Showing duplicate charge

[alcorr]

I bought some gas at a gas station with my paypal debit card. They debited my card 11 dollars but then paypal has a separate transaction for the same amount of money that says pending. It has been hours and I am still missing that 11 dollars from my account.

I tried to dispute it but it said to contact customer support since they couldn't file a claim on it?

[sharpiemarker]

@alcorr 

That's typical of how it works. It's starts out as a pending authorization and money held. Once the merchant captures payment within a few days, it'll be moved to completed and all will be right as rain. It's duplicate if you see 4 transactional records: 2 pending auths and 2 purchase transactions for same amount

[alcorr]

But I'm missing 22 dollars from my account instead of just 11. Why would paypal reserve double the funds instead of just the initial 11 dollars? I've never seen any credit or debit card work this way with any bank before?

Also, none of my other purchases acted this way. 

[sharpiemarker · Accepted solution]

@alcorr 

Please contact PayPal customer service to review your account. No one in the forums can see your account to handle specific account issues to see what is happening.

You can do that or allow the transactions to complete and then you'll be able to do "report a problem" on one of them and indicate duplicate charge because right now they are pending until the merchant processes their transactions. If the merchant captures both payment, even if at the moment $22 is temporarily held, then you can report it afterwards. Sometimes it's could just be a glitch that 2 authorizations go through and one ends up being captured and the other one just has to expire on it's own in a few days or so (no longer than 30 days though) and the extra $11 would be released. 

To contact customer service for further assistance:

Click HELP at the top menu, scroll down to click CONTACT US, and then scroll down to click CALL US.

Call early, during business hours, west coast time to try to get a US rep. Say "Live Agent" to the automated recording.

If you see on your activity page that both transactions have completed, click on one of them and click "Report a problem" and then indicate "Duplicate Transaction" then it will ask you to click on the duplicate and it will sort it out right there and then. At least that's what happened for me one time. I was amazed at the process. Didn't have call no one. Did it right at the coffee shop at the grocery market that the duplicate transaction occurred at too as the transactions were completed pretty quickly. Don't get me wrong, I understand your concern as I've been there but if those transaction are not completed yet, there's nothing you can do. 

[lynjoyce]

Yes, it's fine if you are holding my payment twice if it's only a small charge for fuel!  I have TWO transactions pending TWICE - one for nearly $300 and the other for over $100.  How dare you hold my money when it's a glitch in your system.  This has obviously happened more than once based on the complaints I have seen in the forum.

I won't be using PayPal for future transactions - I have never had a problem with the direct use of my credit card but have with yours