Sorry, we aren't able to complete your request at this time.

[handlep]

Hi folks, can anyone advise on this please?

This morning I made an ebay purchase, and immediately went through the checkout.  All seemed OK until I clicked the button to complete the purchase, and I got this message:

Sorry, we aren't able to complete your request at this time.

If you encounter this message more than once, please contact us, and we'll do our best to help.

I tried several more times, and even had ebay in an online chat trying to help, but no joy.  I also tried on a different computer, but that did not help.  Then, I tried again, but this time instead of using my Paypal balance (which is in $US) to pay, I selected a direct payment from my bank - and this all went through without an issue.  I wasn't sure if that was coincidence or not, but there was no way of determining that, so I was just happy the transaction worked.

Problem is, I have just made another purchase, and I have exactly the same problem, at the final point of completing the transaction, I get:

Sorry, we aren't able to complete your request at this time.

If you encounter this message more than once, please contact us, and we'll do our best to help.

Does anyone know why this is happening, and how I can fix it please?  Many thanks in advance for any help.  Pete.

[Viktoria]

I am getting a message "We are sorry, we cannot re-authorise at this time." Or "We are sorry, we cannot capture at this time" when trying to take payment.

This might be caused by the same issue?

Is there a problem with paypal?

[VincentVG]

Same problem here, I managed to pay one of my sellers by asking them to send me a paypal money request but I don't want to have to do that for eternity. Have spoke to PP customer support in length, they confirmed that nothing was wrong with my account and advised me to try again tomorrow. Definately a Paypal/eBay fault from where I'm looking.

[handlep]

Hi Vincent and Viktoria, thanks for responding, and I'm glad it isn't only me.  I've tried again this morning and still no joy.  Out of interest, is the balance you are trying to pay from in a currency other than UK Pounds?  I ask because yesterday I was able to pay direct from my bank, just not my balance (don't know if that was a coincidence).  It might be balances in general that don't work, or may be just non-native currencies.  I think the more information we can give Paypal the more chance their techies can nail the problem.  As you say Vincent, I don't want to continue forever using workarounds.

Pete.

EDIT - I just spent some time on the phone with Sean in Paypal customer support, he was very helpful and patient.  I still had exactly the same issue, but this time I (again) forced the payment to go from my bank account, and it worked.  So clearly the issue lies within Paypal, in that it either will not pay from balances, or (maybe more likely) it won't pay from non-native currency balances.  My native currency is GB Pounds, my balance is all in $US.  Sean is taking this information back to the Paypal support teams, so hopefully this will get fixed soon.

[VincentVG]

Hi Pete, I'm still having the same problem, funnily enough, the funds that are in my a/c are in $US and I have tried to pay in GBP. However, the conversion seems to go through OK and the payment process seems to fail on confirmation. I had two transactions that might have caused a problem - I paid an eBay seller and the Paypal address he had listed with eBay was a typo of his real addy. The payment obviously remained unclaimed but as soon as he corrected the typo, the payment went through. The other transaction was with a seller that refused to part with the item, telling me it had been damaged by his child, (yeah, right). The payment again was unclaimed so I cancelled the transaction. I've paid two of my sellers by asking for a "money request". I don't want to have to keep doing that though. Paypal support guy was polite etc but said that there was no problem with my account and couldn't help so I'm in limbo.

Come on Paypal - I need help

[handlep]

Hi Vincent, yes the conversion process seems to work OK for me too, and then fails at the last point of confirmation - very strange.  What I have done for now is make a withdrawal to my bank account, so I have the money there and then change the payment option each time to use the bank - clunky but it does look like the withdrawal is working.  But I agree, we don't want to have to mess around like this all the time.

PayPal Admins - Hi folks, if you read this, is there any way you can take this to your techies to look at?  There is clearly an issue within the Paypal systems blocking payments from non-native currencies.  Any help would be appreciated.  Many thanks.

Pete.

[handlep]

OK, I now have a little more information on this.  It only appears to happen when attempting to fund an ebay purchase.  I just made a purchase, tried to use my $US balance, and it failed.  I changed to use my bank account, it worked.  Immediately after, I made another purchase at a UK non-ebay site, and that payment was taken from my $US balance without any problem whatsoever.

So it appears that only ebay purchases using non-native currency balances are failing.

Any ideas anyone?

Pete.

[markhillary]

I have the same problem. A balance in USD, trying to pay for something on ebay in GBP. It's only £2 something anyway... less than $4, but keeps on getting rejected with error 10001...

Please PayPal, come on? What's up?

[Floater010]

I'm having this problem too.  Trusteer Rapport are saying something about keystrokes, which can be used in malware, and they are stopping payments from going through because of this.  I think Paypal want to do something about this and quickly or people may go elsewhere for their purchases.  There are many alternatives to Ebay!

[PayPal_david]

Hi guys,

I'm sorry about the delay in getting back to you all on this.

There was a technical issue a little while ago where customers were facing difficulties when trying to complete a checkout for an eBay purchase through their PayPal account. To be honest, I am not 100% sure if it is an issue on the eBay or PayPal website but it has happened again recently and it has been passed on to our technical teams for them to investigate it.

Can I ask if you were receiving this message before you had logged in to your PayPal account or was it after you logged in to your PayPal account when trying to complete the checkout on your eBay account?

If anyone could please provide a bit more information so that I can try to give you a bit more information.

David.