €7 to cover the £4.88

Therefore my total spend would be €211.

Had I skipped Entropay altogether and just paid the charges the Ryanair bill (including €30 credit card charges) would have come to €213.32.

I have saved €2. And wasted hours of my time. Lesson learnt - it's really only worth it for small value flights.