Payment to friends and family still pending

tats09
Contributor
Contributor

Every month I send some money to a family member overseas. The last 2 months, paypal has held the paypment on my side as "pending" for 10 days. My December payment was made on 20th December and it's showing as Pending until 30th December. I definitely selected Send to Friend or Family so why is PayPal doing this? I have been unable to find anything helpful in the FAQ.

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52 REPLIES 52

tats09
Contributor
Contributor

I eventually found out through trial and error that the problem in my particular case was that I had changed my payment settings to "Pay after delivery" at some point. I changed it back and it resolved the issue with the delay of sending money to friends and family. No idea why or how the 2 are related, but now I make sure not to turn the option on again, just in case.... 

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CBanks84
Contributor
Contributor

I have just gone through a similar ordeal, I am a resident of the Uk & my Mom Lives in the Caribbean, she & I decided to try Paypal after years of using Western Union & growing tired of their hit & miss, incredibly expensive service. Thinking we were upgrading... alas 7 days in & 6 customer service calls later... despite my Mother & My efforts I was consistantly getting the "Pending" response when she tried to send me money. We tried the direct way selecting "Send Money" following steps, when that failed, I tried sending a "Request for funds" but was informed by one of the representitives that this would also be recieved as a "Seller" as the request had been sent as a "Seller" despite me never selecting this option? So with that in mind I took one last stab at it & created a "PayPal.Me Link" this seemed simple enough... I selected the "Friends & Family" option & we thought this was a marvellously simple solution we had simply missed because we were new to the service. Alas same outcome... the dreaded "Pending" funds. Finally today I dug up this forum & discovered others had experienced this problem too... Decided I would give Customer Service one more shot & called back hoping someone may still be able to help. I ended up speaking to a Lovely Lady who actually sounded like she knew what she was doing... she identified the problem as something she had seen before, apparently "Certain Countries Don't Allow The Gift or Friends & Family option for Paypal". She said she needed to check to make sure, she then confirmed it was on the "List of Countries" who have this "Option Barred". This isn't something I was aware of & it has cost me alot of time. So I post in the hope that this may be of use to someone else in the future so they can save the time I wasted. I still see use for Paypal but the service Isn't as advertised & the CSR's that answered the other five times I called this week all seemed very hands off & abysmal to my issue & it was utterly frustrating. Thank God someone finally could give me a straight answer even if it's not the answer I want... it's an end to the questioning of what was going wrong & where... the last person I spoke to asked me if I couldn't send someone to do the transaction for my Mother.... & didn't take the time to check if her Country was one of those that is "Only Allowed Seller/ Buyer Accounts". Just assumed the fault lay with User Error & call it a day. Hey Paypal may have it's uses... but today I discovered this "False Claim of Instant Transfer" isn't one of them. 

 

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Charlie_Fisher
New Community Member

Cut forward to April 2018 and it's still happening and i am simply sending money to my family in the same country as me [England, UK]

This is ridiculous and not in anyway right or fair as we used to get these payments made & sent instantly,  now you hold onto it for however long you like as i guess it generates extra interest for your company that way. you have now turned into the exact thing i hate about being forced to accept from Banks and even try lying about why it has started happening as i can clearly see in this thread

I will be telling all my friends not to bother with paypal anymore it is now a joke and i will not be treated like this or have my money held when i try to make what should have been an instant transfer [and yes it did used to be for me just like everyone else has said this past 2 years on this thread]

Time for me to sign upto internet banking after all these years i have used paypal solely

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Bedfordmum
Contributor
Contributor
I had my friends and family money held and now can’t go and buy food shopping to feed my kids so angry
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vee19
New Community Member

It is very disappointed to have nothing all day, then finally you are sent money to buy the essential groceries and PayPal puts the money on pending.  What I don't understand is why are they doing it now cause I have received money from the same family member and its never a problem.  You can't just do that to people PayPal and you don't know their situations.  How then are you going to make it into the inner 21st century where "instant" means just that.  I just feel let down as the whole reason of having payment is to have instant payments and sending.  I feel this service is not achieved once the customer has signed up.  Why should anyone go hungry while money is lying in the hands of PayPal.  Am awfully upset.  Its not even a lot of money! and this little money has been sent as an emergency! to meet urgent needs.  I think PayPal needs to look into this.

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I’m having exact same problem. A friend wanted t borrow cash which she does regularly and I have no problem sending. But now it’s always pending. It’s pointless having friends and family option
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Sasullivan76
Contributor
Contributor
That may be the case and I’m responding to it in 2018. And there are still major issues with Paypal that only seem to increase as time goes, rather then work themselves out. I would def recommend anyone that is considering Paypal as compared to other options like Google Pay or Facebook (NOT Venmo since it is ALSO owned by Paypal) that you only go with PP as a last resort. Trust me.
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mbeas96
Contributor
Contributor
Ha, what do ya know....September 2018 and its happened to me. And apparently a lot of others around the world. I sent 55 dollars last night, from my debit card which is linked to my bank account and it went thru instantly. (Friend or family option) I did the same exact thing today and its pending. Of course, seller contacted me and assured me that once it cleared paypals nonsense he would ship. But this is extremely aggravating and everything says "PayPal is very wary about passing 'suspicious' transactions"...really? Me spending 110 dollars in 2 days to frienfs and family is suspicious...whatever.
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kernowlass
Esteemed Advisor
Esteemed Advisor

@mbeas96

 

Yes its very suspicious !!

Its against Paypal rules to buy items and pay using the friends / family option.

This is because you are helping the seller to evade paying his paypal fee and negating your buyer protection at the same time.

So paypal often 'pend' those transactions to check if they are really f/f payments and not payment for goods.

If they feel you are misusing that option then it can lead to your paypal account being permanently limited.


Advice is voluntary.
Kudos / Solution appreciated.
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mbeas96
Contributor
Contributor
Well, maybe your right, but maybe in my case my friend / family is selling me something. But instead of handing my friend 55 dollars. It should have been easier to just *instantly* send him my money so it will be directly deposited to his account. So, no its not suspicious, Ive sent hundreds of dollars to friends that I'm acquiring products from with no problems. But now, that this might be extremely important, ya know, trying to prepare for the hurricane that's about to slam into us, they hold my payment making my *friend* withhold my merchandise.
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