eCheque Failure

[digital*ghost]

Is anyone else experiencing a high rate of eCheque failures at the moment? 

I ask because all three of the eCheques I have received in the last week have failed - two were from the same buyer, though, and when they replied to my message they said it was a PayPal issue (i.e. they had plenty of funds, but PayPal weren't clearing the payments anyway). This particular buyer is actually on my BBL (for non-payment) and used another account to make the purchase, so the history isn't too crash hot, but I've now received notice of another eCheque failure from a different buyer.

I know it could just be a coincidence, but thought I'd check to see if this is a genuine issue affecting others before I decide how to proceed with these cases. 

[digital*ghost]

Do you have a credit or debit card attached to your account? 

I have a debit card, and if there are no funds in my PayPal account, then the payment process from my end as the buyer is identical to an eCheque (PayPal debit the funds from my account within 24 hours), the payment is received instantly by the seller. If I didn't have the debit card attached, then it would be processed as an eCheque. 

I can't say for sure what you would see from the buyer's perspective, only that there have been a few reports of that happening, where it shows as an instant payment for the buyer, but an eCheque for the seller. I suspect that's happened with one or two of my payments in the past, after noticing a seller took a few days longer than normal to post (payment showed as instant on my end, but I didn't verify with the seller, though). 

[i-love-my-sheep]

My bank account is my default for taking money from if PayPal is empty and my credit card is the back up if the bank account is empty (which it never is). 

I wonder what happens then if part payment is made from PayPal and part payment is taken from bank account, because there wasn't enough left in PayPal to cover the full payment? 

[cq_tech]

If you have a credit card registered as a backup, the payment will go through as instant, but if not, it will become an e-cheque.

[i-love-my-sheep]

Thanks CQ, that would probably explain why everything is posted 24-48hrs after I pay. The item i bought last week, might just be a slow seller, or it may have been posted, but not marked as posted. 

[cq_tech]

More than likely, sheep. If your payments were going through as e-cheques, they wouldn't be posted for a good 5-7 days.

[clarry100]

We haven't had an echeque for a couple of weeks now.
We have only ever seen one result in failure.
We did have one some time back where the buyer asked when we were going to mail their item. We responded saying when the echeque clears. They had no idea what an echeque even was and said they would contact PayPal. Anyway it did clear and we mailed the item and never heard any more about it.

[i-love-my-sheep]

I've only received a few e-cheques and most cleared inside a week. One however took nearly 2 weeks to clear. I assumed (until yesterday) that they buyer had deliberately paid that way and wondered why they would use that method when it was so slow. I wonder now if the buyer didn't even know it had been sent that way! I never received bad feedback or trashed DSR's because of it though.

The few times I have received them, I've sent the buyer a message thanking them for their payment and I will post as soon as their e-cheque clears.

[clarry100]

Yes since that one of ours where the buyer did not even know what it was we now send a message something like yours so they know we have received an echeque.

That way they know about the reason for the delayed postage and will take further action if it bothers them.

[digital*ghost]

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@digital*ghost wrote:

 all three of the eCheques I have received in the last week have failed 

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Make that the last 7, probably 8 (I have one that is still showing as being processed, but the buyer has contacted me and said on their end, the payment has been refused).

Not a single eCheque has cleared in the last 3 weeks - definitely something wrong there. 

[clarry100]

We had one last week that ended up clearing on Friday.

I contacted the buyer and politley let them know that we would be delaying postage until the echeque cleared.

Never heard anything until Thursday night when they contacted us asking if we could please mail the item as it was for a birthiday gift.

Since it cleared overnight, we just mailed it the next morning (Friday) anyway.

But in a case like this if we had said no we will not mail it until it clears then you risk bad FB becasue you have a cranky buyer on your hands.

If its a low cost item (which ours mostly are) then we would be inclined to mail it out if asked I think.