Payment in error

[Ewanoozarmy]

I received a payment of £25 (less PayPal commission = £24.92) from someone I've never heard of nor had any dealings with. This person emailed me, saying he'd made a mistake and  asked me to pay him back the money. I suspected some sort of scam and told him to ask PayPal to reverse the payment. I got no reply. I asked PayPal to refund him but got only a generic reply. I tried again with the same response - i.e. no response! Then I get a "How did we do?" email, to which I replied, "Try answering the question/request." Again no response. I want to use the account to send money, but don't want to use this person's money. If I send, say £100, PayPal will only take £75.08 from my bank account, meaning I have effectively stolen the £24.92. How can I get PayPal to resolve this?

[kernowlass]

@Ewanoozarmy

When you pay someone its easy to make a 'typo' and send it to the wrong person by mistake.

Why not just issue a refund to that person, click on the transaction and the refund option is at the bottom of that details page.

[Ewanoozarmy]

Thanks for replying. Unfortunately, the page tells me that refunds are only possible up to 180 days after the transaction. If I'd known in time I could have done that. Any other suggestions?

[kernowlass]

@Ewanoozarmy

You've kept that persons money for 6 months without doing anything about it 

[Ewanoozarmy]

I tried getting PayPal to sort it numerous times and asked the other person to contact PayPal to get it sorted. PayPal kept giving me "answers" that didn't help and the other person didn't reply. I didn't "do nothing"!

[kernowlass]

@Ewanoozarmy

I have had that happed x2 over 10 years and both times refunded within 5 minutes and got an email with thanks from both of them.

[Ewanoozarmy]

Had I been aware of that method, I would have done the same. However, I didn't know I could do that. Also, I was asked to return the money outside of PayPal. I didn't want a stranger to have my bank details. I don't want the money, but if I pay for something via PayPal, it will use it and I will effectively have stolen it. So I can't use my PayPal account! I don't use it often which is why it took so long before I realised. Having said that, the payer has made no communication since, which makes me think there was a scam involved. Have you any constructive suggestions?

[Ewanoozarmy · Accepted solution]

Hi.

I have had a result! I managed to get hold of a PayPal agent by phone and he was most helpful. He talked me through a way to send the balance of the sender's money back to him. This meant he was short by £1.08 - PayPal's commission, but it was the best I could do. I had a nice thank you email from the sender, who was happy with the outcome. He had apparently tried to get PayPal to sort it without result and had given up on it. Better late than never!