PayPal Community

Here's a scenario for you. I sent a payment via friends and family transfer via my bank account.(No PayPal protection) The person that received the money refunded the transaction within the hour, and the refund instantly went into "pending" status. To make a long story short, the recipient and I had a little falling-out. My question: Is the recipient of the money able to withdraw and spend the funds and cancel the refund process while it's pending? So bottom line, is there any way possible that the refund would be stopped? Cheers! ... View more

I was under the impression that you only got the hold back if you refunded as the result of a dispute that you lost and not if you do a voluntary refund not as a result of a dispute.   I may of course be wrong on that.   But i would not advise you refunding any other way because:   1. If the buyer was dishonest and filed a dispute after refund paypal would force you to refund again as they can only see you refunded if you do it via paypal.   2. If you refund via paypal you get your fee back that you were charged when the buyer paid you. ... View more

That wasn't a hostile repsonse so don't take it as such. I am merely trying to get to the bottom of why the problem exists for some and not others.   So I need to call Paypal (at much expense) and get the same response as last time. That's why I posted here to see if a wider audience knew something OK I'll give you the last scenario so you can see my concern.     My gf came to the UK a few months ago. After informing Paypal in advance that she was travelling the ysaid all would be fine. So when she tries ot use her Paypal acct from my PC her account gets frozen and the payment of £1000 gets stopped. This means she's now in the UK with no funds as the payment didn't go through and her bank account now £1000 frozen.  The payment was to a Paypal account she'd made many payments to in the past so nothign at all unusual anyway. She was here a further 2 weeks during which Paypal were contacted numerous times and she was told it would be resolved and that she should try the payment again. She did, that £1000 got frozen as well, so she now has  no money and no way to get any from her own bank account because of this.   After the next Paypal advisor told her to try it yet again we gave up on that one and tried to simply get the payments unfrozen so she could get the money back into her bank account where it belonged (not tied up by Paypal).   She was home in the USA a week before Paypal actually sorted this mess out. To me that is ridiculous and something I am trying to prevent from happening in advance.     Maybe it's a sign of monopolisation. I think I might just take cash and use someone elses Paypal account while I'm over there if I need to. Seems an extreme measure though just for such a simple thing that should be avoidable. ... View more