Hourglass where payment should show. Very confused.

[jjjwar]

 Just purchased an item and payed by PayPal using my PayPal balance. PayPal says payment was made and the money is gone from my account. 

eBay purchase details show payment was made but on My Ebay page for purchases it shows an hourglass and say " payment being processed ". Also strangely when I got to the auction page and click on where it says 1 sold ( seller has more than one of the item ) sometimes it says " Unauthorized item number " and sometimes it shows I purchased the item.

I sent a message to the seller and a copy of the message to my email address. The copy to my email has a link to pay for the item like I have not paid. When I click the link I get an error message on the eBay site.

I called PayPal and they say payment was made to the seller and it is my understanding he received the funds in his PayPal account.

What is going on? Very confused. Never had this problem before.

[femmefan1946]

The most likely problem is that the seller made a typo in his Paypal address (which is an email address, as you know).

This is not uncommon with new sellers.

Does the seller's feedback show completed sales  (not purchases)?

Wait for the seller's response.

Hmmm-- does the seller's Shipping page definitely allow shipping to Canada? Some US sellers will not allow non-US PP payments because they have to pay 4.4% in fees instead of 2.9%.

[jjjwar]

It is a Canadian Seller with 128 feedback. No completed sales in his feedback but a couple of negatives for unrelated small things.

[jjjwar]

Update. Called eBay and they know about the hourglass issue. They said it is and issue between PayPal and Ebay. Told me I need to resolve it by contacting the seller and PayPal. 

eBay should be fixing the issue and not putting it on me. I sent the seller a second message. Have yet to hear from the seller. If I do not hear from the seller in a day or so I am going to try and cancel the purchase and take what ever steps are needed to get my money back. 

As for eBay and PayPal well I have had enough of both and their glitches and useless customer service.

[jjjwar]

Well spent the morning trying to get eBay to correct the problem. They admit it is an eBay/PayPal problem but offer zero help. I was told it is up to me to solve the issue. WOW...

Was told to get seller to cancel the order as I cannot after an hour has passed from making the purchase.

Contacted seller who told me I have to cancel the order. ????? Also said his page shows order as not paid for. After many messages the seller only replies I have to cancel the order which I am unable to do as eBay no long gives me that option.

I have an email from eBay and PayPal confirming the order was paid for. A call to PayPal customer service also confirmed the seller got my payment. Strangely eBay still shows an hourglass where the dollar sign should be. Even at the bottom of my messages to the seller it shows a picture of the purchase and some info and that the purchase was paid for by PayPal.

It seems my only option is to wait and then file a dispute with PayPal as at this rate it seems I will be getting nothing for my $102 dollars.

Sadly it seems customer service by both eBay and PayPal is very poor if nothing at all.

[femmefan1946]

FWIW The PP Resolution Centre is hidden under Tools at the top of your PP account page.

You can open an Item Not Received dispute  at any time after payment for 180 days .
PP may want to allow time for the seller to prove shipping or delivery before refunding.

I understand that the seller is not being helpful, but is he only looking at his eBay account or has he bothered to look at his PP account which should show the payment?

[jjjwar]

The seller admitted the money is in his paypal account. He tried to cancel the purchase and refund me but because I filed a complaint with paypal ebay would not let him.

The seller wanted me to close the dispute so he could cancel the purchase and so ebay would refund me. I was unsure about that and called paypal. They suggested I close the dispute and file again if the seller does not refund me.

Sadly now I know that was a mistake. Cannot refile. Not sure why paypal told me I could. I did not know as I never had to file a dispute before.

Paypal knows I paid for the purchase as my paypal page shows I did and when I called paypal they confirmed it. I also have an email receipt from ebay showing I paid. The seller sent me a screen shot of his ebay page were it says payment was not made.

I called paypal and they said the seller has to refund me. Know the seller has shown he has tried to cancel the purchase. As for not being able to refund me via paypal because of funds on hold I do not understand that part.

So far ebay has been 100% useless in the matter. They admit it is a ebay/paypal issue but told me if I want my money back or want to complete the purchase I have to deal with the seller. They will not help. They also told me paypal will cancel my payment but paypal says they cannot and the seller must refund me.

The seller says he will try and cancel the purchase with ebay again tomorrow and make sure I get a refund. I for the most part feel I am just getting the shaft from all three parties. They all blame the other and give me useless help.

I also do not understand why if the seller knows my payment is in his paypal account  he cannot just mark the purchase as paid and ship my the item. ????????

[femmefan1946]

The seller wanted me to close the dispute so he could cancel the purchase and so ebay would refund me.

NO!!!

That is a scam.

One way of ending the Dispute was to refund promptly. Hold or no hold.

I really hope you back your PP account with a credit card. If you do you can go to the card and ask for a chargeback.  Card policies differ, so I can't go further than that.

With disputes the buyer's first dispute is filed with eBay.

If that fails, you can go to Paypal.

And the credit card chargeback is the last resort.

If you start with PP, eBay will not consider your complaint.  If you start with a chargeback, neither PP nor eBay will consider your complaint.

[jjjwar]

Sadly I could not file a complaint through eBay. because of the hourglass symbol where the dollar symbol should be eBay considers the purchase not paid for. When I try and file a complaint eBay say " payment problem, contact Paypal ". PayPal wanted me to file with eBay first.

[pjcdn2005]

tyler@ebay 

Any suggestions for this buyer?

[tyler@ebay]

Thanks for the page @pjcdn2005!

Hi @jjjwar - I'm sorry this ended up being such a frustrating situation. It sounds like a really unusual one-off. I'm not certain from the sound of things if the seller had an issue on their PayPal account that prevented processing or if our system took an extra long time to validate that your payment had fully processed. 

Given that it still shows as pending the only thing I can think of is to ask the seller to cancel the transaction so that you can get the money back and then consider repurchasing the item. 

[jjjwar]

After another call to PayPal which got me no where I contacted the seller again. The seller finally admitted they did for sure receive my payment.  They also said they were now finally able to refund me. 

The good news is after about an hour I got my refund.

Not sure why they just did not cancel the purchase in the first place and dragged things out. The seller also seemed to be hoping I would try making the purchase again. Was not going to happen. I got the wife to use her eBay account and purchase the same item from another seller and pay using a credit card. She does not have a PayPal account and has no interest in getting one.

I am happy it got sorted out and I got my refund. I am not happy that the hourglass problem is a known problem to eBay and it has not been fixed. I am also not happy with customer service from both Ebay and Paypal. Seeing as the problem was known to eBay they should be doing more to help people effected by the problem. More so as the hourglass issue ( processing payment ) removed all my options on eBay to file a complaint.As for PayPal customer service I was given conflicting info by their phone people. One even told me I could use the PayPal online chat feature which seems to not exist.

Lesson learned from this. I will no longer use my PayPal balance to pay for anything. Too risky. From now on I will have a credit card attached to my PayPal account and any money in my PayPal account will be sent to my bank account ASAP. I have also read all the recent info on PayPal Disputes and Claims.

The most frustrating part of the whole thing is it could have been solved in less than 30 minutes but the seller choose to drag it out for almost 2 days.