Payment is still listed as "pending" and now buyer is annoyed.

[kimbooley89]

So, the buyer purchased 2 DVDs fro me on Monday evening. They paid through PayPal and it is showing up as payment pending, and that they payment was initiated on Monday 30th.

Now, I still haven't received the money in my PayPal account (as of today Nov 1st) and the buyer has sent me an annoyed email saying that the problem must be on his end. I explained to him that the payment must have gone through as an e-cheque, either because he didn't have enough funds in his account or because he doesn't have a credit card linked to his PayPal and so the money has come from his bank account, hence the hold up. And that in my experience, when this has happend before, it's taken up to 3 - 4 business days for the money to clear.

He says that he made a payment to someone else 10 minutes before he purchased from me and that the other payment went through right away. So he believes the problem to be on my end because, as he says, he's never had any issues with other seller's receiving payment directly from his bank account.

Does anyone know what could be going on? I've read online that sometimes PayPal will with-hold funds to gain interest on their end (I don't totally understand that part), but I'm also thinking that if he hasn't had an issue before that maybe his previous seller's have just marked the sale as paid right away instead of actually waiting for it to clear in their accounts.

I've never had any issues with this before (having been selling for about 7 years) so any advice would be much appreciated!

(I should also add that when I look at the order details for this buyer's order, and select "View transaction" it takes me to an error page on the PayPal page.)

[kopenhagen5]

PayPal sometimes randomnly changes a payment to an e-cheque especially if an account holder has either made many small payments or includes a large purchase.

Explain this to the buyer as it's probably not because of either accounts but just PayPal security stepping in.

[kimbooley89]

Yeah, I've tried doing that but he's still adamant that it is my fault and that he's annoyed because he wanted the DVDs by this weekend.

I told him that there's not really much else I can do if PayPal are withholding funds from me, as I'm not going to post the items when I haven't received payment (and I gave him a screen shot of my PayPal account so show the funds haven't arrived.) So that he could either wait another 2 days or we could just cancel.

[kopenhagen5]

Yeah, that's all you can do. 

[kimbooley89]

Okay, update:

I've received an e-mail from PayPal that says I have unclaimed funds and that I need to open a business account with them to receive the money. Why would I need to do that to collect funds when I already have a PayPal account I've been using for 10 years?

[kimbooley89]

Okay, one more update. I've just received a message from PayPal.

It's showing that the funds are on hold in my account and this message comes up: "This payment will be in your pending balance until November 22nd. It may be avialble sooner or until we know the transaction went smoothly."

Any idea why it would be pending for that long? I've never had that message before.

[davewil1964 · Accepted solution]

You seem to have triggered the 21 day hold for new/low transaction sellers.

Which shouldn't be the case, as you have sufficient recent sales to prove your reliability.

Ring Paypal.

[kimbooley89]

Thanks, I may just have to do that. I'll give that a go and see what they say.