PayPal can't send letters to your bank on letterhead..? Seriously?

Snowkee
Member
Member

I experienced an issue where one payment through PayPal was declined at the POS. That charge was then duplicated, and both charges went through to my bank, despite having been declined. PayPal initiated an immediate refund, automatically, but the refund didn't come through for three days. As a result of the charges that should never have gone through, let alone TWICE, my bank account was overdrawn. At the same time, my student loan payment was pending, so I was hit with two NSF charges by my bank.

 

PayPal so graciously offered to send me a "bank letter" to dispute the charges on my behalf. I had to call a second time just to have the letter actually sent to me, and when I read it, I discovered that PayPal had placed fault with me for "accidentally using the bank account instead of credit card" which is NOT what happened. Additionally, it came through the PayPal Message Center without any sort of logo or official appearance, without any signature of any kind, and with awkward preformatted English.

 

I called back, and had a sweet woman edit the letter for me to reflect the truth of the situation. She informed me she couldn't put it on letterhead.

 

I sent a message to PayPal support through Facebook, and was essentially told it is impossible and it's tough luck, but they can't do anything else for me. 

 

We are supposed to TRUST PayPal with our money, our livelihoods in some cases, and when their system causes a mess like this, all they can say is 'whoops, sorry, that's too bad' and forget it? What kind of "professional" service is this? What makes anyone think that a bank is going to accept an unsigned, poorly-written letter on a blank sheet of paper that looks the equivalent of a 10th grade technical writing sample?

 

I am out $70 because PayPal won't accept responsibility for the error in their system, and nobody seems to care.

 

Is there ANY way I can obtain an official letter on company letterhead to state what happened and why I was hit with those fees? I have been a customer for years, and I have never asked for anything. I have bragged about your services and encouraged family and friends to sign up. And they have. Now I ask for a little bit of ink on a sheet of paper, and you can't give me that small courtesy...?

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7 REPLIES 7

DPCreations
Frequent Advisor
Frequent Advisor

What actually happend at the POS?

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Snowkee
Member
Member

I attempted to pay through PayPal, and the payment was declined. Then I completed the purchase with another card/bank entirely, no problems. That was it. The next day, I found out the charge went through anyway, twice.

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DPCreations
Frequent Advisor
Frequent Advisor

How did you attempt to make the purchase, with a PayPal card?  Was it at a cash register?

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Snowkee
Member
Member

It was a purchase from GooglePlay, and I used my bank account directly through PayPal. It has never been an issue before. My security credentials/fingerprint was accepted, but the charge was declined.

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DPCreations
Frequent Advisor
Frequent Advisor

So, it wasn't a POS purchase.

 Which payment went through twice?

 

Here's what I figured out happened.

You made an online purchase to pay with PayPal.  There was an error and you didn't think the purchase went through.

The next day you don't check the status of your PayPal account and go to make the online purchase again.  That purchase was successful and payment comes from your checking account.

In the meantime you realize that your first purchase did go through but PayPal issued an immediate refund.

This means there were 2 separate purchase attemps, not a duplictation by PayPal.

 

A refund isn't instantaneous and your bank account runs with no emergency balance and now your actual purchase payment ws taken out of your bank before the refund had returned, so you have a NSF fee.

 

Your assumption is that PayPal is responsible for the first payment error and, therefore, should now inform your bank that the insufficience balance was PayPal's fault and the bank should refund your NSF fee.  Actually, PayPal would have no effect on that decision.  Banks will frequently waive NSF fees for good clients; that would be my first approach.  If PayPal were to get involved it would be to pay you the NSF fee.

 

It's also important to understand how refunds work and why it is important to maintain bank balances for some emergencies.

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Snowkee
Member
Member

Thank you for your thoughtful response. I do appreciate you taking the time to consider what might have happened and why.

 

However, as I said, the second 'attempt' was only a couple of minutes later, and I did not use PayPal, nor the same bank account, and the purchase went through just fine. I attempted to purchase with PayPal once, it was declined, and processed anyway. Twice. 

 

What actually happened on the technical end is less of a concern because I don't intend to use PayPal for purchases like that in the future. The main issue is that while they are willing to work with me and provide a letter that I can share with my bank to dispute the charges (which PP has already refused to refund), the letter looks fake, as though I might have written it up, myself. That looks bad on me as a customer of my bank, and makes me feel kind of valueless in the eyes of PayPal, because it dismisses my issue as trivial. $70 is a lot to me.

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DPCreations
Frequent Advisor
Frequent Advisor

Still trying to piece together details.

 

You made (attempted to make) an online purchase an got an error.  Unbenownst to you the purchase made an automatic second attempt to complete.  This one was successful, but an immediate refund was issued by PayPal.  You did not know this second attempt occurred until next day.

 

This refund did not make it into your bank account before it was needed, so you got a NSF charge when a loan payment was scheduled.

 

Since your other pruchase was independent and from a different account it is irrelevant to the issue.

 

So the processor does have responsiblity in the error or Google Play could be the fault; it is not known.

 

What I used to do for this type of issues it write a letter providing only the relevant technical data and ask the company for a written explanation.  The letter should include just the relevant details so the person reading it knows what happened.  A phone would not likely be sufficient to get a formal response from any company.  Your case needs to be very clearly stated.

 

Once you you have the letter written, take a copy of the letter to your local bank and try a little grovelling to get the NSF fee reversed.  Sometimes a little extra niceness and pleading can help.  This is a reason to get to know your local bankers and make sure they know who you are.  Walk-in banks can be very valuable.

 

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