topic Re: Why have my purchases suddenly started to attract a £1 paypal fee? in Payments

Why have my purchases suddenly started to attract a £1 paypal fee?

bristolsc — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 16:48:21 GMT

Made two purchases today and have attracted 3 x £1 PayPal fees. Why?

Re: Why have my purchases suddenly started to attract a £1 paypal fee?

61stephenuk — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 17:46:30 GMT

I'm not sure but there have been a few reports of this lately, it may be a card verification or similar, others have said the donation box wasn't ticked and nobody has returned to say if they found out what it was or if the payment was later refunded.

You could try asking eBay direct with a callback https://www.ebay.com/help/eua?id=5275

Re: Why have my purchases suddenly started to attract a £1 paypal fee?

ali_shopaholic — Sun, 16 Nov 2025 02:00:16 GMT

That’s just happened to me too. I made 3 separate purchases and all 3 have incurred a £1 fee each. I think we need some answers.

Re: Why have my purchases suddenly started to attract a £1 paypal fee?

papso22 — Sun, 16 Nov 2025 07:28:40 GMT

We do, but that requires the people getting charged asking the right people the question!

Re: Why have my purchases suddenly started to attract a £1 paypal fee?

marco@ebay — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 15:20:44 GMT

Hi everyone,

Is this charge/fee reflected in your eBay account or just in your payment method (Cards/PayPal account)? This is most likely a new fee introduced by PayPal, but I couldn't confirm since we have no visibility over their system, but I am trying to see if I can find more information on this.

Thank you,

Marco

Re: Why have my purchases suddenly started to attract a £1 paypal fee?

papso22 — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 15:41:33 GMT

We are seeing quite a few reports of this happening. It is not completely clear that in each case PayPal was the payment method.

Re: Why have my purchases suddenly started to attract a £1 paypal fee?

bristolsc — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 20:10:21 GMT

Update for you Marco. I have no idea how this works but my research points towards a credit card verification fee which is generated as "pending" against your selected PayPal payment method if a credit card is involved. It stands until such time as the legitimacy of the credit card is confirmed and then disappears from your credit card pending payments list when the correct transaction charge is debited from your credit card account. At least that is what appears to be happening with my credit card funded PayPal account. Must be something new (perhaps linked to PayPal's recent decision to revert to UK based transactions as announced in one of their updates a few days ago). So far I have not actually been charged any £1 fees, although I still have a number of pending PayPal transactions (with associated £1 fees) which have yet to reach my credit card balance. Hope this makes sense.

Re: Why have my purchases suddenly started to attract a £1 paypal fee?

thesmokingrunner — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 09:33:16 GMT

@bristolsc

I think you might be correct. I've had a look into the situation and available information suggests that the £1 'fee' is actually a temporary pre-authorization hold made by a credit card when the card is first used, or the card-holder has recently changed their address or other details on their account, in order to verify the card's validity. It is not, as such, charged by eBay or PayPal and is refunded once the actual payment for the goods is processed.

And with respect marco@ebay please don't post statements like "This is most likely a new fee introduced by PayPal" with no actual evidence to support it. That is a wildly inaccurate assumption. As a representative of eBay your responses - incorrect or otherwise - are given more weight than those of other users. Please remember that. Thank you.

Re: Why have my purchases suddenly started to attract a £1 paypal fee?

bristolsc — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 10:55:24 GMT

I go along with most of that. What I don't follow is the bit about new credit card or account changes. I've been a member for over 20 years and my current credit card, bank account and user account details haven't been altered for at least 15 years. No matter as the 'problem' resolves itself. Just would be nice to know why it happens.

Re: Why have my purchases suddenly started to attract a £1 paypal fee?

thesmokingrunner — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 15:00:10 GMT

@bristolsc

Apologies - the phrase "a credit card when the card is first used" which I used may have been a little ambiguous; I did not mean a completely new credit card, I meant a newly issued credit card with new start and expiry dates (the type which is issued to existing card holders when their current card reaches its expiry date).

My current card, for example, was issued just over 3 years ago and has an expiry date of 2026; it replaced my previous card with the same provider, an account with whom I have had for well over a decade. The first time that card was used was therefore regarded as 'first use' and it may be that the first time such a card is used without the CVC number being required triggers a temporary pre-authorization £1 payment hold whilst the card details/account are verified.

I don't know for sure if that's what has happened in the reported cases on these boards but in the absence of any other explanation it is a possible reason.

Failing that such a sudden increase in temporary pre-authorization fees may well be explained by a change in eBay's processing, as a buyer actually pays eBay for a purchase rather than paying a seller direct. If eBay changed any part of their payment processing a card issuer may well register a transaction as 'first use' which triggers the pre-authorization hold. And in the absence of any proper confirmation by eBay, rather than the usual "it's not us" denial and deflection, I have to say that's probably the more likely reason.

I last used my credit card, through PayPal, for a purchase on eBay at the beginning of this month and no £1 fee was included at any point. If a fee appears on my next purchase that, to me, will confirm the above has happened. I'll let you know if that happens.

Re: Why have my purchases suddenly started to attract a £1 paypal fee?

thesmokingrunner — Mon, 24 Nov 2025 16:35:43 GMT

@bristolsc

I said I'd let you know if anything happened the next time I made a purchase on eBay. I just have and nothing happened: I purchased using my credit card through PayPal and no £1 'fee' was added to the transaction.

All very odd and a bit of a mystery. I have no explanation as to why some transactions have a £1 fee added by PayPal and some don't, but given that have used my card numerous times since it became active a few years ago I can only think that it is, as I mentioned in my previous post (#8), a temporary pre-authorization hold made by a credit card when the card is first used or when the card-holder has changed their address or other details on their account, in order to verify the card's validity.

Sorry I don't have a definitive answer for you but I thought I'd confirm that I'm not seeing a fee added when I use my card.

Re: Why have my purchases suddenly started to attract a £1 paypal fee?

emumumjane — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 16:17:44 GMT

I have the same query. I have just made an ebay purchase through PayPal for £12.59 and my PayPal account has had an additional debit of £1.
Is this a new charge from ebay?

Re: Why have my purchases suddenly started to attract a £1 paypal fee?

suzpoodles — Thu, 01 Jan 2026 11:17:44 GMT

This has just started happening to me in the last couple of days. Two eBay purchases with PayPal and both have a separate £1 charge after them on my credit card statement, with the exact same references as the actual purchases themselves.
As the OP also said, my details have not changed and my card did not expire and renew recently, so I can’t see any reason for this. I find it ludicrous that neither eBay nor PP appear to know what it is.
Will be interested to see what happens when the purchases and £1 charges are no longer pending. I will report back! There’s nothing more annoying than no updates for future readers. 🙂

Re: Why have my purchases suddenly started to attract a £1 paypal fee?

sooky111 — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 10:15:54 GMT

This happens when you pay through paypal

Re: Why have my purchases suddenly started to attract a £1 paypal fee?

thesmokingrunner — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 11:16:37 GMT

I think your statement is incorrect @sooky111 : as mentioned in Post #11 I have recently made purchases via PayPal using my credit card and have not had an additional £1 charge - temporary or otherwise - levied.

Your statement would be correct if the additional charge was levied on all purchases made using PayPal but it is not. As I mentioned in Post #8 the £1 charge appears to be a temporary pre-authorization hold made by a credit card when the card is first used or when the card-holder has changed their address or other details on their account, in order to verify the card's validity.

If you have any definitive evidence that the charge - and the reason for it - is being levied by PayPal then I (and many others) would be very grateful if you could post that information.

Re: Why have my purchases suddenly started to attract a £1 paypal fee?

suzpoodles — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 12:42:26 GMT

Not so. I use PayPal for everything. I’ve never been charged £1 before. And it’s only happening with eBay purchases. I’ve had another £1 charge for an eBay purchase since my post above. It’s also not a card that’s expired recently, etc. No change of details.

I’m still waiting to see what happens when the purchases are no longer pending. (They’ve been pending longer than usual, which is also odd). I’m hoping these £1 PayPal charges will simply disappear … time will tell. But I will post again so others know if it happens to them.

Re: Why have my purchases suddenly started to attract a £1 paypal fee?

thesmokingrunner — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 16:08:25 GMT

Thanks for the update @suzpoodles

Now, I don't have a definitive explanation for why some buyers (you, for example) are seeing temporary £1 charges added to their eBay purchases whilst others (me, ditto) are not but from what's been reported to date I am beginning to draw the conclusion that these temporary charges are happening due to a change in eBay processing which has affected some - but crucially not all - purchases made using a credit card via PayPal.

It is not unusual for a credit card company to place a temporary charge on a transaction or two when a new card, or a card which has had recent account detail changes, is first used. However, the infrequent reports of temporary charges strongly suggest that that is not the reason for the recent and sudden increase in reports on eBay.

If the temporary charge was being made by PayPal every purchase would be affected but as not every purchase is attracting this charge (if it was there would be many, many more reports on these boards) I believe a change to PayPal's process can be discounted.

That leaves either a change to eBay's processing or an unknown error introduced as part of a code update as the only reasonable explanation for the sudden increase in temporary charges. That not every buyer sees such a charge can be explained by the fact that there are several versions of live code, some of which have uncorrupted code and some of which have corrupted code. It's pot luck as to which version anyone sees at any one time - it's dependent on which server you are connected to when you open a session.

Whilst the above is, I think, a theoretical but plausible explanation proving which system is actually responsible requires a thorough investigation of the code, starting with eBay and working through the process. Unfortunately eBay will undoubtedly deny it's anything to do with them, and wouldn't fess up even it was, and responses such as the one given by the Community Team ("This is most likely a new fee introduced by PayPal" without providing any evidence) only serve to obfuscate rather than answer the question as to why it's happening.

The one thing I will say is that if it is due to eBay's code then the issue will disappear at some (unknown) point in future when another code release will overwrite the current code. It doesn't necessarily mean that the same issue will not reappear in future (if the current code is reused as source code for another fix, for example) but it should at least give you, and everyone else who has experienced the temporary charges, a respite.

And if temporary charges do stop appearing but then reappear in future at least that will provide more proof that it's an eBay issue rather than a PayPal/credit card issue.

Re: Why have my purchases suddenly started to attract a £1 paypal fee?

sml192 — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 18:16:12 GMT

I don't think it is anything to do with eBay. If a purchase is being funded by a debit or credit card through PayPal then the card processing is being done by PayPal. Ebay has no access to any card details a person has stored on PayPal.

Re: Why have my purchases suddenly started to attract a £1 paypal fee?

daughter*of*neptune — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 23:28:58 GMT

The same thing happened to me in December, but the amount was then refunded. I hadn't used my PayPal account for a while and therefore I have deduced that it is a verification transaction and nothing more. Hope this helps.

Re: Why have my purchases suddenly started to attract a £1 paypal fee?

thesmokingrunner — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 07:53:02 GMT

Ok, you may or may not be correct @sml192 - and that is precisely why the whole question ends up going round in circles: the people who know and can provide a definitive answer either remain quiet or pass the buck on to someone else.

My initial thought on reading your post was "Yup, fair point - eBay doesn't store card details" - and then it occurred to me that the temporary £1 fee could possibly be more to do with the buyer paying eBay rather than the seller: the buyer pays eBay by card via PayPal, PayPal funds the payment by charging the registered card, the card's payment process identifies eBay as the payment destination but as that is perhaps not usual activity on that card a temporary authorisation fee is placed on the payment...

I still think it's more likely to be something to do with eBay's payment processing than with either PayPal or credit card companies. If it was PayPal surely it would not only affect every payment made via PayPal using a credit card but it would affect an unknown number of other websites? The same applies if it was something introduced by credit card companies (all of them?) - I should think temporary authorisation fees suddenly showing on every card transaction would have made the news by now, but there's been nothing.

Supposition yes, but until eBay, PayPal or an unknown number of credit card companies can provide an official explanation that's all anyone can do. And the question of whether it's eBay/PayPal/credit card issuer will continue.