When your bank asks you to approve a payment

Some banks ask you to approve a payment yourself before they let it through. It is called 3-D Secure, and it is common with European cards. This guide is for you when the Confirm your payment window opens after you buy an add-on or change what you pay for.

When it appears

The window can open when you:

• buy an add-on from the catalogue or from its own page,
• raise the quantity of an add-on or move it to a bigger option,
• move to a higher plan or change how often you are billed.

When your bank does not ask for anything, none of this happens: the change is charged and active straight away.

Approving the payment

Press Approve payment. Your bank shows its own screen — a code by text message, a notice in your bank's app, or whatever your bank uses — and you follow its steps. When the bank approves it, the payment is charged, what you bought is active at once, and the page reloads to tell you so.

Nothing changes in your account before the payment is approved. Your plan, your add-ons and their quantities stay exactly as they were while you wait.

Cancelling or getting it wrong

Press Cancel, reject the request in your bank's screen, or let the bank's check fail, and the change is undone: nothing is charged, nothing is left pending, and the page tells you that you can try again.

A payment still waiting

If you closed the page or lost the connection before approving, the payment keeps waiting for about a day. Until then, your Billing page — and the page of the add-on, when the payment is for one — shows "You have a payment waiting for your approval" with a Confirm payment button that opens the window again.

While that payment waits you cannot make another paid change: the same notice answers first. Approve the payment, or let it lapse.

If nobody approves it in time, it lapses on its own. Nothing is charged, nothing is switched on, and the next time you open Billing or the add-on's page it tells you the payment expired. You can make the change again whenever you want.

Payments made without you

The charge at the end of an add-on trial and the charge for what you used are made with nobody in front of the screen, so there is no window to open. When your bank asks to approve one of those, it is refused and you are told to sign in and approve it from your account: buy the add-on or retry the payment from Billing, and the window above opens there.