How far can a credit card balance go into the negative?

Question

Hypothetically, if kept overpaying a credit card such that the negative balance kept increasing to absurd amounts, what would happen?

For example, say I have a credit card with a line of $500. When making a payment, I accidentally include an extra 0, and so, I end up with a negative balance of $10,000 (that is, I overpaid my credit card by $10,000).

Does that money sit forever as credit, or would the credit servicer eventually notify me and/or send me a check for the negative?

Is there an amount where the credit servicer gets a flag / notification, or I simply can't keep paying more to the card?

Answer 1

If you have a negative balance on your credit card, you can call the issuer and have them send you a check for the amount. Some will do it automatically for large amounts or if it stays negative over some period of time.

Usually credit card issuers don't let paying more than the current balance, but it still can happen sometimes if you pay off your balance and then get a refund, for example.

Answer 2

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.