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On a website I read this dialogue:

  • I'm looking for a cheap virtual credit (Master/Visa) card for paying online.

  • I have been asked for a scanned copy of my credit card on first purchase by Aliexpress. This might cause a problem if you use virtual card.

https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/37873/cheap-virtual-credit-card

Why the respondent did not say I was asked (past simple) ? because it is clear (for me at least) that the speaker tells a previous experience and gives it as an example.

So what actually does the speaker want to imply here by using the present perfect tense?

Questions goes in my mind:

Does he want to just highlight the action ? or to imply that Aliexpress still requires a scanned copy ? or he wants to imply that his action itself took place a little time ago (and maybe based on that Aliexpress still asks for a scanned copy) ?

Thank you

Gamal Thomas
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  • We can't read the mind of the person who wrote/has written the sentence you refer to. Thus, asking why he used it is probably anyone's guess, and this question could be closevoted as opinion-based. But if you are asking whether the present perfect is appropriate in the person's sentence, that's a different story. Lesson: asking why is not usually the best approach when asking about language usage. – Alan Carmack Oct 24 '16 at 17:49
  • Thanks Alan , I intented to ask about wether the present perfect is appropriate , good advice thanx – Gamal Thomas Oct 25 '16 at 15:07
  • The comment comes from a poster with the handle "vonlulzweg" and omits the article in "if you use a virtual card". To my mind this makes it very likely that it is not a native English speaiker. – Colin Fine Nov 18 '16 at 14:59

4 Answers4

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Good question. You are correct and the simple past tense would have been sufficient.

I was asked for a scanned copy of my credit card ...

However, I don't think this is actually an example of the present perfect tense, at least not to mean an "unfinished action". Rather it implies some kind of experience:

"I have been asked ..." = "I have the experience of being asked ..."

in order to warn people that they might have a similar experience. Similar examples of this structure:

I have been interviewed many times by the local newspaper

I have eaten many times at that restaurant.

I have gone swimming in the Dead Sea; it's quite an experience.

And so on.

If this person had meant to use the perfect tense to indicate some kind of temporal relationship to some other event, he would have probably used the past perfect instead:

I had been asked for a scanned copy of my credit card (but I didn't have one).

See this page for more details on how to use the present perfect.

Andrew
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  • This seems spot-on. Something like "in the past, I have been asked for my card" has a connotation of repeated experience that "yesterday I was asked for my card" does not – AlannaRose Oct 21 '16 at 20:51
  • @Ala There is no reason to assume that the event described happened more than once, but it's true that the present perfect is used when we want to say something like I have been asked repeatedly/x times . . . (so far), the key being the implicit or explicit idea so far. – Jim Reynolds Oct 22 '16 at 02:15
  • Thank you Andrew, so helpful, but if the writer used the present perfect to warn people "now" , then it is far better than using the past simple tense .. is this right ? In other words, what is the difference he conveys if he used the past simple tense ? – Gamal Thomas Oct 22 '16 at 08:33
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    This is informal writing, we don't need to assume that the writer thought really hard on how to phrase the sentence in order convey one message or another. It is more likely that he simply misused the tense... See my answer for a hypothesis of the reason. – laugh salutes Monica C Oct 22 '16 at 10:20
  • The clue is in "first purchase" which places the action (asked) at a specific point sometime in the past. You would say: They asked me for a scanned copy (of my credit card) with my first purchase and NOT They have asked me for ....with my first purchase – Mari-Lou A Oct 22 '16 at 11:03
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    @Mari The "first purchase" may not have happened in the past, or at all. It may well be that I was asked (completed past event) to scan when making the first purchase (such purchase may or may not have occurred at the time of writing). – Jim Reynolds Oct 22 '16 at 11:20
  • @JimReynolds I'm sorry, but I don't understand your comment. If I speak about my first purchase and by Aliexpress, I know when it occurred, the memory of that event is fixed firmly in my mind, I don't provide the exact date, because it is irrelevant to the discussion, but it did happen in the past. If it hadn't happened, why else would he warn about using a virtual card? – Mari-Lou A Oct 22 '16 at 11:27
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    @Mari Suppose Aliexpress told the OP, "When you make your first purchase, please provide a copy of your credit card." The purchase may or may not have been made. Only the request has been made for sure. I admit this is less likely of a situation, but the language makes it a possible one. And it's useful to bear in mind for more general applications of such a construction. – Jim Reynolds Oct 22 '16 at 11:50
  • @JimReynolds if that were the scenario—but it's not—then it would be more precise to say "I've heard OR They say that Aliexpress asks for a scanned copy on your first purchase." – Mari-Lou A Oct 22 '16 at 11:53
  • The OP called Aliexpress and asked the price of something. Aliexpress told her that upon purchasing, she will need to provide a copy of her card. If that happened, the OP could say that they've been asked to provide a copy on their first purchase. Since you were either there, or you are psychic, you seem to know this did not occur, but for us who must rely on the language alone, it may have. – Jim Reynolds Oct 22 '16 at 11:57
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    I have been asked to have warm clothing prepared on word of departure to Antarctica. The asking has happened and finished. The departing or notice to depart? – Jim Reynolds Oct 22 '16 at 12:07
  • @JimReynolds Then it should be: I was told by Aliexpress that I needed to provide a ..... – Mari-Lou A Oct 22 '16 at 12:28
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    @GamalThomas, it's common to use the present perfect to describe life experiences, as in my examples and in the linked reference. He did not "misuse the tense" as others suggested, nor did he mean to relate one event to another as the perfect tenses are normally used. He just wanted to say "I had this experience and it was a problem because I was using a virtual card." – Andrew Oct 22 '16 at 14:01
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    @GamalThomas What might be confusing people is "on first purchase by Aliexpress" which is either a wrong or a misplaced participle. "By Aliexpress" looks like it's modifying "purchase" (in which case he should have used "from"), but he meant for it to modify "asked". "I was asked [by them] [on first purchase]" – Andrew Oct 22 '16 at 14:03
  • +1 for this answer, by the way. Andrew, a native speaker, has brought out the sense of the present perfect here. – Alan Carmack Oct 22 '16 at 15:34
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    @AlanCarmack Thanks! The more I hang out on the site the more sympathy I feel for English learners who are taught something that works in a certain way 91% of the time -- except in this not-too-uncommon exception which they just have to memorize. – Andrew Oct 22 '16 at 17:14
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The clue is in the words first purchase which places the action (asked) at a specific point, sometime in the past. The speaker doesn't provide the exact date because it was irrelevant to the discussion; however, he or she knows when the event occurred because the memory of which is fixed firmly in their mind. The episode of being asked to provide a scanned copy, definitely occurred sometime in the past.

It is therefore a completed action, and the simple past tense should have been used.

If it hadn't happened, why else would the author have warned about using a virtual card?

In the Active voice, you would say:

Aliexpress asked me for a scanned copy of my credit card with my first purchase

NOT “They have asked me for .... with my first purchase”

The Passive voice would be

I was asked for a scanned copy of my credit card by Aliexpress with my first purchase

The event of being asked to do something, happened the first time. Perhaps after the first time, a scanned copy was no longer required. But we cannot be absolutely certain because the author might have made only a single purchase using Aliexpress. On second thought, using first does imply that more than one purchase has been made.

Note, the present perfect tense is used here because although the act of purchasing has been completed, there is a strong likelihood that the author will continue to use his or her credit card in the future.

I don't know anything about credit cards and how they are used in the States, so I'm just going by what is written! :)

P.S. By the way, I've upvoted Robusto's answer because he is a native speaker, and he explained very well why the author used the passive voice.

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Mari-Lou A
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  • I'll just wait for TRomano's comment when I come back later tonight. – Mari-Lou A Oct 22 '16 at 12:22
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    Communicating completed or finished past actions is part of the most common uses of the present perfect. Are you hungry? No. I've eaten. – Jim Reynolds Oct 22 '16 at 12:42
  • @JimReynolds If the action has been completed at an unspecified time in the past, and its consequences are still felt in the present, then yes, you are correct. Here, the situation is different. And this answer was more in reaction to the claim that somehow the event was repeatable. It's not. It happened only once, and only the first time. – Mari-Lou A Oct 22 '16 at 15:44
  • OK. Yes. There's a problem with it if was intended to mean exactly: I was asked by them and that asking occurred when I first bought something from them. And I have been a been thrown off by possibility that the first purchase didn't happen in the past. Though I admit it's likely the intended meaning. I still feel there's an interesting issue here, though I'm not prepared to articulate why I think there may be something more to say. – Jim Reynolds Oct 22 '16 at 17:03
  • @JimReynolds that's OK, it is an interesting question, and it throws up different aspects and that's why I upvoted it. – Mari-Lou A Oct 22 '16 at 17:05
  • I think my mind is wanting to recognize that there may be some fuzziness around this issue. I wonder if some linguists might call for allowing it if the underlying intent is something like: "I have been asked this before; for example I was asked when I made my first purchase from x." I think I've been at pretty much this point on an earlier question, and @StoneyB and I found some interesting and subtle detail around this issue. I've eaten ok. I've eaten this morning ok at least sometimes. I've eaten at 8 o'clock. At first glance, no. But there is some nuance there that is interesting. – Jim Reynolds Oct 22 '16 at 17:10
  • @Mari-LouA: Thanks for the upvote, but apparently no good deed goes unpunished around here. I was just trying to help, and I told the truth, and for that I've been downvoted twice. Maybe it was a bad idea to try to help out around here. p.s. +1 for you if only to have a reasonable answer on the plus side .... – Robusto Oct 22 '16 at 17:20
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Most likely the respondent merely wanted to use passive voice and was more comfortable using present perfect for that. Active voice would be:

Aliexpress asked me for a scanned copy ...

and it probably felt more natural to make it passive in this manner:

I have been asked for a scanned copy ...

This "passivises" it a bit more than

I was asked for a scanned copy ...

which feels just a tiny bit more direct. In all likelihood, the choice was not a deliberate one.

Robusto
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  • Thank you, you has given me a new answer and angle for that. – Gamal Thomas Oct 21 '16 at 20:21
  • I don't think this is actually an example of the past perfect tense. Please see my answer for what I think is the more likely explanation. – Andrew Oct 21 '16 at 20:23
  • @Andrew: I never said it was past perfect. If you read a little closer you'll see that I and the OP both said "present perfect" ... – Robusto Oct 21 '16 at 20:24
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    @Robusto yes I see. Either way, it's more a normal conjugation of the verb "to have" and not what I think of as a use of the perfect to indicate an ongoing or relative action. For example if we use the active form and say, "They have asked me to ... " this indicates some kind of subsequent action which doesn't appear in the example. It's simpler to think of this as a kind of shorthand for "I have the experience of ..." which fits into the writer's intent. – Andrew Oct 21 '16 at 20:41
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    Or rather, it's a different use of the present perfect to indicate life experience. See this page for what I mean. – Andrew Oct 21 '16 at 20:44
  • I don't see any reason to downvote this answer, but I do wonder why it's likely the OP wanted to use a passive form. Apparently, you think such a desire would have been unconscious? – Jim Reynolds Oct 22 '16 at 11:36
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    @And We often use the present perfect to describe life experiences, but not because they are life experiences (compare I went to a private high school. I grew up in a small town.). The reason we often describe life experiences using the present perfect is to communicate the idea so far. - She has written three books [so far; she may write more]. – Jim Reynolds Oct 22 '16 at 11:44
  • @JimReynolds the problem with trying to apply an overarching logic to these structures is all the inevitable exceptions. "I have lived in Japan" for example, which implies nothing about what I will do in the future, and is subtly different from "I lived in Japan." But this is probably a good question to ask over in EL&U – Andrew Oct 22 '16 at 17:14
  • Is that problem bigger than teaching and learning "simplified" rules, when almost every piece of material written in English, including "simple" and "children's" books are full of text that represent "exceptions"? It's a sincere question. I don't believe in teaching grammar rules except to people who have an explicit interest in the topic. I think the practice turns off and disengages many, many learners who might otherwise become highly literate. Why not more deeply understand how subtle, nuanced, interrelated, context-dependent, and tentative grammar rules really are? – Jim Reynolds Oct 22 '16 at 18:18
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I don't see any reason to use present perfect in this sentence. Is is not required in English.

Usage of present perfect suggests that a past activity or experience is linked to the present state, or that the action is complete (=perfect) at the present. This does not seem to be the case here.

Note that the reponder's nickname (in the linked post) suggests that he/she might not be a native English speaker. I would guess that his/her mother tongue is German. This might explain the usage of "have" here. In spoken German, the simple past is perceived as formal, and colloquial narratives often use present perfect tense.

See also: The two German past tenses and how to use them.

laugh salutes Monica C
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  • An over-correction implies that a correction took place. What evidence do we have that the utterance in question has been corrected, and what would that mean? If it was "corrected", what does "over-correction" mean? It is, in fact, clearly an example of the present perfect tense. Whether it's a "good" one (one that would communicate what the writer intended) or not is another question. The use of virtual card without an article is certainly a clue that it was written by a non-native speaker. – Jim Reynolds Oct 22 '16 at 02:31
  • I agree, overcorrection isn't the right term here. I will edit to clarify. Thanks. – laugh salutes Monica C Oct 22 '16 at 09:37
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    Although it's ubiquitously repeated, the explanation that we use the present perfect to talk about a past state or event "linked/connected to the present" is problematic. The big bang occurred 10-20 years ago. Is that finished past event not linked to the present? Anytime we say anything, it's linked to the present because we are talking about it . . . now. It's more meaningful to talk about this use as mentioning a finished past event that is implicitly or explicitly anchored within an underlying time period that includes the present. – Jim Reynolds Oct 22 '16 at 11:30
  • We could debate the usage and meaning of the perfect in English at great length, but it was already summarized quite well in the canonical post. Anyway, it is somewhat off-topic; my answer suggests that the reason for using perfect in the OP's quote is that the reponder is a speaker of German, in which the usage of perfect is quite different. – laugh salutes Monica C Oct 22 '16 at 14:15
  • I wonder what's the thing in my answer that draws all the downvotes... All the answers here seem to agree that simple past would be more appropriate. If you think my explanation is not sufficient or incorrect, it would be more productive to criticize it in a comment. – laugh salutes Monica C Oct 22 '16 at 14:25
  • I gave one downvote, though I'm glad you submitted it. The OP asks why the present tense was used (and seems to question whether it is grammatical). You open by saying that it wasn't necessary. There is plenty of unquestionably grammatical Standard English that demonstrate "unnecessary" choices. If we make the sentence just a little more conventional I have been asked for a scanned copy of my credit card, when I made my first purchase from Aliexpress, we can isolate the verb phrase issue, and reasonably assume it retains the intended meaning. – Jim Reynolds Oct 22 '16 at 14:39
  • There are many situations in which we have an open choice between using the present perfect and the simple past. American Standard English is much more flexible in this regard, whereas British English more stringently requires the present perfect when one of its uses applies. I think it's a grammatical and standard use of the present perfect, and I can probably give a good theory about why if I decide to try to. The idea about an effect of a first language is interesting, but I haven't evaluated it, and don't know if I can. – Jim Reynolds Oct 22 '16 at 14:54
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    The canonical post says The perfect introduces a prior eventuality which in some sense constitutes a current state. But it is up to the hearer to infer the nature of that state. I think that something related to this basic idea can apply to the OP's use in the context we can see. There is something about that past event that was particulary significant at the time of writing, and given the context. I think there was an implied, It's happened to me, and that might importantly relate to your current issue. – Jim Reynolds Oct 22 '16 at 14:55
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    But this is a sort of short-cut answer and I'd need to read and think to answer it better. In summary, I think the OP had a choice to make and went with the present perfect to shift the meaning in this direction of saying that the result or consequence of the past event was in current operation at the time of writing. – Jim Reynolds Oct 22 '16 at 14:55
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    @Jim I couldn't agree more with your statement here about the dubious description of the present perfect as a past action connected with the present. I've seen many learners struggling with this very description when asking about the present perfect, the simple past, etc. – Alan Carmack Oct 25 '16 at 19:17