Unrecognized Payhip Charges
If you've noticed a Payhip charge on your bank or card statement, it most likely means you made a purchase from a seller who uses Payhip to run their online store. Payhip provides the platform, but the product or service itself comes from an independent seller. In some cases, the charge may also be related to a video subscription or a paid plan.
In this article, we'll outline several ways to help you identify the charge.
- Check your bank statement description
- Look at the amount of the charge
- Check your inbox for Email Receipts
- Check if someone in your household made the purchase
How to identify an unrecognized charge
1. Check your bank statement description
Most bank or card statements show Payhip charges in the following format: PAYHIP*BUSINESSNAME.
The business name refers to the seller you purchased from. It will often be recognizable, though it may not always exactly match the name of the website.
A quick way to find out who charged you is to look up their Payhip store directly. Take the business name from your statement, insert it into the following URL, and paste it into your browser: payhip.com/BUSINESSNAME.
This should take you to the seller’s store and may help you identify the charge. If you land on the 404 page, don’t worry just yet. The store URL may be formatted slightly differently from how the name appears on your statement, so it’s worth trying a few variations of the business name.
Bear in mind that banks don't all display charge descriptors in the same way, so the format on your statement might look slightly different. If the description alone isn't enough to identify the charge, the other steps in this guide will help you narrow it down.
2. Look at the amount of the charge
Sometimes the amount itself can give you a useful clue about where the charge came from. Recurring monthly charges are often a good indicator. For example:
- A monthly charge of $5, $29, or $99 is likely tied to a paid plan or a video subscription rather than a one-off purchase from a seller.
- An amount in a different currency or with an unusual decimal value is more likely to be a purchase from an independent seller.
If the charge appears to be related to a Payhip plan or video subscription, you can manage or cancel it directly from your account. To cancel a paid plan, log into your Payhip account, head to your account settings, and look under the Payment Details tab.
To cancel a video subscription, you can manage it directly on this page: https://payhip.com/video-subscription.
3. Check your inbox for Email Receipts
Every purchase made through Payhip triggers an automatic Email Receipt sent to the address used at checkout. This receipt is one of the most reliable ways to identify an unrecognized charge, as it includes details about the seller, the product purchased, and the amount.
To find it, try searching your inbox using any of the following:
- The sender address: contact@payhip.com
- The subject line: "Thank you for your purchase."
If nothing comes up straight away, receipts can sometimes be filtered out by your email provider and end up in your spam or junk folder. If you use multiple email addresses, it's also possible that the receipt was sent to a different one.
4. Check if someone in your household made the purchase
Sometimes the charge may come from someone else in your household. If the charge doesn't look familiar, it's worth checking whether anyone else might have access to your card or payment method.
This could be a family member who made a purchase and forgot to mention it, a child who bought something through a shared device, or simply someone else in the household with access to the same account or card. These kinds of purchases happen more often than you'd think, and they're usually the simplest explanation when a charge appears out of nowhere.
I still don't recognize the charge. What should I do?
If you've worked through all of the steps above and still can't identify the charge, our support team is here to help. We can look up the transaction on our end and help you determine exactly where the charge originated.
To locate the payment, we'll need a few details from you. The more information you can provide, the quicker we can track it down. When you send us an email at contact@payhip.com, please include the following:
- The date the transaction appeared on your statement
- The payment reference as shown on your bank or card statement
- The exact amount charged
- The last four digits of the card that was charged
Once we have those details, we'll look up the transaction and get back to you with everything we find. In most cases, we're able to identify the charge quickly and let you know exactly who it came from and what it was for.