I would ask this somewhere on the Paypal site but navigating it is awkward and im sure people here are more likely to help.
I’ve used Paypal for approx 8 years, mostly for eBay purchases. I normally find an item, win it and pay straight away with Paypal, the seller gets an immediate payment and then I receive the item. I don’t keep money in the paypal account, instead I let it automatically transfer it from my bank for each transaction.
This worked fine until August. I didnt think anything at the time (because I forgot I bought something and it arrived 2 weeks after I thought i had bought it) however I have just bought something else and followed my usual payment routine. Now paypal says the transaction status is uncleared, expected clearence date is 25th september. 9 days from payment.
Is this something new Paypal are doing ? Iv’e never had to wait for my funds before I could pay for something before (except the other transaction in august), usually it works like credit and I see paypal have deducted the ammount from next months bank statement.
I sell on Ebay occasionally.
I had a transaction ‘electronic check’ a couple of weeks back take 5 days to clear.
I think I sold a college textbook, and I can only imagine an added 5 days to delivery was NOT what the poor student on the other end wanted to have happen.
I emailed them to explain the situation but never heard back… shipped it out first thing the day Paypal told me it cleared.
My confusion with them is they hold back a small % of all my sales in reserve, then clear them much later.
If I sell $500 of my crap off and you don’t trust me enough to give me the $500, why do you trust me enough to give me the first $475 of it?
Seems like they’d hold back 100% for the so many weeks period…
I had a similar situation recently, the credit card I have on file for back-up payment had expired. Even though I had money in the linked bank account, PayPal made sure the transaction to them cleared before they released the funds. Updated the CC info and the next transaction went through instantly, as before. Evidently you have to have 2 sources of funds for PayPal to instantly pay.
FYI, unless the recipient can’t accept it, ALWAYS pay with a credit or debit card.
The process for disputes actually favors buyers more if you pay with plastic AND in case of serious problems, once Paypal investigations are 100% finished and decided against you, you can reverse charges if need be.