PayPal advice needed!

[Tomteriffic]

Hey folks, I'm, like the sign says:

<------------------------- A really, really OLD member, and I had a Senior Moment today, and now I could use some advice if anybody has any.

Here's the skinny. I bought something on Evilbay. In the process of paying the seller, I goofed.

My checking account and my main credit card both have the same last four digits. I got excited and paid the guy out of my checking account (which has the credit card as the backup funding source).

I had intended to pay with the credit card, but got excited, didn't check the fine print and paid from my checking account instead. Which wiped it out and then some.

The seller was WAY cool and refunded me within a matter of minutes and I paid him again with the CC as I had intended in the first place. All is cool and my rare guitar is paid for and will be on it's way Monday.

HERE'S the rub. Since I paid from the Checking account, PayPal is putting a hold on the funds until they get them from my checking account (because it was an instant transfer kind of thing). What'll happen then is the funds will be available in my PayPal account. THEN I have to move them back to my checking account. Total elapsed time: close to two weeks would be a good guess.

This, as they say, SUXORS! I'm broke because PayPal wants to make a few bucks playing the float with my money that is going FROM me, TO me.

Anybody know a way to short-circuit this and just get PayPal to forget the whole thing ever happened? I'm gonna get his with an NSF charge and who knows what on top of it all.

[Atomic Rooster]

Try either emailing or calling them and explaining your situation. It can't hurt.

[MDS]

could call the bank and block the withdrawl of the funds, Paypal don't like it but I have done it before.

[MTAtech]

I don't think it takes two wks. Once the funds are back in your PP acct, it should be only 2-3 days. BTW, you just figured out how to borrow on a credit card at no interest.

You PayPal $$$ from the credit card to a friend and the friend refunds the money back to PP and you put it in your acct as cash. Of course, there may be interchange fees I wasn't counting on.

[Tomteriffic]

MTA, I thought of that no interest borrow from the CC trick

I called PayPal and this is how it went, which may turn out OK.

1) Since I initially paid from my checking account, AND, since there wasn't enough in there to cover the payment, my bank probably would have denied the draw, anyway. I'll have to wait until Monday to see. I don't have overdraft protection that I know of.

2) PayPal, despite the "backup funding source" thingie on there, does NOT split a payment between a primary and secondary source of funding, (like, taking what it can from my checking account and hitting the credit card for the shortfall) and so would not go after my CC for the difference.

Therefore that whole first transaction may just wind up being a no-go anyway. No harm, no foul. I'll have to call my bank on Monday and make sure they didn't "do me a favor" and send the funds to PayPal anyway, even though I was short. I may get hit with an NSF charge anyhow, but that's minor, compared to the damage I could have done to myself.

[Tomteriffic]

Oh, almost forgot, PayPal said, though that, should the checking account thing have gone through, I'm hosed on the "hold period" No can fixee.

[shahani]

Another reason I never use paypal. They always finangle a situation to their advantage, not the buyer or seller.

[Starfury_2260]

It always takes a few days to do money transfers, because of the bank having to go through all that stuff. It's not really paypal holding onto the money it's the bank taking a few days to actually complete the transfer (or reject it perhaps in your case). I think the banks should be able to do this faster than the 2 or 3 days it takes them.

[ConnieIL]

I hate PayPal. I hate Ebay. I hate Discover. I bought a video card on Ebay. Received a sealed (or should I say resealed) PNY box with crap in it. Whoops, I mean a bunch of white pieces of paper, and an old, used sound card. Seller, Xfactor 973, refused to do anything, even though I showed him his box was too light to have had the correct item. He wasn't the only one. Ebay wants to charge me $25 for a processing fee, Paypal was no help (since all they do is shift funds), and Discover told me it was like purchasing something out of an ATM machine - they can't guarantee what I buy with cash. So it's nobody's problem. I always thought I had some level of protection with my CC. Sent the package back, but still trying to solve this, since I don't want to lose more money.

[Starfury_2260]

You know you're taking a chance any time you buy from people off ebay. I wouldn't buy from someone with only a rating of 12 anyway.