Pending payments

[alisha6]

I empathise completely with anyone frustrated by not only ebay policies and timeframes for withholding payments but PayPal’s lengthy and seemingly unnecessary wait times for access to your money that has been refunded. Apparently depending on which balance you used I.e bank card, bank account or PayPal balance determines which timeframe you should expect. Why would it take 3-5 days for a refund to become available in your PayPal balance just because a seller may have issued a refund with funds not yet cleared from a bank account Or up to 30 days for funds to be returned to your bank account/card when the whole point behind having a middle man like PayPal who hold your funds in trust to provide  buyer safety, ensure availability of funds in case of refunds or disputes etc is that the funds are already there and therefore shouldn’t  be subject to any lengthy bank clearance wait times. As soon as I pay for something the moneys gone, ok it may take 2-3 days to clear but after that it’s there in the  PayPal holding trust so how can it take up to a month to come back as a refund?

Is anyone else wondering how much daily interest etc these withheld funds are making companies like PayPal?

[kernowlass]

@alisha6

Pending refunds can only happen for two reasons.

1. The seller has issued a refund from their bank account which takes time to process.

2. You funded the payment to the seller using bank transfer. What PayPal do here is credit the recipient on your behalf (so there is no delay in despatching your item). Then if you receive a refund in the meantime they are unable to issue this until the original bank transfer completes.

https://www.paypal.com/us/selfhelp/article/i-want-a-refund.-how-do-refunds-work-faq3248
https://www.paypal.com/gb/selfhelp/article/i-paid-by-instant-bank-transfer,-so-why-is-my-refund-on-h...

The reason it takes a while is this....
When you PAY someone from your bank account it is never instant > Paypal CREDIT them the funds and Paypal take the 5-7 days wait for the funds to transfer to Paypal to pay them back.
Even though the funds may leave your bank account a few hours OR a few days post payment it does not mean Paypal have them yet as it goes through automated clearing which is the SLOWEST transfer method (to reduce costs to Paypal).
BUT when you refund a buyer then paypal don't CREDIT the refund in advance. The buyer takes the wait this time for the funds to transfer from your bank account to Paypal > then they are credited the refund.