Fund Transfer Cancelling Strategy

[ozymandias]

I created a Paypal yesterday in hopes of using it for Ebay, and to have decent money I transferred $1200 from my Savings account over to the Pal account. However I don't want to use Ebay anymore as I've found an alternate way to buy what I was planning to,  and was hoping to cancel the transfer. I called Paypal about it and they said I'd have to wait it out.  About a half hour ago I transferred a good portion of my saving money over to checking, leaving way less than the $1200 available. Will this stop the fund transfer from going through? If so (or if not) what should I expect? 8 business days or more is way too long for me to wait to have the mess sort itself out.

[PayPal_Olivia]

Hi ozymandias, and welcome to the forums!

First of all, on a personal note, great choice for a forum name. I will admit, I initially recognized it as the character from Watchmen, but then I looked it up just to see if it was from elsewhere first, and found a wealth of other references in culture. There's a lot of depth to that one name.

Now, to your question - any activity involving interaction between your bank account and PayPal utilizes the ACH transfer process, which takes 3-5 days (in the US - timeframes vary in some other countries) to resolve and can't be stopped once begun. There's some more information regarding ACH processes in this article.

Transferring money out of your account will not stop the process. When you initiated the transfer, clicking the button basically stated, "I have the funds available in my bank to complete this action." If those funds aren't in fact available, the request will be presented a second time. PayPal never charges overdraft fees, but your bank may charge you those fees as a result.

For future reference, you don't have to transfer funds into your account in order to use them for purchases. If you have a zero balance in your account, your bank will typically be available as a funding source for the transaction. If Instant Transfer is approved for the transaction, PayPal will even front the money to the seller while waiting for your bank to send reimbursement. If eCheck is the available option instead, PayPal will send a notification to the seller that the funds are on the way from your bank, so they know to watch for it to clear and then send your item.

I hope this helps!

Olivia

[TheSauceBoss]

Hi, I'm in the same situation as ozymandias and was wondering if Paypal will continue to request the money after the 2nd time. My bank has already charged me fees for the first time it was requested and I really don't want for this to continue anymore.

I initially tried to transfer the money into my account from the bank, but after discovering that I could send money by just using my credit card number I went with that option. Now there's the pending bank transfer transaction even though I've already sent the money that was in the account.

[PayPal_Olivia]

Hi TheSauceBoss, and welcome to the forums!

If you select to fund with Instant Transfer from your bank, PayPal will attempt to charge it to the bank on the date of the transaction. If the bank states that there are insufficient funds, the transaction will be represented within a few days. If that presentment also fails for insufficient funds, it will then go to your backup funding source.

Bear in mind, if your backup funding source fails, your account will go negative, and the transaction may then be presented to your bank yet another time. It is vital to double-check your funding source before completing your payment, and to be sure that it contains the funds that you're committing to the transaction.

I hope this helps clarify!

Olivia