Paypal refund on hold

Becles

Probably me just misunderstanding things rather than a vent!

I sent some money to someone as a "friends and family" gift with no fee, but for some reason it went as an e-cheque and had a fee attached. They didn't want to wait for the e-cheque to clear so they refunded me the payment.

I tried it again and that time it went though as an instant payment with no fees.

PayPal then collected two lots of money from my bank account. I logged into PayPal and it says the refund is on hold. My balance is zero and the refund looks completed from the other persons side and it's not in their balance.

Where has the money gone and how long will it be on hold for?

soolin

Becles wrote: »

Probably me just misunderstanding things rather than a vent!

I sent some money to someone as a "friends and family" gift with no fee, but for some reason it went as an e-cheque and had a fee attached. They didn't want to wait for the e-cheque to clear so they refunded me the payment.

I tried it again and that time it went though as an instant payment with no fees.

PayPal then collected two lots of money from my bank account. I logged into PayPal and it says the refund is on hold. My balance is zero and the refund looks completed from the other persons side and it's not in their balance.

Where has the money gone and how long will it be on hold for?

This would probably have been better placed on the eBay board.

However, a friends and family payment only works free of charge if you use an existing PayPal balance, if you fund from a card or bank account then money is taken from the bank, goes boa PayPal as an echeque and has to wait to clear. It also incurs a fee.

That echeque now still has to clear, go back to PayPal and then back to your bank, so could take up to 10 days. If it clears and remains in your PayPal account then it should be quite. Bit quicker. How exactly did your relative 'refund' ? Hopefully they just refused/sent back the original payment.

The second payment went through either because by then you had money in your account, or because the delay meant that the first payment had already been claimed by PayPal so they basically used that as cleared funds.

Becles

There was no money in my PayPal account.

The first payment went as an instant transfer from my bank account. That was the e-cheque one. The receiver refunded it immediately as they noticed it wasn't instant and the fee was showing. They pressed the issue a refund button.

I then sent it again straight away using instant bank transfer and it went through instantly with no fee.

When I logged onto my online banking, I noticed two payments had left my bank account. Then I logged into Paypal to find the refund was on hold.

It was a large amount and it's left me short of money. Lesson learned the hard way I guess!

takman

Why didn't you just send it as a bank transfer to start with and not use PayPal at all. It would have been far easier!

marliepanda

soolin wrote: »

This would probably have been better placed on the eBay board.

However, a friends and family payment only works free of charge if you use an existing PayPal balance, if you fund from a card or bank account then money is taken from the bank, goes boa PayPal as an echeque and has to wait to clear. It also incurs a fee.

That echeque now still has to clear, go back to PayPal and then back to your bank, so could take up to 10 days. If it clears and remains in your PayPal account then it should be quite. Bit quicker. How exactly did your relative 'refund' ? Hopefully they just refused/sent back the original payment.

The second payment went through either because by then you had money in your account, or because the delay meant that the first payment had already been claimed by PayPal so they basically used that as cleared funds.

Not true.

You can send friends and family for free funded by a debit card.

You can send it by credit card but there's a fee, but it's not a echeque.

Becles

takman wrote: »

Why didn't you just send it as a bank transfer to start with and not use PayPal at all. It would have been far easier!

I wish I had now! It would have been much easier and I wouldn't have been left short.