Bushwalk Australia

Has anyone had issues with PP recently?

I appreciate that my account is rarely used. However, a week ago I was advised that my funds would be released in 3 to 5 days. After the appointed time had elapsed-funds still on hold. After further enquiry (and a response time of 20 hours) I am advised that funds will be released within 21 days.

So apparently they just make up the rules as they go???

It can be tough for accounts that don't get used often. They have the "general guidelines" and the "what can actually happen" which is a lot more complex. They have a lot of rules to follow, and right now probably a few less people to get things done. As far as feeling like the rules are made up on the fly, I get that too. The fact that the rules can be hard to find is a separate issue. Considering the costs of a normal expedited bank transfer with the same insurances and protections, we can't have it all. Hope it doesn't take the whole three weeks.

Well, it is what it is - I appreciate there are far worse issues in the world. But would’ve appreciated having the correct information first up. It’s very misleading.
Would have been faster to receive and bank a cheque!
How much interest does PP earn on held funds???

The process can be slow for reasons beyond Paypal as well.
In the past I have had transfers out (had left the account) of Paypal take a week to show in my bank account.
Apparently this was owing to the bank taking their time to reconcile or some such thing.

Given the interest rates I expect they earn very little!

Banks do take their own time to reconcile as mentioned above. Haven't experienced menu issues myself and (to my bank balances detriment) my account is used far too often.

Another rant regarding this lot. Beware that transactions can be processed even if there are no funds in your PayPal account. What a wonderful feature! Not really.

Certainly this would have been flagged in one of the many updates to terms and conditions that I didn’t read. I’m glad my linked bank account was only a debit account which didn’t have much in it at the time.

Received texts stating “you have made a payment to Xxxxx” with a reference/link to click on. Thought they were spam and deleted them. Shortly after I checked my emails and discovered that Mr Xxxxxx had indeed initiated a transaction, had also opened a dispute from my PayPal account and then told PayPal that I didn’t want to proceed with the dispute.

Funds had then been debited from my bank account which was overdrawn for several days.

Lodged another dispute which was resolved in my favour same day. Transaction was determined to be unauthorised.

Through a comedy of errors, or so I thought at the time, funds were returned to me twice, then back to PayPal twice, and finally back to me once. Closed my PP account. End of story?! No.

Started getting phone calls from USA, didn’t answer them as scam calls have been so prolific recently. The odd automated voice message regarding my PP account, didn’t even listen to the full messages as again I thought they were scam calls. I answered the calls once or twice just to string them along and laughed at them.

On Friday I answered yet another call and it became evident they were pursuing me for this amount. It was an extremely frustrating call, followed by another call by me to a Sydney number and a person on the other end who was rather more helpful but still the same end result. Lodged a complaint with “escalations” who can apparently only see 3 of the 6 highlighted transactions on the bank statement I sent them.

Nothing in writing to date, apparently this will be forthcoming shortly. Normally this would be the first step.

Now referred to AFCA. To say I will never use PayPal again is an understatement.

If you don't use your eBay and/or PayPal account often (PayPal especially), they will impose an extra security period before the funds are released. This is in their T&C and should be read.

You should always have money available in any and all bank accounts linked to PayPal. You could well be charged overdraw or penalty fees by your bank, additional to a flag by PayPal. Not having sufficient money in your account, whether it is for an authorised or unauthorised transaction is a breach of trust and the terms of how the banking industry works. That's why there are big fees for dishonours and insufficient fund clearances.

I have been with PayPal since 2001 and never had problems with any transaction. Their systems are much more refined and seamless with eBay than decades ago.

No fees have been applied either by my bank or by PP. And I very much doubt that I can be penalised for having insufficient funds in my account for an unauthorised transaction.

I acknowledge that I should've read the updates to T&C's. I wouldn't have left my bank account linked to PP if that were the case.

PP made "instant payment" to the seller but have refused to say whether they are pursuing him to return the funds. They have finally acknowledged my request for transcripts of phone calls and online chat sessions - they did ignore this request the first couple of times. I'm sure I will need to follow it up though.

I'm not so sure about being penalised for having insufficient funds for an un authorised transaction.
What if it's for $100000?
Doubt you can get fined for not having money for someone else to spend.

Resolved in my favour thanks to AFCA.

Without any admission of liability by PayPal, of course - which is never going to be forthcoming. The best outcome I can hope for.