In recent months, I've noticed that Paypal has started to automate which debit/credit card is used for a payment, with no option to select a card at checkout. How can I control this, either on a per-merchant or per-payment basis?
At first, at checkout from some merchants, I saw a message that the card selected for the current payment will be automatically used for all future purchases from this specific merchant . I don't want that - based on the purpose of the purchase, the funds available through each card, and daily limits on the use of each card (in light of other payments I expect to make later in the day), I may need to be able to control where the money is taken from. The message described above said this card selection can be easily changed in your Paypal account, but I could never find any list in my Paypal account associating merchants to selected cards.
As a result, I stopped using Paypal for payments to merchants where Paypal "automated" the choice of which card to use, with no option at checkout to select a different card. Not being able to choose which card money will be drawn from is not acceptable, and encourages me to pay merchants with a card number instead of through Paypal.
For the first time this week, without ever seeing a message of the kind described above, I've found that with a merchant I purchase from frequently, Paypal has stopped asking which card to use. When I choose Paypal as my method of payment on the merchant site, the payment goes through immediately without asking me which card to use (or even informing me which card was used). There is no opportunity to select a card at checkout.
In my Paypal account, the only option I see that's close to this space is under "gear icon - Payments - Choose a payment method at checkout" titled "Choose your preferred way to pay online" with radio button options for each of my cards. The text on that page says "We’ll use this when you shop online or send money for goods and services. You can always choose a different way to pay at checkout." (No radio button is selected.) This appears to be a way to set a default payment method. But in reality, at checkout there is no option for choosing "a different way to pay", so this is clearly not the user account control relevant to my problem.
At the moment, the only way I can imagine using Paypal is to - every time I make a purchase - first log into Paypal and ensure my "preferred way to pay online" is set to the card that I want to use for this specific payment. But I suspect even this would not have the desired effect, since the absence of option at checkout for choosing "a different way to pay" suggests this control is not "in control", and something else is controlling which card is used for payment. For example, there may be a per-merchant selection buried somewhere that overrides the "preferred way to pay online" (since that's what Paypal's earlier messages suggested is going on). But I don't really know.
I haven't found anything relevant in Paypal's FAQs. What I want to know: 1) What's going on? 2) Is there an option in user accounts associating specific merchants to specific cards that will be automatically charged at checkout? 3) Is there a way in a Paypal user account to force always being given an option to choose a payment method at checkout?
