The concept of "recurring payment" comes from the English recurring, which translates as "recurring, periodic." If we apply this to payments, we will receive a periodic write-off of money, which is carried out automatically with the prior consent of the card holder (account holder).
Terminology
Regular payment - subscription of users to automatic payments for services or goods received. Payments from the account will be periodically debited “automatically” at the specified time from the card or mobile phone. In this case, there is no need to remind the client, and he himself must keep in mind that the money in the personal account has been exhausted and that it is necessary to replenish it to write off the loan, pay for services, subscription, etc.
A feature here is that there is no need to hammer in the details again in payment order: it will form on its own.
An important point in this case is that there should be enough funds on the client’s account for debiting. That is, it is very convenient when the agreed amounts are written off with some periodicity.
What are they needed for
The type of payment under consideration is necessary in many cases. As already mentioned, this is a direct debit of funds on the client’s account. These payments are made with his consent and confirmation. This service can be useful when:
- The presence of subscription payments on various kinds of services. In your personal account, the user passes registration with a card, accepts the subscription conditions. From this moment, the payment for the services received will be carried out automatically from the user’s card. Often, such services provide discounts for regular payments.
- Subscription to access content. If you need regular access to the database of any content, a regular payment will be a convenient way to pay, as this will save you from having to remember about monthly payment.
- Paying operators for various services. A classic example here is the payment for the services of a mobile operator. Such a payment will not leave you without a connection at the right time.
- The availability of credit. Connecting an automatic payment will allow you not to miss the next loan repayment date. Most banks and financial institutions either open your personal account when applying for a loan, or issue a card with which you can make payments (banking institutions). You just need to go into it, connect a recurring payment, and that’s it. The main thing is not to forget to replenish the card or account from which the funds are debited.
- Making regular purchases in the same online store. If you regularly buy from one seller, it provides the opportunity to make payment automatically, without constantly entering card details. The processing center will remember you and your data. Thus, you just have to go into your office when paying for the goods - the system will automatically fill in all the fields. This greatly simplifies the process of making a purchase and its payment.
What is included in the tasks of the system
It is widely believed that recurring payments for a service or product contain only one task - to form and remember the amount that will be debited automatically every month from the user's card.
The choice of any data payment system is based only on the price of the service provided.
In fact, in order for the service to be of high quality, much more features are needed.
Danger or not
A recurring payment carries a danger, despite all its security. Even if you do not take into account cyber crooks who can simply hack a card, online stores and companies that want to get money by fraud can turn out to be unscrupulous.
To understand what is at stake, it is enough to recall that fraud has still been developed on the Web, which is associated with debiting funds from an account with a mobile operator. It happens like this: a user visits a website, tries to download a file of interest to him, but before downloading he is prompted to enter his cell phone number in order to allegedly protect the resource from bots and spam, or in order to get a unique code with which will be able to download the file.
Since there was no fee for the file, the user calmly entered his data, and after a while he began to notice that money was being debited from his account. It seems that fraud is visible to the naked eye, but if you look, the site has warned the user that he is subscribing to use the site’s content. True, this information was indicated almost imperceptibly: in small print below.
This can be attributed to recurring payments.
Recurrent payments: how to make
To understand the essence, it is necessary to understand how to connect to this type of service. To activate the payment, you must fill in the special fields by entering the details of the payment card and confirm that before the end of the payment period a certain amount will be debited to cover any debt.
You can connect recurrent payments at any time from your personal account after making the first payment. There is almost always one limitation: the period between the first payment and the next regular cannot be more than one year.
But it may happen that the user has not studied all the information on this type of payment, did not see the data that is striking, and voluntarily agreed that, in addition to directly repaying the debt, he will pay for any imposed services, including for making the payment itself.
How to secure your wallet
To avoid becoming a victim of dishonest companies, please note:
- Do not use the services of suspicious online stores and obscure sites. If this is still an urgent need, get yourself a virtual card that will have a spending limit. There is no need to enter the details of a valid card.
- Before entering the payment card data or confirming consent to something, carefully study it - there may be additional services that you will be automatically connected to if you agree, and then the site will connect you yourself to a recurring payment.
- Before making a purchase or subscribing to any content using a card, read reviews on this site, paying attention to information about scammers.
- Connect everything offered by the bank as protection against hacking and similar payments (without the knowledge of the client).
- Register in the payment systems that the site resorts to using.
If payments are connected without your knowledge
Unfortunately, this can happen to anyone. It is better to do as follows:
- Go to the bank that issued the card for you, clarify the information about all automatic payments that are connected to it, and write a statement to turn them off. There is one drawback here - not all banking institutions possess similar data.
- Go to the personal account of the payment system that you use, view all payments that are made automatically. Disconnect them if necessary.
- Set the limit of funds that can be spent on the card for operations on the Internet.
- Lock the card.
findings
Despite the foregoing, automatic payments have their advantages:
- there is no need to be afraid to miss the next payment - it will pass automatically;
- there is no need to stand in lines - the charge-off of any subscription fee can be configured on the machine at a strictly set time;
- even if there is not enough money in the account, payment will be made.
In conclusion, we note that the safest recurring payments are payments in various payment systems. But before registration it is necessary to study them, since some of the systems charge a fee for such operations.
