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@everard6920 wrote:

A few years ago, I had a similar issue with a buyer who kept buying my items and paying with e-cheque via Paypal.

 

The e-cheques would always, always bounce 7 days later. And then she'd try sending another one. At the time, you could not open an UID while an e-cheque was pending.

 

She used two different surnames but the same address over 5 different accounts. She drove me crazy and in the end I'd just relist the item the moment she'd "buy" it, as I knew payment would inevitably bounce 7 days later. eBay gave me permission to cancel her purchases without penalty and said they'd remove any feedback from her, but they were SO reluctant to ban her from the site it was beyond belief.

 

Thank God she eventually gave up when I just kept cancelling anything she bought within minutes of her buying.

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E-cheques are not a deliberate thing. Not like the old days where someone would want to pay a bill or something and send a cheque in the mail. E-cheques spawn randomly if someone doesn't have funds in their PayPal account, and it has to draw it from your linked savings account. If your linked account is a credit card, it doesn't happen.

I have had them spawn twice over the years when I've bought something. The first one cleared in around a week. The second one "bounced", despite having over $10,000 in my linked savings account. I asked the seller for their PayPal email and paid them manually.

Buyers have absolutely not control over whether their payment is via e-cheque. When you go to pay, there is a message in absolutely tiny writing that payment will be via e-cheque. It's quite easy to miss. I've had a few buyers that have funded their payment that way, so I send a message telling them they've paid via e-cheque, explaining how it happens, and that I can't post until it clears. Most have absolutely no idea that payment was made that way. As far as they knew, they'd paid via PayPal.

The thing is, even if you never have funds in your PayPal, and payments come from your linked savings account, 19 out of 20 will go through normally. Then all of a sudden, the 20th one spawns an e-cheque.