If you receive money on PayPal before you link a credit card, what happens to the money?

[LuisG3]

So I recently got payed 300 bucks to sell a person all my skins on steam. The guy even sent me proof that he had sent the money. I linked my credit card because I wanted to redeem the money on steam. But now that I linked the credit card the money is no where to be found and I never checked if I had any balance before i linked my credit card. Did the money get transferred to the credit card? If anyone knows please let me know asap.

[Snow-Cat]

You should be able to receive money even without having a credit card or bank account linked, this called an "unverified" account.  The funds may be held for up to 21 days but, after that, they will be deposited into your Account Balance.   Here's how things work, whenever you get money, the funds are always credited to your PayPal Account Balance first.  Having said that, you may be getting scammed here - why - when someone sends you money, you will get an email notification from PayPal and you will also have a notice of the transaction in your account activity showing it's status.  For someone to show you proof that they sent the money when you have no email notification or record of it in your account activity is a "red flag".

Note, once you have the money in your account balance, then what you do with it is up to you - you can withdraw the money to your bank account or a PayPal type card if your account is "verified", make a purchase or simply keep the money in your account balance.  There's also an option to request a paper check if your account is not "verified".