I pay my rent to my landlord each month via paypal. This is very convenient, however, this morning I logged in to make my payment as usual, and my transaction was processed twice! I receive a payment from my brother each month via paypal so I use that from my paypal balance to pay towards my rent payment, then I select my secondary checking account for the remaining balance. I do this every month.
This morning I went though this process and clicked on 'submit', waited a few moments, and received my confirmation screen. I also receive emails about my transactions, so when i logged into my email account and saw two emails from paypal i was confused. I reviewed both the emails and found they were both from my morning transaction, only i found that it was processed twice, once the way i requested it be processed and once from my secondary bank account only (as my paypal balance was used in the first transaction).
One of my first concerns had to do with the fact that the 2nd transaction wasn't taken from my primary bank account like if I had accidentally gone through and processed the request twice, It was taken from my secondary account which i used on the 1st transaction. This was what first lead me to believe that paypal processed my request twice, without my authorization to process the 2nd request.
I contacted paypal customer service via phone immidately after i realized the situation and was told by the representative (outsourced....) i would have to contact the recipiant to have them refund the transaction. I knew that my bank account balance would not cover both transactions, so I asked if that process was immediate like the instant requests and i was told no, it could take 3-4 days. I contacted the receipiant and they have refunded the transaction, however i am very upset with this process and concerned now at how my bank account will be affected.
Through no fault of my own I may incur fees from my bank, may not be able to use my bank account for several days due to the possible overdraft, and paypal has done absolutely nothing to help the situation. I have taken every step necessary in order to resolve this situation so it does not affect myself, my payee, or paypal, but i have a feeling there may be issues yet to be seen with the resolution of this situation.
I do appreciate the service that pay pal provides, however i think it would be very helpful if some sort of automated review was made of transactions and if it was found that two transactions were made, within seconds of one another, to the same recipiant for the same amount, paypal would hold the later transaction and send a request to the sender to confirm that this is indeed a payment they requested or allow the sender to deny the payment as a duplicate.
Has anyone else come across this situation in the past, and what kind of issues did you run across?
