Paid credit card bill, but money didn't leave my checking account [duplicate]
The fact that your credit card has seen the payment is strong evidence that the transaction did in fact take place.  But it's not unusual for there to be a delay of one or two business days before transactions show up in your online banking records.  Saturday and Sunday are not business days.   I bet you will see it on Monday.  If it's not there by Tuesday, you could call the bank. You probably don't need to call the bank. Today is Sunday, so three days ago was probably Friday (or Thursday depending on how you count the days). Banks normally don't post transactions on weekends - and transactions that do happen on the weekend sometimes don't get posted until Tuesday. I would give it till Tuesday and then call them if you still don't see it show up on your account. This is normal for credit cards.  As long as you make the credit card company's cutoff time, they will make the funds available on your credit card rather than make you wait for them to actually get the funds from your bank. The amount of time this takes actually can vary significantly from bank to bank. You do want to make sure funds are available in your bank account for them to withdraw when they do take them though. If not, the payment would get returned and can set red flags on your credit card account that take a while to drop off.
How about finding a friend with Paypal and sending them the money so they can pay your bill using a card? Withdrawals from Paypal are typically instant now. "As with many questions here, while littleadv is correct, the real answer is ""each bank may handle this differently."" In my case, I was experimenting with my balance to see the impact of utilization, and I overpaid the current bill before the bill was issued.   The prior balance was paid, but then I sent a payment to bring my account to a credit balance. Further down the statement appears the line -  Your account has a credit balance. We can hold and apply this balance   against future purchases and cash advances, or refund it. If you would   like a check mailed to you in the amount of the credit balance, simply   call us and speak to a representative. You can also see that the ""revolving credit available"" is above the line of credit, implying that someone with a $5000 credit line wanting to charge a $6000 engagement ring can send a higher payment to the account and then make that charge." I use online banking and bill pay for all accounts where I can control when and how much is paid, where I push the funds out.  The bills from those companies that want to be allowed to reach into my account and pull money automatically (e.g. my Chase mortgage) I simply will not enroll - they get a paper check in the mail. There is no way I am giving these cocksucker criminals *permission* to take money out of my accounts. Most merchants (also in Europe) are reasonable, and typically are willing to work with you. credit card companies ask if you tried to work with the merchant first, so although they do not enforce it, it should be the first try. I recommend to give it a try and contact them first. If it doesn't work, you can always go to the credit card company and have the charge reversed. None of this has any effect on your credit score (except if you do nothing and then don't pay your credit card bill). For the future: when a transaction supposedly 'doesn't go through', have them write this on the receipt and give it to you. Only then pay cash. I am travelling 100+ days a year in Europe, using my US credit cards all the time, and there were never any issues - this is not a common problem. Maybe his accountant not taking care of things meant that there was a miscommunication about his debts. He could've had outstanding loans, back taxes, etc and he didn't have a clear enough picture about what his cash balance would be after his transaction. I actually did this once. I wrote a large check along with a letter indicating that I would not be around to receive the next bill so I was prepaying. Not only did they credit the entire check, they didn't send that bill and listed the charges on the next month's bill. They must have done that by hand because there's no way the machines would have understood. Once, back when I had a bank account, I tried to pay a large emergency dental bill with my debit card. It rejected it as it turned out the bill was less than a dollar over what I had in the account. I thought there was enough money so I tried again, 3 times. They charged me an overdraft for each attempt even though the debit never went through. This was without overdraft protection, as overdraft protection would have allowed the debit and charged me one overdraft. I don't know the details but federal regulations have changed how they do this.  To me overdraft protection rejects any debit that attempts to overdraft my account and doesn't charge me with an overdraft that didn't actually occur as a result of the charge being rejected, but that's not how it works. Most bank accounts offer automatic bill pay as well. They don't rely on support from the bill you're paying, I think they basically just mail a check with your account number on it Using the bank's bill pay always seemed like a hassle to me. There are lots of mistakes to be made by me that can result in late payments and not too many benefits other than some convenience, and being able to pay bills online for accounts that require paper payment. (Although the banking systems often screw up those payments) Plus, there is usually a fee associated with bill pay, at least to some extent. I generally use the websites of my credit cards or other entities to pay bills.  Then again, maybe I'm a bit of a weirdo here... I don't see mailing a check 3 days ahead of the due date as a particular hassle. Is this the time of year this board attracts question regarding the law and how to skirt it?  I've done as you suggested. I happened to have a month that I was going to blow through the $12000 limit I had on my credit card. So as the balance crossed $8000, I paid that amount, and when the bill was cut, it was just $4000 or so. Scrutiny would show the reason for partial payments was obvious, I wanted to avoid going over limit. I wouldn't have done so just to avoid the $10,000 transaction. Since then, I've asked that the limit be raised in case I have another wild month. Things are generally fine.  A credit balance is not a horrible thing.   The argument against maintaining a credit balance is that you are essentially loaning the credit card issuer money at 0% interest.  You probably have alternative investments that would pay better interest, so it's usually better to park your money there.  All that said, it's unlikely that the interest on whatever balance you have is enough to be more than pennies.   The way that a credit card works, you run up a balance in one period.  Then there is a grace period.  If you don't pay off the balance during the grace period, they start charging you interest.  You also may have a minimum payment to make.  If you don't make that payment, they'll charge you a late fee.   The typical period to rack up charges is from the first to the last day of a month.  The typical grace period is through the 20th or 25th of the next month.  Your card may be different.  So check the documentation (user agreement) for your card if you want the real data.   It sounds like you paid off some purchases while you were still in the period where you rack up charges.  While those purchases were posted to the account, they may not be counted in the balance calculation.  If your credit balance exactly matches the payment you made, that's probably what happened.  It's also possible that you overpaid the balance.  If your credit balance is just a small amount, that's probably what happened.   If you really want to be sure, you should call the credit card issuer and ask them.  At best we can tell you how it normally works.  Since this is your first month, you could just wait for your first bill and respond to that.  So long as you pay off the entire balance shown there by the deadline, everything should be fine.   Don't wait until the last day to pay.  It's usually best to pay a week or so early so as to leave time for the mail to deliver the check and for them to process it.  You can wait longer for an online payment, but a few business days early to give you a chance to handle potential problems is still good. "To avoid nitpicks, i state up front that this answer is applicable to the US; Europeans, Asians, Canadians, etc may well have quite different systems and rules. You have nothing to worry about if you pay off your credit-card statement  in full on the day it is due in timely fashion. On the other hand, if you routinely carry a balance from month to month or have taken out cash advances, then making whatever payment you want to make that month ASAP will save you more in finance charges than you could ever earn on the money in your savings account. But, if you pay off each month's balance in full, then read the fine print about when the payment is due very carefully: it might say that payments received before 5 pm will be posted the same day, or it might say before 3 pm, or before 7 pm EST, or noon PST, etc etc etc. As JoeTaxpayer says, if you can pay on-line with a guaranteed day for the transaction (and you do it before any deadline imposed by the credit-card company), you are fine.  My bank allows me to write ""electronic"" checks on its website, but a paper check is mailed to the credit-card company. The bank claims that if I specify the due date, they will mail the check enough in advance that the credit-card company will get it by the due date, but do you really trust the USPS to deliver your check by noon, or whatever? Besides the bank will put a hold on that money the day that check is cut. (I haven't bothered to check if the money being held still earns interest or not).  In any case, the bank disclaims all responsibility for the after-effects (late payment fees, finance charges on all purchases, etc) if that paper check is not received on time and so your credit-card account goes to ""late payment"" status.  Oh, and my bank also wants a monthly fee for its BillPay service (any number  of such ""electronic"" checks allowed each month). The BillPay service does include payment electronically to local merchants and utilities that have accounts at the bank and have signed up to receive payments electronically. All my credit-card companies allow me to use their website to authorize them to collect the payment that I specify from my bank account(s). I can choose the day, the amount, and which of my bank accounts they will collect the money from, but I must do this every month. Very conveniently, they show a calendar for choosing the date with the due date marked prominently, and as mhoran_psprep's comment points out, the payment can be scheduled well in advance of the date that the payment will actually be made, that is, I don't need to worry about being without Internet access because of travel and thus being unable to login to the credit-card website to make the payment on  the date it is due. I can also sign up for AutoPay which takes afixed amount/minimum payment due/payment in full (whatever I choose)  on the date due, and this will happen month after month after month  with no further action necessary on my part.  With either choice,  it is up to the card company to collect money from my account on the day specified, and if they mess up, they cannot charge late payment fees or finance charge on new purchases etc.  Also, unlike  my bank, there are no fees for this service. It is also worth noting that many people do not like the idea of the credit-card company withdrawing money from their bank account, and so this option is not to everyone's taste." The answer is - the money got bounced back to their account :( some of that article is misleading, some of it is just plain wrong. Very wrong... like you end up drawing an incorrect conclusion type wrong.  Corporate transaction accounts, whose balances are up recently due to TAG (expires 12/31), are subject to reserve requirements.  When you purchase something with a credit card, the bank's asset of your credit increases and the bank's asset of cash decreases (it goes wherever you purchased).  There is no change to your deposit account and no change to reserves.  The incoming bank's cash account and liability account associated with that business transaction account increase, and it is trivial to transfer the % of cash necessary to reach minimum reserve requirements to the Fed.  Secondly, anyone with a smidgen of accounting can tell that his balance sheet won't balance. "IMHO It is definitively not too early to start learning and thinking about personal finances and also about investing.  If you like to try stock market games, make sure to use one that includes a realistic fee structure simulation as well - otherwise there'll be a very unpleasant awakening when switching to reality... I'd like to stress the need for low fees with the brokerage account! Sit down and calculate how much fees different brokers take for a ""portfolio"" of say, 1 ETF, 1 bond, 1 share of about $500 or $1000 each (e.g. order fee, annual fee, fee for paying out interest/dividend).   In my experience, it is good if you can manage to make the first small investing steps before starting your career. Real jobs tend to need lots of time (particularly at the beginning), so time to learn investing is extremely scarce right at the time when you for the first time in your life earn money that could/should be invested. I'm talking of very slowly starting with a single purchase of say an ETF, a single bond next time you have saved up a suitable amount of toy money, then maybe a single share (and essentially not doing anything with them in order to avoid further fees). While such a ""portfolio"" is terrible with respect to diversification and relative fees*, this gives you the possibility to learn the procedures, to see how the fees cut in, what to do wrt taxes etc. This is why I speak about toy money and why I consider this money an investment in education. * An order fee of, say, $10 on a $500 position are terrible 4% (2 x $10) for buying + selling - depending on your local taxes, that would be several years of dividend yield for say some arbitrary Dow Jones ETF. Nevertheless, purchase + sale together are less than 3 cinema tickets."