Transaction refund problem

[StarKira]

Hello everyone,

So, I was hoping someone could enlighten me in a little problem I had this month. On december 2, I was navigating on a website for some clothes, and decided to configure my paypal account, but what was my suprise that when I clicked purchase to see the equivalence on my currency for some purchase, it just sent the purchase, without any verification, no debit card code, no digipass verification, not even a confirmation pop-up. So in total panic because I knew I didn't have the funds for the purchase, I went to the website and sent an e-mail saying what happened and that they please cancel as fast as possible the order to prevent any more undesired problem, I also marked the order as refund requested. On december 3 afternoon, I receive a response, telling me that they have cancelled the order. Having a peace of mind I tell myself: problem solved, oufff... I was totally wrong, 3 days later I receive a message from my bank telling me that my balance is negative and that I will have to pay taxes for it and also stating that the order was still pending. So I go to my paypal account, and again my surpise was to see, there was still no refund or cancelled order in it as in my bank account. So on december 7 (the day after) I go to my bank to tell them all of this, and the women just tells me, that for them there is no actual negative balance, and that actually there is no order at all, just a rejected transaction because of  insufficient funds and they told me there is nothing to worry about, nothing will be taken away from my account. Again that was not the case. So what was my surprise one week later verifiying my balance, they did finally withdraw 5€ from my balance, that was only the first time, they did it 8 times for a total of 40€, it only stopped doing it when the order was finally refunded on paypal on december 18, so 2 full weeks since seller told me they had cancelled. Since then, I contacted paypal about this, without any response still. I recontacted the seller again yesterday asking them when did they really cancel the order since it took 2 weeks for paypal to acknowledge it. So my point is, I'm totally confused and I don't know to whom I have to claim those 40€ that were in my opinion taken from me unfairly. Thank you for reading me. Hoping anyone can help me or enlighten me 🙂 .

[sharpiemarker]

@StarKira

I'm not sure if it is the same in Belgium but in the USA, the theory is, if you paid with bank account, the merchant can cancel the order or you can add funds to your PayPal balance to cover the negative PayPal balance but it won't stop the bank payment process because it is a slow automated process.

When PayPal actually gets the funds from your bank account because PayPal fronts the merchant the money already from their pockets and then sees your canceled the order, THEN they return it back to you or your bank because PayPal will try to present payment 2 more times and then use your back up payment method to pay them if the bank account remains insufficient.

The process is automated and the system may keep trying and trying to get paid so if you do not have funds in your bank or PayPal balance or whereever, don't go shopping. 🙂 Bank payments aren't like credit card payments. The merchant can just not process the charge when you contact them. They have control over it but not bank payments, it goes through multiple banks and interchanges, clearances and PayPal's system is automated to represent payment to get paid.

To contact PayPal customer service:

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