Paypal payment received but my balance has not increased?!

Discussion about all the financial aspects of life - from bank accounts, overdrafts and budgeting to tax, savings and investments. For discussion about student loans, grants, and bursaries please use the Student Financial Support subforum.

Announcements Posted on
Sign in to Reply
  1. JustCharley's Avatar
    • Respected Member
    • Posts: 226
    Paypal payment received but my balance has not increased?!
    I received a payment from someone who bought stuff off me on eBay for £12.98. It's in my payments received list and is labelled as complete, but my Paypal balance is still £0?

    My email address and phone number are all confirmed. I've been using paypal for 4 years now ...

    HELP.
  2. lonelykatana's Avatar
    • Overlord in Training
    • Posts: 2,515
    Re: Paypal payment received but my balance has not increased?!
    have you recently paid for something through paypal, AFTER you received this payment?

    I asked what may seem like a stupid question because I was recently caught out with paypal.
    I thought the money had not found its way into my paypal account, but it in fact had, and was then used for another transaction.
    There was no evidence for this at all on paypal, hence it catching me out.

    I don't remember exact figures, but I'll give you an example.

    I recieved a payment of £20.
    Before I had a chance to make sure the money had been put into my paypal balance, I purchased an item worth £35 from an independent shop completely unrelated to the original received payment of £20 I got!

    The item I purchased was paid for partly through my paypal balance and partly my bank account. This was news to me, as I thought the entire thing would come out of my bank account!
    So my paypal account went down to 0, and £15 was withdrawn from my account. I presumed the full £35 would come from my account, leaving me with £20 in my paypal balance.
    There was no information at all of this on paypal, and I didn't realise it had happened for a while, as I wasn't looking for a £15 withdrawal from my bank account!

    I finally realised what had happened, and felt royally dumb. Its strange there is no indication of this at all on paypal, it seems to catch a few people out!

    Perhaps a similar thing has happened to you, or perhaps your not a dope like me
    Last edited by lonelykatana; 11-06-2012 at 20:56.
  3. JustCharley's Avatar
    • Respected Member
    • Posts: 226
    Re: Paypal payment received but my balance has not increased?!
    (Original post by lonelykatana)
    have you recently paid for something through paypal, AFTER you received this payment?

    I asked what may seem like a stupid question because I was recently caught out with paypal.
    I thought the money had not found its way into my paypal account, but it in fact had, and was then used for another transaction.
    There was no evidence for this at all on paypal, hence it catching me out.

    I don't remember exact figures, but I'll give you an example.

    I recieved a payment of £20.
    Before I had a chance to make sure the money had been put into my paypal balance, I purchased an item worth £35 from an independent shop completely unrelated to the original received payment of £20 I got!

    The item I purchased was paid for partly through my paypal balance and partly my bank account. This was news to me, as I thought the entire thing would come out of my bank account!
    So my paypal account went down to 0, and £15 was withdrawn from my account. I presumed the full £35 would come from my account, leaving me with £20 in my paypal balance.
    There was no information at all of this on paypal, and I didn't realise it had happened for a while, as I wasn't looking for a £15 withdrawal from my bank account!

    I finally realised what had happened, and felt royally dumb. Its strange there is no indication of this at all on paypal, it seems to catch a few people out!

    Perhaps a similar thing has happened to you, or perhaps your not a dope like me
    Just spoke to customer services. Apparently that did happen ... I don't feel dumb though cos you're right it's not very clear at all!!

    They're also temporarily holding a refund of mine as well ... it's all very suspicious. I've got stuff on ebay that I'm selling finishing tonight so we'll see if money appears then!
  4. zara55's Avatar
    • Banned
    • Location: Cheshire / Edinburgh
    • Posts: 953
    • Warning points: 1000
    Re: Paypal payment received but my balance has not increased?!
    (Original post by JustCharley)
    Just spoke to customer services. Apparently that did happen ... I don't feel dumb though cos you're right it's not very clear at all!!

    They're also temporarily holding a refund of mine as well ... it's all very suspicious. I've got stuff on ebay that I'm selling finishing tonight so we'll see if money appears then!
    This happened to me as well, PayPal just seems to be almost pathetically bad at giving information to the right level of detail on its website, you would think such an important international website would be run better.
Sign in to Reply
Share this discussion:  
Article updates
Moderators

We have a brilliant team of more than 60 volunteers looking after discussions on The Student Room, helping to make it a fun, safe and useful place to hang out.

Reputation gems:
The Reputation gems seen here indicate how well reputed the user is, red gem indicate negative reputation and green indicates a good rep.
Post rating score:
These scores show if a post has been positively or negatively rated by our members.