Seller is claiming money still pending after 2 weeks and will take another month to clear

[davejm]

Hello all,

I agreed to make a payment for item from a Facebook group - UK (GBP) to US (USD).

I sent the money on August 11th - the seller responded a day later saying the payment was pending which I put down to me having used my Barclaycard as the source of the funds (that showed pending in the statement for a few days.... so I thought that was normal).

Fast forward a week and the seller is still indicating the money is pending and will be for a month despite it being marked as sent in PayPal.

They attached the following screenshot which shows a 'pending date' though I suspect it's been manipulated (in grey below showing 09/25/24) and this has been a scam?

Given this was through a friends payment I can't raise a case, is there anything I can do?

Thanks,

[kernowlass]

@davejm 

If its marked as completed in your Paypal account then you have paid. The fact its pending on the sellers account is between them and Paypal.
Funds for new sellers are held for 21 days but released more quickly if they provide a tracking number (delivery + 1 day).

Even if the funds were withdrawn to their bank account they are still obliged to issue a refund if they lose a dispute. The hold is to protect Paypal from bad sellers that refuse, meaning Paypal may have to refund the buyer instead putting the sellers account into negative until they pay Paypal back.

If they refuse to send item/service then you could file a dispute for non receipt....as long as you paid using goods/services and not friends/family.
That may impact their paypal account in some way if they continue doing so.

Send them this link.
https://www.paypal.com/us/brc/article/funds-availability

[davejm]

Thanks for responding, as noted I had paid via friends and family which was my mistake.

are you able to comment please if the detail in the screenshot is genuine - i.e. do items on hold show the information this way or has it be altered to fool me?

I can also see at least one other account in PayPal for the same name (same picture - but a different ID).