Transaction history

[May85]

This is a bit of a strange one. My father has been using Paypal to purchase items on ebay but never had an actual paypal account set up.

I can see emails from Paypal to his email address over the last number of years but when I went to log in to paypal, they didn't recognise his email address.

I set up an account using his email address thinking it then might pull in the old information assigned to that email address but it didn't. Just has a blank new account. I wanted to request a returns refund but can't do that without the transaction history.

Can anyone explain how he was using paypal for years but no actual paypal account set up? Its probably something really silly that I'm just not aware of but any advice would be appreciated. 

[kernowlass]

@May85 

If he bought something on Ebay with a debit or credit card and did NOT log into a Paypal account then of course it won't show on any Paypal account because they bought as a 'guest buyer'.
However the seller may have processed that payment using their Paypal 'card reader' and so Paypal would show on their bank or card statement.

If that is not the case then contact customer services AND your card issuer to query the transactions.

If you need to open a dispute for a 'guest buyer' transaction then you can.......
1. Phone Paypal customer services and see if they will open one for you OR
2. Contact your card issuer for a chargeback.

[May85]

Thank you. Ok so basically ebay was just using paypal as a checkout method so hes been doing guest transactions all these years.

So he's returned the item and received a refund from the seller but I was looking to claim back the cost of postage from paypal via their returns refund process. Is that not possible if it was a guest transaction?

[kernowlass]

@May85 

Sadly if he didn't use a paypal account he would not have activated the 'return shipping on us' option and so would not be able to claim.

But are you sure he hasn't got a paypal account?

Have you checked all the email addresses he may have used to set one up?

Have you asked him if he is entering his card details on Ebay each time he pays?

[May85]

Thanks for all your advice. That makes sense, just disappointing we missed out as the return postage cost him €20, half the value of the item. I had told him it would be expensive and was probably best to keep the item and try to sell locally. At that point I didn't know about the returns refund service that paypal offers, only found out about it last week.  

He only has the one email address and Paypal didn't recognise it so definitely never set an account up.

I have him set up with an account now and will show him how to log in for payments. So will be covered for future transactions. 

Thanks again.