PayPal Trouble-HELP QUICK

Hi, I am a little confused, was there one or two of these items ?

Sorry I couldn't respond sooner. I had a breakdown, but I'm all better now.

Anyway, there were two separate auctions, one item in each. I only referred to the other auction to show that I had compared the emails and had a point of reference for the Notification of Instant Payment that PayPal sends out. Didn't mean to confuse you.

I have ended up sending a request to PayPal to investigate because I still can't figure it out. Auctiva and eBay both show that the buyer has paid via PayPal, but the transaction doesn't show in my account. AND, if I go to the transaction details in eBay, it allows you to look at the specifics on PayPal and it takes me to a PayPal page. But if there is no transaction history for this particular purchase. Strange. I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Also, ever since my initial email to the buyer where I indicated that shipment would be delayed until I could verify payment, I haven't contacted them. And they haven't contacted me either. I think that seems odd, don't you. I wonder if this is a scam or something.

Are you sure the Buyer didn't pay via Money Order? PayPal will send Money Order notices if the buyer uses eBay checkout. The money will not be deposited into your PayPal account, of course - it is simply a notice that the Seller should expect a Money Order, Personal Check or Cashier's Check payment to arrive in the mail from the Buyer.

Hi, I once had a buyer pay by Paypal but a friend did it for them with a different account name, at the time I was selling a large amount weekly and the alternative name appeared as a totally unrelated (to any eBay item id) entry in the my PayPal account.

When I e-mailed a reply in response to the PayPal notification I did not get a quick reply back until the 'payer' had contacted the winner, if only they had told me first it would have been a bit less messy.

Could this of happened in your case ?

Choo Choo,
I'm not sure if that is what has happened or not. I haven't gotten a response from PayPal or the buyer yet. I don't know what to do. Also, I don't think they could have paid with a money order because I don't provide my address to buyers. I will send another email to PayPal and then just let it go. I don't know what else I can do. I feel like I've made the attempt but I can't send something that I haven't been paid for. Any ideas or suggestions how to proceed?

Hi Buffy1qt

Rule 1 do not send goods until payment received unless you trust the buyer's reptuation on eBay with respect to the value of the goods.

Rule 2 in the event of delays keep the buyer informed.

You have not stated what the nominal win value of the item is as this makes a big difference to how much you pursue this.

Also what is the buyers country ?

From what you have said so far I would not send the item until payment is confirmed by PayPal.

PayPal and eBay are not quick respondants to e-mails, meantime I would send the 'buyer' an update at regular intervals via contact buyer only (so communications are accessible by eBay/PayPal) even just to say you are still waiting for a reply from PayPal.

Continuous updates, say weekly keep the transaction alive and avoids buyer panic when they believe they have paid and suddenly think you are trying to defraud them. the buyer could be on holiday at this time of the year and paid as they went away.

At the moment it sounds like an eBay/PayPal hiccup rather than a scam, do you know if the buyer would have received an invoice/win mail from eBay as well as Auctiva's invoice, I prefer to just use eBay's to avoid potential confusion.

So keep the buyer informed, get on with other selling and wait for a bit longer for PayPal to respond, I'd give them at least 2 weeks. Trouble is their anti-fraud etc departments are very slow and secretive.