Google Pay confirms ‘You added a new card to your Google Account’ email error

Over the past few hours, some Google Pay/Wallet users have received an erroneous “You added a new card to your Google Account” email.

Update 10/3: Google acknowledged and apologized for the issue on Wednesday morning. The emails were “sent by mistake” and “there was no unauthorized access to your account.” Additionally, Google said:

“We are aware of a bug that resulted in some users being falsely alerted that a new payment card had been added to their Google Account. This was an error, and has been resolved. There has been no unauthorized access to Google Accounts, and payment information was not compromised. No user action is required.”

—Google spokesperson 

Original 10/2: From the dozens of reports so far, it’s clear that the people that received this message did not add a new credit or debit card to Google Pay. 

Rather, a bug on Google’s end is causing expired payment methods that even have old addresses to reappear. There are some reports of cards currently in use appearing, while a few people say they are seeing unfamiliar payment methods, though this isn’t confirmed.

The email is one you do normally receive from Google after saving a payment method. A version of that message from 2020 is below:

Those impacted by this issue are receiving multiple notifications in a row. That said, this does not appear to be a widespread issue in that not every Google Pay user is getting this email.

As a refresher, “Google Pay” is what you’re using when making a transaction online or on your phone with cards that you’ve previously saved. Google Wallet is the Android app that stores those payment methods, tickets, IDs, etc.

People are understandably alarmed by the email given that it’s related to financial information and banking, with Google needing to clearly explain what exactly happened. From what we know at the moment, this seems more like database bug on Google’s end rather than any sort of compromise or “hack.”

Visit wallet.google.com to see what cards you have saved.

We’ve reached out to Google for more details.

Thanks tipster