Seller never captured my authorized payment but did send the item

[Jewelwing]

I ordered an item, paid with PayPal, and received the item a short time later. Great! But then about three weeks after that, I got an email saying that the seller was requesting payment through PayPal because of a "failed settlement" on the order. I logged into my PayPal account and saw that there was a request from the seller for the amount ($26) right above an authorization to that seller for the same $26.

This is a small amount of money, and other PayPal payments had successfully been charged to my credit card both before and after this payment was authorized to this seller. So I'm not sure why they thought it failed. I'm also not sure why they didn't just capture the payment instead of sending me a payment request.

I didn't want to complete their request for payment while an authorization was still open, because that would give them the chance to take my $26 twice - they could capture it from the open authorization after I'd paid via their payment request. I called PayPal, but they said only the seller could cancel an authorization.

I called the seller, and the customer service representative was confused about the entire issue, but said she didn't have a way to cancel PayPal authorizations. I told her to just go ahead and capture the payment now since the authorization was still open. She didn't know how to do that, and didn't know who to refer me to except her manager who wouldn't be there until their next business day two days later. So I decided to wait until the authorization expired in only a few days before sending a payment to the seller.

It expired yesterday, so today I logged in to PayPal and tried to complete the payment request, but I got an error message saying that the seller only accepts payments through their website and I should go to their website to pay! How in the world will that work? In what universe will the seller have a page for me to go to in order to send a payment that they failed to capture in time?

So my question is, how hard do I have to try to pay for this item? Wasn't it the seller's responsibility to capture the payment within the 29 days they had to do it? If I can't even pay them by completing a payment request they sent through PayPal, shouldn't they be aware that I wouldn't be able to do that? Can I just ignore the whole thing at this point, or do I have a responsibility to spend hours on the phone trying to explain the situation to the seller's customer service and waiting for them to find a person who can figure out how to collect the payment from my PayPal account?

[sharpiemarker]

Tell merchant to log onto their PayPal acct and check their Block Payments settings in their Seller Preferences to allow payments initiated from Send Money tab/link.

[Jewelwing]

They're a big company, Charlotte Russe Inc. I'm not sure anyone I talk to on the phone will have the sort of authorization to do that. It sounds like something they'd have to have a board meeting about. 😉

[Celidollface199]

so your saying that you deserve to get the item for free because the payment didnt go trough? and no it is not yheir responsibility to make sure YOU pay, they did their part, they shipped the order and you did not give them their money. if anything paypal should consider you as a client. 

[Jewelwing]

No, Celidollface199, I do not think that I deserve to get the item for free because the payment didn't go through. Perhaps you didn't read my whole scenario carefully enough. I DID give them my money - they didn't take it, and then they didn't have another way for me to give them my money.

I think I shouldn't have to spend hours of my time to try to pay this company when it was their fault they didn't take my payment and there does not seem to be any way to pay them. Yes, I think it IS their responsibility to make sure there is a way for me to pay. I did try to give them my money. I tried really hard to give them my money. This was not through lack of trying on my part.

First, I did send them payment through PayPal. The problem was not on my end. When you send a big company a payment through PayPal, they have to actively "capture" the payment on their end. For whatever reason, they didn't do this within the first few days. PayPal will keep the payment available to them for a full 29 days before PayPal gives up and closes the transaction. But instead of trying to capture the payment, at 25 days the company sent me a request for the payment again - they sent this request through PayPal. The weird thing is, they could still have captured the payment if they wanted to instead of sending a payment request.

Secondly, I tried to pay the request they sent, but I only got a message saying that the company does not accept payments that way. Confusing, right? Why did they send a payment request by a method they wouldn't accept?

Thirdly, I called the company and explained the situation, and the person I talked to had no solution for me. She said they would not have sent the item before collecting the payment, so she was confused and didn't know what I should do at that point.

So, Celidollface199, what exactly would you have me do? How much time do you think I am required to put into trying to pay a company that won't let me pay them? In your opinion, at what point is it ok for me to give up trying?

There was no part of this that was my fault, and I resent your judgemental post.

[sharpiemarker · Accepted solution]

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@Jewelwing wrote:

They're a big company, Charlotte Russe Inc. I'm not sure anyone I talk to on the phone will have the sort of authorization to do that. It sounds like something they'd have to have a board meeting about. 😉

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I see.  Had no idea what store it was.  Thought it was some small merchant that can access their PP account.  Well, you tried.  Move on.

[Whac-A-Mole]

It sounds like they either forget to capture the payment at the end of the day or there is some technical glitch on their end,these days Paypal has a lot of problems,e,g,I tried to use my debit card to buy something on a website,I tried twice and they both failed.

then I GET 2 EMAILs from Paypal saying I have paid,when I logged into my accounts,the 2 transactions were there but status- =cancelled.

I did not cancel them,neither did the website?

I AM Not the only one who has problem,there are also missing transactions in activity history and god knows what other problems,plenty I heard.

So just send them $26 and get it over with.