Sale says paid, no record in Paypal.

[triber]

When I got up this morning I found a sale at 3.40 a.m. Says paid, no message from Paypal

I checked Paypal, no record of the payment.

Checked eBay, there is a mark that  denoted paid.

What do I do, is it safe to mail?

[momcqueen]

Not yet.

When you check the listing that sold, can you confirm payment went to the correct email address?

What happens when you hover on the paid symbol? Does it show additional information?

You might have to call eBay for an explanation.

[triber]

It doesn't show any additional information, just paid to my Paypal account. I guess I will have to call Paypal rather than eBay. I have sent a message to the buyer and asked them to check whether the payment went through on their account.

[ricarmic · Accepted solution]

This has happened to me before, though not for a while.

In those times it was only a couple hours or so until it showed up in PAYPAL. Fortunately in the times it has happened to me so far it has not impacted my shipping schedule.

I'm with Momc, I would not ship until the $$$ arrive in PAYPAL.

If it is going to impact your shipping, I would send a message to the buyer explaining that whilst it shows as paid in eBay, the payment has not yet reached PAYPAL and you may need their help to get after eBay to fix it.

Hopefully it resolves itself before any of this is needed......

[ricarmic]

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@triber wrote:

It doesn't show any additional information, just paid to my Paypal account. I guess I will have to call Paypal rather than eBay. I have sent a message to the buyer and asked them to check whether the payment went through on their account.

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As far as I know this is an eBay problem, not a PAYPAL problem, however we all know that eBay will say it's PAYPALs fault and PAYPAL will say it's eBay's fault......

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

Does anyone of a recent record for how long it normally takes for e checks to clear?Just had one in Canada take 8 days. Is that the average?

-Lotz

[triber]

I have been on the phone with eBay and Paypal together, they can't find a payment, they tried hard to find out what happened. According to eBay, it has been paid for, that was 9 hours ago. They told me to contact the buyer again  and get a transaction number, but he hasn't replied to my first message.

I can't mail it anyway, the address would be on the Paypal transaction, so there is nothing I can do except wait.

[reallynicestamps]

When a transaction is in cash (like a Local Pickup) either party can mark it as Paid in eBay.

Whether or not any actual payment has been made.

While this could be a glitch, it also could be a scammer trying to get you to mail something that he has no intention of paying for.

Given your customer demographic of seamstresses and quilters, this is unlikely, but....

Never ship until the money is in your Paypal account.  (I don't even consider it sold until I see the money in my PP account.

E-cheques from foreign accounts, including the USA, can take up to 10 days to clear, just as moving a PP balance to your Canadian bank can take 4-5 days although only one day for movement of a USD balance to a USbank account.

[brettjet38]

You could also mark it as unpaid and then wait until it shows up in your PayPal, if it does not in a few days open an unpaid item request.

The Buyer could have marked it payed themselves, maybe they will send a check...

But under no circumstances would I ship until the payment is actually recived and cleared.

[triber]

No I can't ship anyway Brett, the address would be on Paypal and there is no payment there. When I check my eBay sellers account, it says there is a payment, but if I click on the transaction payment, it takes me to a Paypal page on how to pay.

reallynicestamps: I doubt it's a scammer, there are 11,800 feedbacks, and 50+ in the last month, no mention of problems.

[brettjet38]

In your Paypal do you see any "Pending" transactions or notifications on the little bell? It usually appears at the top of the page on a desktop.

"When I check my eBay sellers account, it says there is a payment, but if I click on the transaction payment, it takes me to a Paypal page on how to pay."

I wonder why it takes you to a page on how to pay? 

[pjcdn2005]

If they have actually paid then the address on the ebay order details would be the same as the address you would see in paypal. But I would also hesitate to pay if there was no payment showing in Paypal.

[triber]

No Brett, there are no pending transactions, nothing. The rep at eBay could see that the buyer had made a purchase and that it said paid, but the Paypal rep couldn't see a transaction on Paypal. It was a 3-way conversation, but they couldn't find a solution.

[reallynicestamps]

@triber 

I doubt it's a scammer, there are ... 50+ in the last month...

Good.

Sometimes we go a little further than the original question, because more people view these threads than respond to them and may need the additional information.

[triber]

Thanks for your reply, I never thought it was a scammer, it is a bit of a mystery. The rep at Paypal said that there have been some problems with old email addresses of sellers coming up, but that would only be a problem if I was missing the Paypal confirmation email,  not the whole transaction. Plus I have had the same email address for about 18 years.

[recped]

Have you checked the listing for the payment/PayPal email address, it is probably ok but if a gremlin got in there somehow it would show paid on eBay and be in limbo on PayPal.......

[triber]

There is no payment to check, so no way to check the email address.

[pocomocomputing]

Recped said to check the PayPal email address in the eBay listing to make sure it is correct. This email address is where the PayPal payment is sent and should be the one in PayPay.

Unlikely the email address changed in the eBay listing but if it did, the payment is in limbo because it has no where to go.

[triber]

Well, the payment finally arrived, and the buyer responded to my messages. She said that her husband always does the transactions and he is out of the country, so she didn't understand what happened.

The sale confirmation came at 3.45 a.m. yesterday, but the payment today came in at 11.55 p.m. yesterday, so obviously the payment wasn't made at the time of purchase. Not sure from her replies if she did something to fix it, or if Paypal did it. They did say that they were going to contact the buyer through their email address.

Anyway, all is well and I can finally get the package in the mail.

[ricarmic]

Personally, I think this was an ebay glitch.

I have had them take several hours between ebay saying it was paid and actually showing up in PAYPAL. I don't remember any being this long. This has happened to me at least a couple times in the last 6 months.

I do not think the buyer did anything, I'm sure they paid when they bought it.