I incorrectly sent payment to an email address that doesn't exist

[veesix]

I incorrectly sent payment to an email address that doesn't exist. It's currently sitting in my activity log as "Money sent - Pending".

1) Is there any way to simply cancel this payment?

2) If not, how long will it stay in this state?

3) Will my money be held during this period?

[veesix]

Well, it looks like I can answer at least one of my own questions. My bank account shows that I’m out for both the amounts sent to the correct and incorrect emails. It’s a substantial amount and I’m not happy. 😞

[PayPal_Rich]

Hello veesix,

Thanks for reaching out about this payment issue. I'd be happy to provide some information that I hope you will find helpful. If this payment reads as "unclaimed" within the transaction details, you should be able to reverse this transaction. This would cause the money requested from your bank to simply be placed within your PayPal balance once it clears. You would then be able to withdraw the balance to your bank again. If the payment shows as pending because an eCheck was sent, you should be able to cancel the eCheck. This would not prevent the funds from being pulled from your bank but you should be able to withdraw the funds after they clear to your PayPal account. 

If you need additional assistance with your account, I suggest contacting us via the "Help & Contact" option at the bottom of most any PayPal page. 

[veesix]

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This would cause the money requested from your bank to simply be placed within your PayPal balance once it clears. You would then be able to withdraw the balance to your bank again.  

Appreciate the reply but I wish it was that simple. I sent the money on Tuesday. My bank account is overdrawn, the money still hasn't been placed into my PayPal account, and I'm sure the holiday just complicates the matter. I've already been charged an overdraft fee from my bank. Once I do get the money refunded into my PayPal account I'm assuming it'll take a day or two to transfer back into my bank account. So maybe this will all be settled by Monday?

This is a not an optimal user experience. Here are a couple options that might safeguard aganst something like this:

• Wait on withdrawing the funds until the money is actually claimed by the other party
• People do make input mistakes—require entering the email address twice so there's absolutely no unintentional errors
• Currently the ability to cancel pending transactions are only available on the desktop site—add this ability on the mobile app, too (minimizes delay if the user is making the transaction on a mobile device)

Thanks Rich. Hope you'll consider passing this on to your product managers and designers.

[veesix · Accepted solution]

Just wanted to followup for anyone who comes across this post in the future. My money was refunded into my PayPal account today (Monday) which meant it was a total of 6 days. Unfortunately for me, one of the days was a holiday and the other was Sunday. So 4 business days in total. I needed to deposit the money back into my bank account quickly so I opted to use PayPal's quick transfer to my debit card which included a nominal $0.25 fee. In addition, I also had a $35 overdraft fee from my bank which I'm responsible for.

Regarding my specific questions from the original post:

1) Is there any way to simply cancel this payment? [Yes, but only if you're on the desktop site. Unfortunately for me, I initiated the transaction from the mobile app which for some reason doesn't have this feature.]

2) If not, how long will it stay in this state? [In my case, I called PayPal support not long after starting this thread and got in touch with a customer supoort representative. They were able to cancel the transaction immediately.]

3) Will my money be held during this period? [Even though the transfer was still pending, it was still withdrawn from my bank account. As explained above, it was a total of 4 business days until I received the refund in my PayPal account.]