PayPal Wierdness?

OldePhart

OldePhart

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I've sent money by PayPal many times, and received a few payments though it's been a few years since I sold anything. Somebody just tried to send me payment for my KoAloha concert and when I logged into PayPal my account is showing the payment as pending, then released, then reversed, all apparently within the space of a few minutes, and the message says "Don't ship the item. We've completed the Payment Review and canceled the payment because it may not have been authorized by the PayPal account holder."

Has anybody seen this before - it looks like it is some automatic check that PayPal made - but what were they checking? The only thing I can think that might be a little strange is that the payment was sent to one of my PayPal secondary addresses instead of the primary - but that's because the primary is an old address that I haven't been able to change since that ISP account was closed long ago. The payment showed up in my account, however briefly, so obviously it had a valid destination - what gives?

Is there something that I need to set on my account to say, "hey, it's okay to recieve large payments?"

John
 
Sounds like somebody may be using an unauthorized account to send payment. Have you used the secondary account to send cash, previously?
 
didgeridoo2 said:
Sounds like somebody may be using an unauthorized account to send payment. Have you used the secondary account to send cash, previously?
Click to expand...

I don't think it's a scammer, he's a long-time denizen of UU. I think it's some wierdness either with the way he's trying to make payment or with my account. I've sent money many times since abandoning the old primary e-mail address - in fact the account has four e-mail addresses - two of which are still valid and two of which are from old ISP accounts from many years ago. The idiotic PayPal system won't let me edit or remove the primary address because to do so you have to receive and respond to a confirmation e-mail at that address. Kind of hard to do when the address doesn't exist anymore.

What I'm guessing at this point is that maybe because the payment is coming to a secondary address and it's a large payment they're thinking something is strange on my end - in spite of the fact that there haven't been any changes to the account in a long time and I regularly send fairly large sums from it.

:(

John
 
I'd wait until payment clears. If in doubt, call Payment.
 
OldePhart said:
What I'm guessing at this point is that maybe because the payment is coming to a secondary address and it's a large payment they're thinking something is strange on my end - in spite of the fact that there haven't been any changes to the account in a long time and I regularly send fairly large sums from it.
Click to expand...
I don't think the problem's on your end.

A couple possibilities... Perhaps they're "unverified" and this transaction put them over their limit? Maybe the transaction involved putting some funds onto their credit card and it's been long enough since they entered their info that the cc expiration date on file has passed even though they're received a valid replacement card?

My best suggestion would be to contact the buyer and ask them what's going on with their end.

"The idiotic PayPal system won't let me edit or remove the primary address because to do so you have to receive and respond to a confirmation e-mail at that address. Kind of hard to do when the address doesn't exist anymore."

BTW, I just logged onto my PP acct and saw I had an old ISP addy linked. It was no problem to change. Go to My Account > Profile > Add/Edit Email and you can make any of your addys your primary or delete old ones.
 
Buyer said it was on his end. Looks like it's all cleared up. Thanks all.

Mods, you can close this before it generates into a general paypal complaint thread... LOL

John
 
I'll clear this up as I'm the buyer. I just moved to a new address, but it has no landline so I couldn't confirm it. Thus paypal reversed my payment to make sure it was actually me.

The problem has since been cleared and the payment sent again.

Now for the wait.
 
OldePhart said:
I've sent money by PayPal many times, and received a few payments though it's been a few years since I sold anything. Somebody just tried to send me payment for my KoAloha concert and when I logged into PayPal my account is showing the payment as pending, then released, then reversed, all apparently within the space of a few minutes, and the message says "Don't ship the item. We've completed the Payment Review and canceled the payment because it may not have been authorized by the PayPal account holder."

Has anybody seen this before - it looks like it is some automatic check that PayPal made - but what were they checking? The only thing I can think that might be a little strange is that the payment was sent to one of my PayPal secondary addresses instead of the primary - but that's because the primary is an old address that I haven't been able to change since that ISP account was closed long ago. The payment showed up in my account, however briefly, so obviously it had a valid destination - what gives?

Is there something that I need to set on my account to say, "hey, it's okay to recieve large payments?"

John
Click to expand...

i sent a payment for my koaloha superconcert ona closed account and i reversed it immediately. 3 weeks later paypal is still trying to take money out of my wife's account. If it is being reversed it is ok. that is what I was told by paypal.
 
Happened to me last week when I made a payment to Australia.

I was in China, bank accounts in the US and sending money to Australia.

PP let the first transaction go through, then the bell, whistles, and flares went off at PP and reversed everything, putting a hold on my account.

Got online and went through the verification process and still nothing, so got on the phone with a rep and after about 15 minutes everything cleared and money was sent. The money sent was not released to the buyer for another two days.

PP explained to me in a very professional way that they did this to protect my interests, URL from China (tons of fraud), bank account in US and sending money to a third country (Australia).

While I was initially not very happy with the freeze, understood their position and happy now that they are there to protect both the buyer and seller.
 
In the past two weeks I've sent three e-mails to PayPal about a suspicious e-mail I received.
I have not received any answer. wutz up with that ?
 
Don't get me started about PayPal, I've got a personal vendetta with them that goes way back. 'Nuff said.
 
Pukulele Pete said:
In the past two weeks I've sent three e-mails to PayPal about a suspicious e-mail I received.
I have not received any answer. wutz up with that ?
Click to expand...

If you're just forwarding e-mails that look like phishing they usually don't send you a response (or you get an auto-responder "thanks" message). They have to deal with so many zillions of those that they generally don't respond personally unless there is some specific problem involving your account.

John
 
Thanks all for restoring my (I think very healthy) fear of PayPal.
 
What other options do you have? Do you really want to wire, send something via mail? Paypal is still the best alternative out there
 
nongdam said:
What other options do you have? Do you really want to wire, send something via mail? Paypal is still the best alternative out there
Click to expand...

That's my feeling to. Sending a money order off in the mail leaves me no recourse if the item doesn't show up. The only way I could get refunded if the seller was a scammer would be to go to small claims court. In some other city. Right.
 
tattwo said:
Ive had two of them this week
Click to expand...

I don't understand how you can hold phishing emails - which are sent to you by scammers - against Paypal? I mean, if someone used your name to send a nasty letter to someone else would you feel responsible?

It's great that you forward phishing emails to paypal since it allows them to go research and go after the people that are using their name to scam people, but it's not possible for them to respond to every one you forward. Spammers send out millions - seriously, MILLIONS - of phishing emails per day. If even a tiny fraction of people forward those to the abuse email at paypal that means they would get thousands every day.

I don't think paypal is a saintly company - such a thing doesn't exist. But I don't think that the problem of phishing emails can be attributed to them.
 
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