Pending gift card issues

[ACP9901]

On November 1, I used a Mastercard Debit gift card to purchase two games, one of which was on a major sale. I received an error message about insufficient funds, when I knew I there should be enough since it was new and I checked the balance beforehand. After trying the card a couple more times I checked the balance again, found that the funds had decreased, and there was now a pending transaction. I have seen that this is a problem with a few people, but I haven't seen a case where they stated what happened in the end.

Steam support confirmed that the payment was declined by the 'bank', and the purchase is still pending. The one item is no longer on sale, but the amount of the purchase is still with the sale price. If for some reason that transaction were to update in price, I wouldn't have the funds for either anymore and I suppose it would be truly declined.

I would be very grateful if anyone who also experienced this would let me know how things turned out in the end. I missed the sale and I'm really hoping the transaction will work out, but that it will just take its sweet time...

[ACP9901]

Forgot to also say I even tried calling the card support number and they were absolutely 0 help lol

[Atryeu]

I had the exact same issue recently. I had 2 of the Mastercard prepaid cards with some spare funds on them.... One with $41 and the other with $1.95. The larger one I was going to add as a GC onto Steam and I started with the $25 GC amount and it told me there was "insufficient funds" even though there was almost double that on there. I also tried to purchase an on sale game with the other card where after tax it was going to be under the amount left on the card still and had the same error. Both were done early morning just after midnight of Oct 31st. Later that morning I was able to put the order through for the $10 and $5 for my GC on the larger card without any issues and I grabbed the game from a 2nd card that had the same amount left over with no errors either. Both the original purchase attempt of the game and the $25 GC attempt are showing as Pending on the card transactions still so I don't even have my money back from the failed attempts :( I've been using the Mastercard prepaid cards for a few months like this without any issues until the 31st. I started using them here because of Amazon changing their limits to $5 or more and I usually have smaller amounts left on the cards to waste and I found using them here I could buy random little games I wouldn't normally buy otherwise lol

[ACP9901]

Atryeu님이 먼저 게시:

I had the exact same issue recently. I had 2 of the Mastercard prepaid cards with some spare funds on them.... One with $41 and the other with $1.95. The larger one I was going to add as a GC onto Steam and I started with the $25 GC amount and it told me there was "insufficient funds" even though there was almost double that on there. I also tried to purchase an on sale game with the other card where after tax it was going to be under the amount left on the card still and had the same error. Both were done early morning just after midnight of Oct 31st. Later that morning I was able to put the order through for the $10 and $5 for my GC on the larger card without any issues and I grabbed the game from a 2nd card that had the same amount left over with no errors either. Both the original purchase attempt of the game and the $25 GC attempt are showing as Pending on the card transactions still so I don't even have my money back from the failed attempts :( I've been using the Mastercard prepaid cards for a few months like this without any issues until the 31st. I started using them here because of Amazon changing their limits to $5 or more and I usually have smaller amounts left on the cards to waste and I found using them here I could buy random little games I wouldn't normally buy otherwise lol

I'm really sorry to hear that... It's so frustrating since the support number was 0 help, and as I said, I've seen posts of this same thing happening to a good few people.

[Atryeu]

ACP9901님이 먼저 게시:

Atryeu님이 먼저 게시:

I had the exact same issue recently. I had 2 of the Mastercard prepaid cards with some spare funds on them.... One with $41 and the other with $1.95. The larger one I was going to add as a GC onto Steam and I started with the $25 GC amount and it told me there was "insufficient funds" even though there was almost double that on there. I also tried to purchase an on sale game with the other card where after tax it was going to be under the amount left on the card still and had the same error. Both were done early morning just after midnight of Oct 31st. Later that morning I was able to put the order through for the $10 and $5 for my GC on the larger card without any issues and I grabbed the game from a 2nd card that had the same amount left over with no errors either. Both the original purchase attempt of the game and the $25 GC attempt are showing as Pending on the card transactions still so I don't even have my money back from the failed attempts :( I've been using the Mastercard prepaid cards for a few months like this without any issues until the 31st. I started using them here because of Amazon changing their limits to $5 or more and I usually have smaller amounts left on the cards to waste and I found using them here I could buy random little games I wouldn't normally buy otherwise lol

I'm really sorry to hear that... It's so frustrating since the support number was 0 help, and as I said, I've seen posts of this same thing happening to a good few people.

I hope it's straightened out for you at some point. I'm giving it a few more days and I'll check the balance on the card again and hope it was put back on there but I heard it can take anywhere from 10 days to 3 weeks sometimes so I guess we'll see :( It's sad that the prepaid cards used to be so reliable when they were first becoming a thing and in recent years there are so many problems trying to use them and in some cases you can't even use them anywhere anymore making them worthless :( I know those Visa Vanilla Gift ones were being scammed massively and stopped working in most places and of course those are the easiest ones to find locally -_- The Mastercard ones were working so well in their place until recently as well now :(

[ACP9901]

Update that the pending charge cleared, and I got the money back, so I indeed did not purchase the games. I should have just bought them or at least the one on sale with a different form of payment, but I was worried about getting double charged basically.
This seemed to be a big fault on the card company's end, so if you're thinking of using a Mastercard Debit gift card here, I wouldn't bother.

[Atryeu]

I checked both of mine and they still show Pending :( Do you remember when your purchase attempts were by chance? Mine were both Oct 31st so it's been 10 days now for me. Oddly both that are listed as Pending for Steam show "Seattle, WA" however the others that went through show out of "Bellevue,WA" instead. I wonder if that has anything to do with it?

Sadly the MasterCards are the only option here for now since the Visa/Vanilla Gift ones are pretty much unusable everywhere online it seems now. These 2 purchases were the first time I've had this issue on Steam. All other purchases on the other prepaid MasterCards have gone through without issue for months now. I have nowhere else to use the small amounts sometimes left on the cards and I don't want it to go to waste. Actual Steam gift cards are hard to come by locally for whatever reason. Only 1 store carries them and they are always sold out lol :(

Glad yours cleared. I'll check back on mine later next week again I guess and hope. The one isn't a big deal but I want that $25 back at least :(

Edit: I'm tired, sorry :P I saw yours was November 1st, listed in the 1st post :P

[ACP9901]

Atryeu님이 먼저 게시:

I checked both of mine and they still show Pending :( Do you remember when your purchase attempts were by chance? Mine were both Oct 31st so it's been 10 days now for me. Oddly both that are listed as Pending for Steam show "Seattle, WA" however the others that went through show out of "Bellevue,WA" instead. I wonder if that has anything to do with it?

Sadly the MasterCards are the only option here for now since the Visa/Vanilla Gift ones are pretty much unusable everywhere online it seems now. These 2 purchases were the first time I've had this issue on Steam. All other purchases on the other prepaid MasterCards have gone through without issue for months now. I have nowhere else to use the small amounts sometimes left on the cards and I don't want it to go to waste. Actual Steam gift cards are hard to come by locally for whatever reason. Only 1 store carries them and they are always sold out lol :(

Glad yours cleared. I'll check back on mine later next week again I guess and hope. The one isn't a big deal but I want that $25 back at least :(

Edit: I'm tired, sorry :P I saw yours was November 1st, listed in the 1st post :P

No need to apologize! My one just said Seattle so I'm not sure but it's possible. And yeah, it felt like it took forever to get the funds back.

[Atryeu]

ACP9901님이 먼저 게시:

Atryeu님이 먼저 게시:

I checked both of mine and they still show Pending :( Do you remember when your purchase attempts were by chance? Mine were both Oct 31st so it's been 10 days now for me. Oddly both that are listed as Pending for Steam show "Seattle, WA" however the others that went through show out of "Bellevue,WA" instead. I wonder if that has anything to do with it?

Sadly the MasterCards are the only option here for now since the Visa/Vanilla Gift ones are pretty much unusable everywhere online it seems now. These 2 purchases were the first time I've had this issue on Steam. All other purchases on the other prepaid MasterCards have gone through without issue for months now. I have nowhere else to use the small amounts sometimes left on the cards and I don't want it to go to waste. Actual Steam gift cards are hard to come by locally for whatever reason. Only 1 store carries them and they are always sold out lol :(

Glad yours cleared. I'll check back on mine later next week again I guess and hope. The one isn't a big deal but I want that $25 back at least :(

Edit: I'm tired, sorry :P I saw yours was November 1st, listed in the 1st post :P

No need to apologize! My one just said Seattle so I'm not sure but it's possible. And yeah, it felt like it took forever to get the funds back.

Thanks for commenting back on that. I wonder if when the purchases get put through Seattle it's causing the issue with the cards perhaps then? I'll try and remember to keep an eye on any future card purchases like that. I do have a couple dollars on one more card I have yet to spend actually but I think that one is a Visa prepaid. Autumn sale starts tomorrow doesn't it? Perhaps there will be something of interest to try and grab with it soon...

[Atryeu]

Just an update! My "pending" disappeared on both cards this morning as well. I tried the one for the $25 GC here on Steam and it went through instantly without an issue this time (exact same one that got stuck pending last time). According to the transaction info on the card site it went through "Steamgames" Bellevue, WA like the other successful ones did. I wonder when the attempt goes through the other one for Steam which was listed through Seattle, WA and had a different company/business name involving Steam if it just doesn't like these prepaid cards? I still have a tiny amount on the one plus the 2nd card and I'll remember to watch them closely next time for that. At least this one went through though so I have some money for whenever that Autumn sale starts :)

[ACP9901]

Atryeu님이 먼저 게시:

Just an update! My "pending" disappeared on both cards this morning as well. I tried the one for the $25 GC here on Steam and it went through instantly without an issue this time (exact same one that got stuck pending last time). According to the transaction info on the card site it went through "Steamgames" Bellevue, WA like the other successful ones did. I wonder when the attempt goes through the other one for Steam which was listed through Seattle, WA and had a different company/business name involving Steam if it just doesn't like these prepaid cards? I still have a tiny amount on the one plus the 2nd card and I'll remember to watch them closely next time for that. At least this one went through though so I have some money for whenever that Autumn sale starts :)

That's definitely odd yeah lol. Glad you got it to work out this time! I guess it's a reminder that if you see a game on sale you really want, you should try to buy it ASAP in case you end up having payment problems ^ ^'

[Atryeu]

ACP9901님이 먼저 게시:

Atryeu님이 먼저 게시:

Just an update! My "pending" disappeared on both cards this morning as well. I tried the one for the $25 GC here on Steam and it went through instantly without an issue this time (exact same one that got stuck pending last time). According to the transaction info on the card site it went through "Steamgames" Bellevue, WA like the other successful ones did. I wonder when the attempt goes through the other one for Steam which was listed through Seattle, WA and had a different company/business name involving Steam if it just doesn't like these prepaid cards? I still have a tiny amount on the one plus the 2nd card and I'll remember to watch them closely next time for that. At least this one went through though so I have some money for whenever that Autumn sale starts :)

That's definitely odd yeah lol. Glad you got it to work out this time! I guess it's a reminder that if you see a game on sale you really want, you should try to buy it ASAP in case you end up having payment problems ^ ^'

I have since gotten ahold of another card that had a similar amount and had the exact same issue as before. One of the gift card purchases with it for Steam went through the Seattle location and instantly failed like the others again and I'm still waiting around on that one to clear form the card to try and put it through again. The other 2 gift card purchases (right before and right after the failed one) both went through without any issue and both went through the Bellevue location instead. I wonder what it is about the attempts through Seattle that the card (or Steam) doesn't like and I sure wish there was a way to choose where it tries to go through to avoid the issue each time :(

Luckily most of these spare cards are such small amounts (usually under $5) and they are games I wouldn't normally buy otherwise so if they don't go through while they are on sale then oh well I guess. If they do then I have a new game (or more) that may have been a fun and cheap investment :)

[ViralKingGlad]

Yeah I got giftcards for Christmas and was going to buy a game and tried and it locked both my cards out and threw them into pending transaction how to I get that to stop and start over will I get my money back ? And why is steam like this ? Kinda trash if you ask me because never been like this with visa

[Atryeu]

ViralKingGlad님이 먼저 게시:

Yeah I got giftcards for Christmas and was going to buy a game and tried and it locked both my cards out and threw them into pending transaction how to I get that to stop and start over will I get my money back ? And why is steam like this ? Kinda trash if you ask me because never been like this with visa

In my case it was taking about 2 weeks before the card company that did the prepaid cards I had would clear the charges. :( You did get the money put back on the card after however but it takes time and there's no way to speed it up unless you want to attempt to contact the card company (usually it's only through a phone call and I don't want to deal with that).

I don't think Steam is the issue honestly because I have similar things happen on other sites as well, especially on Amazon. In the case of Steam most of my purchases go through a location in Bellevue it says but the ones that always fail were going through Seattle and show a different company name. It's very rare I see one form the Seattle company for Steam go through correctly on the prepaid cards :( As far as I've discovered the issue is tied in with the card company and some so called "security" setup they are trying to do to "keep the customers safe" so they can't spend their money -_- The errors I get here on Steam always say "insufficient funds" even though there's more on the card then I'm trying to use each time. Elsewhere like Amazon it just won't go through and doesn't tell me the reason why but there's no pending charge on the card from there and normally if I try again right after it fails it goes through the 2nd time without issue.

I never had problems back in the day using any prepaid card anywhere, including for subscriptions. Now days they are riddled with issues and are almost more hassle then they are worth :( Good luck with yours :(

[Marshall1q]

ACP9901님이 먼저 게시:

On November 1, I used a Mastercard Debit gift card to purchase two games, one of which was on a major sale. I received an error message about insufficient funds, when I knew I there should be enough since it was new and I checked the balance beforehand. After trying the card a couple more times I checked the balance again, found that the funds had decreased, and there was now a pending transaction. I have seen that this is a problem with a few people, but I haven't seen a case where they stated what happened in the end.

Steam support confirmed that the payment was declined by the 'bank', and the purchase is still pending. The one item is no longer on sale, but the amount of the purchase is still with the sale price. If for some reason that transaction were to update in price, I wouldn't have the funds for either anymore and I suppose it would be truly declined.

I would be very grateful if anyone who also experienced this would let me know how things turned out in the end. I missed the sale and I'm really hoping the transaction will work out, but that it will just take its sweet time...

i aint never using mastercard ever again bro ts is actually a pain in the ass to deal wit. First of all i get errors tryna sign in and next my purchase gets put on hold and ion when the steam sale is gonna end

shouldve just spent an extra $10 to get 2 $20 steam gift cards and not deal wit this mess

[Hi Im Swat]

Marshall1q님이 먼저 게시:

Yeah, how dare the bank suspend a possible suspicious transaction. How dare they look out for you. /s.

All you had to do was contact the bank and say "hey, that was me and I want to make that payment".