Paypal refunded to a cancelled Credit Card

[averzosa]

I have a problem with one of my recent transactions which involves a refund. Recently a seller had refunded me through paypal which automatically means that Paypal will transfer it to the credit card I used to purchase the original item with. As the title implies, before the refund I had already terminated the credit card which means that I can't easily obtain the refunded money. Despite this, Paypal lists the refund as being "Completed" even though my credit card has already been terminated. I have asked Paypal about this and they still haven't replied for 3-4 days now. What will happen to the money that got refunded? I have checked with the bank if they've received any payments from Paypal, and they said that if they find any payments sent by Paypal on that day, they'll cancel it and send it back to Paypal so I can claim my money from Paypal itself. Can anyone help me with this?

[kernowlass]

Paypal always refund to the source of the original payment.

If it was a cancelled debit card then as long as that card was once associated with your bank account it should still process through ok but once marked completed it takes up to a week to work its way back there.

If it was another card that you have never had associated with a bank account then the refund should fail and hopefully go back to your paypal balance.

You will need to give it a couple of weeks and see if it shows up, normally I would estimate a week but as its Christmastime it may well be longer.

Good luck.  

[averzosa]

While I have yet to confirm if the money was received by the bank (which they told me they would have re-sent it back to Paypal if it were the case), Paypal still hasn't replied back to me regarding this issue.  It's already been a whole month yet still nothing. Can anyone help me?

Now, based on what you mentioned, I'd like to add on the fact that the credit card wasn't attached to a Paypal bank account, as the transaction was made using a credit card that was only attached on Paypal's payment system (basically it wasn't properly registered on Paypal as a bank account as I only used it for payments as opposed to money transfers). Wouldn't this mean that the refund should've failed since the credit card it was transferring to had already been terminated? Yet somehow I don't get why it was listed as "Completed" at the time when Paypal refunded me and even now, I still haven't received any money back into my Paypal balance. I'm starting to get worried because that refund was a huge sum of money and I wouldn't want it to just get lost just because Paypal sent the refund money back to a terminated credit card. 😞

[averzosa · Accepted solution]

Contacted Paypal again and linked them to this page, and it helped a lot since I got a proper reply from one of their agents. They told me that it was out of their hands since the transfer went through, but suggested that I contact the bank responsible for my cancelled credit card and present them some evidence of the refund. Visiting the bank, they asked for evidence of the refund transfer that was made by Paypal and the original seller, at which point after sorting that out for them, they finally gave me the money. So yeah, problem solved (linking to this thread helped a lot though).

[nbandsb]

I have emailed PayPal twice and tried calling but so far no resolution. I also called the vendor who sent me the refunds and they claim it is not up to them to correct this mistake. The two refunds were completed and applied to a card that has expired. I don’t know how to get my money back or at least have it applied to a current credit card. Any suggestions?

[kernowlass]

@nbandsb

Cards automatically go back to the card used to fund them in the first place.

If that card was cancelled then the funds should bounce back to your paypal account balance.

But if they complete then you would need to talk to your card issuer.