Quick PayPal tip I discovered today

PostHoc25 · 30 August at 5:26PM

I'm new to the forum so apologies if this needs to be moved to a different topic. I looked up and down the list and couldn't figure out where to put this tip/bit of helpful info.

I use PayPal a lot and recently signed up for a 95p one week trial of some software. Looking through the t&c about cancellation, because I used PayPal, I needed to go into PayPal and cancel future automatic payments from there.

Go to settings icon
Then payments
Then Automatic Payments

I saw and cancelled the software trial so I don't get charged £49 in a few days but then saw a huge list of retailers/services I had previously had on auto payment that whilst not actively charging me, still had permission to do so in the future. It displays two lists, Active and Inactive Pre-approved payments.

Lots on my list had not been charged in years, as far back as 2012! So I cancelled them all to be inactive.

If you are concerned about companies having access to your PayPal (I'm thinking in terms of any potential hacking/glitches) then I'd say it's well worth a look to see what companies could potentially charge you.

Again, nothing bad has happened, this is purely an act of caution having been with PayPal for donkeys years - clearly there have been no erroneous charges during all those years, but it's nice to know it's not even a possibility due to tech issues.

I had no clue this page of info even existed :-)

GreenScepter · 30 August at 11:13PM

Thanks for the reminder, it was something I vaguely knew about but never really bothered sorting before now. I just cancelled 14 automatic payment agreements for companies I either don't use anymore, or pay via different methods (my inbox is quite busy with automated paypal emails now!)

There were also a few permissions enabled in the "data and security" section for companies I have nothing to do with anymore, so I cancelled those too.

sausage_time · 31 August at 8:55AM

Very useful, thanks. On the app (Android) I found the list by pressing "Accounts" (bottom bar) then scroll to "Autopay". From there you can click on each payee then "Cancel Subscription".

ircE · 31 August at 3:07PM

Thanks for the tip! You'd think with the way regulations are going these links would be automatically severed after a set period of months/years without active payments...