501(c)(3) charity had "payment pending"...that disappeared. Please help!

[SheeraK]

Hi,  

I vounteer for an animal rescue, and I just discovered that we have a PayPal account.  After resetting the password, I logged on, and on the dashboard it said "$316 payment pending" from Ebay.  Joy!  I downloaded this info on a spreadsheet.  After clicking around a bit to figure out what pending means and how to get this money to us (I have no idea what this is, TBH), it dissappeared!  I went to Reports and again downloaded a .csv file with the info, and now that payment is gone.  Can anyone give me any idea why this happened, and what this payment is, and if it legit, why did it disappear?  Thanks in advance.

[Quandary]

It's quite possible the payment was cancelled.   A sender can cancel a PayPal payment that is in a "pending" or "unclaimed" status.  These payments will have a status of “Unclaimed” and will show in the “Pending” section of your PayPal account.    If the payment was pending for 30 days, it will be canceled automatically and refunded to sender.