Delays in paypal bill pay transactions, who can help?

[dcatast]

Payments I've made using bill pay have been sent to my billers (American express, utility bills, insurance) in 1-2 days. These show as ACH transactions when received by my billers.

However, in the past month, on more than one occasion paypal delayed paying my bills.

payments made on Nov 28th 2022 (17 days to send)

payments made on Nov 29th 2022 (7 days to send)

payments made on Nov 30th 2022 (6 days to send)

this has now occurred again. a payment sent Dec 14th has not been sent - i know this because a separate payment sent on Dec 15th has already arrived at my biller.

This service is unreliable.

But worse is that paypal reps are unable to provide ACH trace numbers and insist that since paypal took the money from my bank that the transaction was completed. They advise to contact who runs the paypal account at american express. These are not paypal to paypal transactions. Paypal relays the money to the bill pay target via ACH, not to their paypal account.

Has anyone had success in getting help with a transaction like this?

[Anonymous_User]

@knicks20 The correct ticket number is CSTS0026560. There was an extra 0 in between for which PayPal was unable to locate it.

Once they found the correct ticket, they were able to link my missing payment to yours.

[knicks20]

Oh, good catch, I've fixed it on my original comment, thanks for that. Also, I'm glad you reached out to them, hopefully we can get the others on board, and they can finally resolve this thing. 

[TwoForTwo]

Same problem. Two bill pay transactions sent 12/27/2022 to the same biller (two different account numbers at same biller). As of 1/9/2023, neither has been received. The biller reached out to their bank and there are NO transactions of the amount I paid on their ledger from 12/27 to 1/9/2023. I sent three small additional payments on 1/3/2023, two to the original 2 accounts and 1 to an unrelated biller. None of the five payments have arrived. I’ve opened investigation claims with Paymentus and with Mastercard (I charged the bill pays to my Mastercard). PayPal support has been completely helpless and useless. Their scripted responses make me angry rather than helping. Total incompetence. I’ve taken to recording my calls with the PayPal “call center” which sounds like it is overseas somewhere, since they notify the calls may be recorded - I can definitely record them, too. Mastercard has reversed the charges while they investigate. At least I have a little additional layer of protection thanks to Mastercard, but we will see which side they come down on. Obviously if the payments go through, I’ll drop the fraud claims with Mastercard.

[Cat_116]

So you disputed the charges with Mastercard?

[TwoForTwo]

Yes, the bill payments were made to a third-party financial institution with a Mastercard credit card through PayPal’s Bill Pay center. I called the number on my Mastercard and told them to reverse the charges and open an investigation. Took five minutes. I have proof in the form of my transaction details from both the third party (my account statements which do not show any credits for the past 30+ days), and from PayPal. Interestingly, Paymentus said they could “see” both transactions on their “books” and they appeared to be processed correctly. They looked it up by name and payment amount. I’ve gone back to Paymentus and filed a formal complaint and they are “investigating.” That was Friday 1/6/2023. The Paymentus folks seem to actually have some insight and info as to what is going on. I also called Xoom and they had no info and could not provide any help. I’m documenting it all in case litigation or arbitration is needed.

[frugalor]

My credit card company Chase told me the temporary credit is only good for 30 days.  They still need proof the payment is made.  They asked me for a transmittal report, which PayPal doesn't have.  I think PayPal needs to fix this problem.

[dcatast]

Your 1/3 payments not going through is the first I’ve seen of issues on that date. 1/4 is a known ether day. Were your payments on 1/3 after 8:10 pm EST non-published cutoff time? If so, for simplicity sake you can call them 1/4.

[TwoForTwo]

Yes, my three additional payments were sent after 9:50 PM eastern time on 1/3/2023, so they would be considered “1/4/2023,” according to the cutoff time you indicated.

[Cat_116]

@knicks20 I contacted PayPal cs this morning and mentioned your case number. And they told me this - “I see that the ticket CSTS0026560 is already closed considering invalid report as there is no issue at the PayPal's end.” They are not willing to open a ticket for me and insisted the payment was completed and there is no problem at their end. Anyone has any suggestions what else can I do? Just wait for the payment to show up?

[knicks20]

@Cat_116 that's so stupid that they told you that because even I have not been notified about the status of the ticket yet. This is absurd because they keep saying the same thing that the recipient companies have received their funds when clearly they have not. I will be calling back as soon I hear about the status of my ticket from them, and no I will not accept that as a response from them and I suggest you call back and speak to a manager, specifically the one who created that ticket number because she at least was the most understanding agent I have spoken to so far at paypal. I wish I recorded her name.