Paypal refused payment, then processed, now bank will charge me, what can i do?

lilrowan

Someone please help me. I am at my wits end. I recently bought an item amounting to £60 quid and seller said they accepted paypal. I tried to pay by credit card which was refused as he didnt accept them. I then paid by debit card, and they did not accept that either. However, it has been refused on my Paypal account but has been processed by the bank and not returned. This has now taken me over my limit and i will be charged £28 as a result. I called Paypal customer services, which is National Rate and daylight robbery, was left in a queue for 11 mins which i guess i paid for. The operator could barely speak English and told me it wasnt their problem and that it could take up to 30 days for it to be refunded.

How can I speak to a British person (cheaper if poss) or does anyone have an address i can write to?

I did cry after this conversation because I hate bank charges and just when i thought my finances were in order I get spoke to like poop by someone who offers 'customer service'.

soolin

THis is a problem you really need to be taking up with your seller. If they said they accepted paypal then they should have accepted it however funded, paypal have taken the amount that you paid from your card quite correctly.

I don't quite understand what has happened to the £60 now though, if it was used to pay the seller and refused by the seller then it should be back in your paypal account and can be withdrawn to your own bank, which admittedly might take up to 6 days.

The 30 days bit is puzzling me, that would imply that the seller has no paypal account at all and therefore your payment is sitting in an account to which no one has access and will bounce back in 30 days. There is no way round that, I had it happen to me with a very dim seller who said they accepted paypal and never actually set up an account so my payment couldn't be returned for 30 days.

Soo

masonic

Sellers are not allowed to specifically refuse credit card payments through paypal - see this page. I would therefore file a non-performing seller complaint against the seller.

Edit: By the way, how long has it been since your debit card payment? I've known it to take 3-4 days for a refund to show up in my bank account.

redsi72

lilrowan wrote:

Someone please help me. I am at my wits end. I recently bought an item amounting to £60 quid and seller said they accepted paypal. I tried to pay by credit card which was refused as he didnt accept them. I then paid by debit card, and they did not accept that either. However, it has been refused on my Paypal account but has been processed by the bank and not returned. This has now taken me over my limit and i will be charged £28 as a result. I called Paypal customer services, which is National Rate and daylight robbery, was left in a queue for 11 mins which i guess i paid for. The operator could barely speak English and told me it wasnt their problem and that it could take up to 30 days for it to be refunded.

How can I speak to a British person (cheaper if poss) or does anyone have an address i can write to?

I did cry after this conversation because I hate bank charges and just when i thought my finances were in order I get spoke to like poop by someone who offers 'customer service'.

Hi,
if you think you have done no wrong but your bank have taken charges for the transaction try talkin 2 them nicely.
My missus is a counter manager and deals with this a lot. If the bank think u r being genuine, they have the power 2 refund charges as a good will jesture to a valuable customer (any customer is valuable). DO NOT GET ANGRY WITH THEM they r human - go 4 the sympathy vote. Write a nice beggin letter if u cant get to ur branch - uv got nothin 2 lose.
Not that they get it but some people have asked 4 the bank to pay parking fines because it took so long 2 get served! At least they tried !!!!!!!!

soolin

I'm still not sure reading the OP whether 2 payments were taken from the bank account, the post appears to suggest that one payment was taken when she used her debit card to pay on the 2nd attempt. If that is correct then the overdraft is correct as using a debit card will of course debit the bank account.

Assuming that there is only one payment here in dispute then the problem lies with the seller. Firstly for refusing the credit card payment, then for refusing a debit card payment as well.

The second payment could be the first payment that was paid by credit card, but that wouldn't have affected the bank balance, but maybe what has happened is that the credit card payment was accepted by paypal (which is right) and refused by the seller (which is bad), but before that was returned a second payment was made by debit card which was accepted by paypal (which is correct) and refused by the seller (which is bad).

However, as you can tell I am a bit confused and would suggest that the oP clarifies the situation as we all might be able to give much clearer advice.

It is worth saying though that if the OP correctly authorised two payments paypal would be correct in having accepted them for onward transmission to the seller.

Soo

Turning_into_scrooge

lilrowan wrote:

Someone please help me. I am at my wits end. I recently bought an item amounting to £60 quid and seller said they accepted paypal. I tried to pay by credit card which was refused as he didnt accept them. I then paid by debit card, and they did not accept that either. However, it has been refused on my Paypal account but has been processed by the bank and not returned. This has now taken me over my limit and i will be charged £28 as a result. I called Paypal customer services, which is National Rate and daylight robbery, was left in a queue for 11 mins which i guess i paid for. The operator could barely speak English and told me it wasnt their problem and that it could take up to 30 days for it to be refunded.

How can I speak to a British person (cheaper if poss) or does anyone have an address i can write to?

I did cry after this conversation because I hate bank charges and just when i thought my finances were in order I get spoke to like poop by someone who offers 'customer service'.

If you contact your bank and write them a nice letter explaining that the charges were not your fault and explain the full circumstances of what happend the chances are they will refund them to you.

lilrowan

To clarify: I am not worried about the credit card payment as it was returned straight away and wouldn't really affect anything if it didn't anyway. I am worried that I will get charged by the bank (as the seller rejected the payment as they don't want to upgrade their account) because it got processed but not refunded in the same day. It has taken me over the limit and i will be charged £28. For everyone advising to speak to the bank, thank you, I have tried, but they won't waive as they waived one a month or so ago due to my electricity supplier taking payments when they should have been stopped. As they did that out of good will they say they can't do another.
I will however go to the bank and chat face to face with someone and show them all the print outs etc. Hopefully they will see through my effort and will then waive it.

I hope this makes it clearer? I am confused myself!

soolin

I'm still not clear about this. You paid by debit card knowing this would overdraw your account? That is a problem obviously but nothing to do with paypal. The fact that the seller refused the payment is another matter entirely and should be dealt with, however, you do appear to be saying that you made a payment from your bank account that overdrew you?

If the buyer had accepted the payment then you would still be overdrawn, the fact that they won't accept the payment is a different problem entirely.

Soo

lilrowan

no, i paid with the money there, then i got an email saying it had been refused, so I thought that was that (no money leaves the account). I then drew the money out to get a postal order. When i checked the account a few days after, the payment had been processed a day or so after ( and hadn't been returned). I thought if it had been rejected the money wouldn't leave my account at all, which is why i got the cash instead so i could pay them another way.

soolin

lilrowan wrote:

no, i paid with the money there, then i got an email saying it had been refused, so I thought that was that (no money leaves the account). I then drew the money out to get a postal order. When i checked the account a few days after, the payment had been processed a day or so after ( and hadn't been returned). I thought if it had been rejected the money wouldn't leave my account at all, which is why i got the cash instead so i could pay them another way.

Thank you, that's what I wasn't sure about.

Unfortunately then you are unlikely to get any result from either paypal or the bank. The bank correctly acted on your debit instructions and paypal correctly accepted that payment. Your real problem here is the seller and I think if you haven't already sent the postal orders that you need to think very carefully about whether you want to proceed.

Firstly, if she advertised paypal and then refused it she is breaking both ebay and paypal terms and conditions. By asking you to send her postal orders you are leaving yourself open to problems in that you have no security net if she fails to deliver your goods. She has now cost you a considerable amount of money both in bank charges and postal order charges and at this point I would have lost faith entirely with the seller.

If you have already sent the postal orders I hope you retained the receipt part in case of a claim of non receipt by the seller.

Soo

lilrowan

An update: unfortunately I had sent the postal orders and I received the item. My bf is unhappy with it as it is not in the condition described. I am so annoyed, it is the first problem I have ever had with ebay. He also says he doubts my honesty about some things, which is hilarious as I haven't lied about anything (what exactly I could have lied about I'm not sure). He says I should keep a watch on my finances: I reminded him the I'm a MSE'er! I went overdrawn because he kept rejecting my payments which then got processed, and he breached his rules! He won't come to a compromise over the bank charges so it looks as though I will be £30 out of pocket. Excellent.

Thanks for all your help on here, it has really helped me clarify who is in the wrong, and I have recommended the forum to everyone I winge about this matter to!