Can't cancel pending donation

[maclongshanks]

Hi everyone, I was making a donation to a charity on their website through PayPal. My phone malfunctioned and it looked like it hadn't worked. I went back and made a second donation. I thought to check my bank account straight after and found both donations had been made. They were both pending authorisations at that stage and hadn't been claimed by the merchant or been taken out of my account. I looked up in Paypal help and the only information I could find said we can cancel a transaction if it is still pending. It says to go into our account, go to Activity, click on the transaction and there is a cancel function there. There was no cancel function. I searched help as much as I could find but could only find that information. I contacted PayPal customer service in the message center and they have now said apparently we can't cancel a transaction if it is a donation, even if it was still pending. Is that right? I couldn't find that information and PayPal help doesn't say we can't cancel a transaction if it's a donation. That's ridiculous if it is right. Donations can be made by mistake just as much as any other transaction. As I pointed out to them, devices malfunction, the internet malfunctions, or any of the other ways transactions can be made by mistake. They told me to contact the merchant, which I already did straight after I realised both donations had been made and they were both still pending. I've been trying for a week but haven't had a reply. It doesn't sound like there is any requirement for them to refund me. If that is right, that's a really bad policy from PayPal. Leaving people with no way of canceling transactions that have been made by mistake when they are still pending, because they are donations.... Seriously won't be using PayPal again if that is right, and will be telling everyone I know not to either 😕

[PayPal_Bindu]

Hello @maclongshanks,

Thank you for visiting our community help forum!

I see you're looking to cancel the donation in your PayPal account. I do understand your concern with this. Unfortunately, once you’ve made the donation, it can’t be canceled. However, in some circumstances refunds might be granted, if the donation was made in error, was made in an incorrect amount or the selected charity was not the charity intended by the donor. In these exceptional circumstances, you have to contact the benefiting charity directly to request a refund. 

I hope this information helps. 

Bindu

[maclongshanks]

Hi Bindu, Thank you for your reply 🙏🏾🐾 Yeah the point is though we should be able to cancel a transaction if it was made in error and it's still pending. It would save everyone alot of time and difficulty. The other problem is leaving it up to the decision of the merchant isn't fair as some can choose not to refund you. Thankfully the merchant in my case has now refunded me but I'm lucky. There doesn't seem to be any requirement for them to. It also took 2 weeks of sending several emails and getting no reply, then eventually just by luck finding another email address for the financial officer of the charity, who then refunded me. I also had to report the transaction as a problem to Paypal. All a waste of everyone's time and energy, when I could have just cancelled the payment myself straight away if that had been allowed. Thank you for your kindness though 🙂🙏🏾🐾