Unclaimed paypal payments... what to do?

Leanne200 · 17 January 2007 at 8:10PM

I won an item on Ebay 2 days ago and paid through paypal as the seller stated payment method as Paypal only.

When I checked my paypal account it says 'payment unclaimed' with the option to cancel it.

I emailed the seller (who only has 1 feedback) and explained that their account might not be verified and asked if she is in the process of doing this as it is frustrating as I need the item asap.

I have had no reply and it has been 2 days...

Really I am wondering what I do if I hear nothing at all... do I cancel the payment? Or will I get in trouble with Ebay for not paying, or will they know that I have tried to pay?

Or do I leave the payment pending and file a dispute? If so under what would I file the dispute?

Im so confused, I hope someone can help! Thanks

hesjane · 17 January 2007 at 8:25PM

Hi

Depending on how much it was I would give it a few days. When I first started usin Ebay to sell my dad passed away unexpectedly and I had sold something but never went near my PC for almost a week. I was in such a state of shock it just never entered my mind that I had contractual obligations to someone, somewhere for an ebay sale.

I was mortified when I logged back on and discovered that I had made my second sale and totally ignored someone. I was really fortunate the person I sold too didn't have a clue what to do and so had patiently waited (well not patiently -lots of emails:o) but they hadn't left negative feedback. Once I explained and apologised they were brilliant - I refunded the postal charge by way of apology and as a gesture of goodwill.

frivolous_fay · 17 January 2007 at 8:33PM

It's not to do with verification - they probably need to upgrade their paypal account to a premier account.

funkyfunkymonkey · 17 January 2007 at 9:44PM

I had this happen to me once, a little while ago. Once you have sent the payment you can't cancel it, you have to wait 28 days (I think) until the money is automatically returned to you.

For them to claim the money they may need to 'add' the email address to their paypal account. I have several email accounts linked to my paypal account for payment from different sources. Fay's suggestion about having a 'premier' account could be it though

FFM

Leanne200 · 17 January 2007 at 11:32PM

Thanks Fay...

.. and Funkyfunkymonkey!

But it is possbile to cancel the payment as I said before, as there is a button on the paypal transaction in my account which says 'pending payment' - 'cancel'.

I have looked on paypal and this is what it says about Unclaimed payments...

'Unclaimed
This status means the recipient has not received the payment from the sender yet. The reason might be the recipient has not signed up a PayPal account yet or their email address has not been confirmed'.

I think maybe she has not yet confirmed the account, ie. when they put two amounts on your bank statement and then you have to verify your account.

I suppose I will just leave it for a while, and see what happens though, you never know as Hesjane says may be some genuine reason, but i am dubious of relatively new ebayers with barely any feedback.

Avoriaz · 17 January 2007 at 11:33PM

I don’t think you have to wait 28 days to cancel an unaccepted Paypal payment.

I recently bought a supposedly brand new disk drive from a newish ebayer for about £31 plus p&p. He delivered it while I was out and my wife accepted it. It was not brand new, it was 2 ½ years old and well used.

I then saw an email from PayPal telling me that my £35 payment had not yet been accepted. I logged onto Paypal and cancelled the payment.

I then contacted the seller who was apologetic and said it was a genuine error. I was suspicious but I gave him the benefit of the doubt and offered him £15 for the used disk and he accepted that. I sent him £15 via Paypal.

funkyfunkymonkey · 18 January 2007 at 12:10AM

I was speaking from personal experience, I paid for an item and it remained 'unclaimed'. I could not cancel the payment and the seller said they no longer had access to that Paypal account so they could not reject it. I had to pay a second time in order to get the item. In about a month the money came back to my account as 'unclaimed'. It was only for about £3 so I wasn't too concerned - the seller seemed genuine enough, and as it turned out I did get my money back.

I've had a look on Paypal and have found the following:

I sent money about a month ago but it has been returned. Why?
PayPal cancels unclaimed transactions after 30 days and returns the funds to the sender's account. If you sent a payment to someone and that person has not claimed the money, you may attempt to resend the money again using PayPal's Send Money tab. You may also want to contact the recipient to ensure the payment will be claimed.

It does seem that you can cancel an unclaimed payment, but when I had the problem there was no 'cancel' button available - for whatever reason.

Can I cancel a payment that I've already sent?
You can only cancel unclaimed payments. If your payment is complete, please contact the recipient of the payment to request a refund.

Unclaimed payments can be cancelled for the following reasons:

A payment sent to an email address is not associated with a PayPal account. Once the email address is added to a PayPal account, the payment is automatically credited to the balance of that account

A payment is sent to a recipient with an unconfirmed email address. For security reasons, PayPal can only credit payments sent to a confirmed email address.

FFM

glossy123 · 18 January 2007 at 12:37AM

I think it is worth bearing in mind that not everyone is as keen as us to check their e-mails.

I sent a payment to a US buyer (which was actually an agreed partial refund) and it took him nearly 3 weeks to "accept" it, but it was simply that he hadn't logged on in the meantime. Considering that you mention the seller has only 1 feedback, they may not be very experienced, and may not log on regularly.
I have only had this issue of claiming or accepting payment on foreign currency transactions so can't comment on the ins and outs of what level of account etc. but would just say unless it is a desperate urgent sale or purchase, sometimes a little patience is worth a lot!:cool:

Avoriaz · 18 January 2007 at 3:29AM

funkyfunkymonkey wrote:

I was speaking from personal experience, I paid for an item and it remained 'unclaimed'. I could not cancel the payment and the seller said they no longer had access to that Paypal account so they could not reject it. …..

Hi funkyfunkymonkey, we can only speak from our own personal experiences.;)

How did you try and cancel the payment?

I opened up my Paypal account, selected “View account History” and that brought up a screen with all my recent transactions.

Under the Status column they all showed “Completed” except for one which from memory showed “Unclaimed”.

I clicked on “Unclaimed” or whatever it was and then had the option to cancel, which I did.

Maybe you tried to cancel it from the ebay sales confirmation page.

soolin · 18 January 2007 at 8:42AM

Avoriaz wrote:

Hi funkyfunkymonkey, How did you try and cancel the payment?

I opened up my Paypal account, selected “View account History” and that brought up a screen with all my recent transactions.

Under the Status column they all showed “Completed” except for one which from memory showed “Unclaimed”.

I clicked on “Unclaimed” or whatever it was and then had the option to cancel, which I did.

Maybe you tried to cancel it from the ebay sales confirmation page.

If you see this bit from post a couple above it explains when an unclaimed payment *can* be called back:

Unclaimed payments can be cancelled for the following reasons:

A payment sent to an email address is not associated with a PayPal account. Once the email address is added to a PayPal account, the payment is automatically credited to the balance of that account

A payment is sent to a recipient with an unconfirmed email address. For security reasons, PayPal can only credit payments sent to a confirmed email address.

Therefore if the payment has gone to an email address on paypal where there is an associated paypal account it cannot be called back. It will just bounce back on day 30 if unclaimed. This is what happened to me. I was dealing with an underage seller who had tried to set up a paypal account, so address was 'live' in paypal but had not been able to set up the banking stuff needed. So she couldn't access the paypal account to return my pyment as the set up procedure was not complete, yet the email address on paypal was valid.

Darned nuisance it was too...I think her parents definitely regretted the day they let her lose on the internet if the phone call I had with them was anything to go by.

smartie1976 · 18 January 2007 at 11:19AM

Leanne200 wrote:

I have had no reply and it has been 2 days...

Really I am wondering what I do if I hear nothing at all... do I cancel the payment? Or will I get in trouble with Ebay for not paying, or will they know that I have tried to pay?

Or do I leave the payment pending and file a dispute? If so under what would I file the dispute?

Im so confused, I hope someone can help! Thanks

Please remember that you have 7 days to pay, and then the seller has 7 days to send it out.
You can do nothing until day 8 after payment, and raising a dispute because you wanted it urgently will hold no water as (assuming the seller sends it in time) the seller will have complied with ebay T&C, unless you agreed prior to the sale that you needed it urgently. And even then it's unlikely.

Unclaimed paypal payments... what to do?

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