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View Full Version : eBay / PayPal - I am confused...


adelaidejane
July 10th, 2007, 10:06 PM
Okay, so here's the deal.

I'm checking out cloth diapers on eBay. Most sellers prefer to use PayPal as the form of payment which, as I understand it, is a special type of funds transferral set up by eBay but as a separate... entity thingy I guess.

Shroomy had signed up for PayPal when he opened the account a couple of years ago, but he hadn't actually ever used it, so he doesn't know much about it. Hence why I'm posing this question to yuzall.

When I decided to start bidding on diapers and stuff, I organised to transfer $50 into PayPal - I think. There was like a button that says "Add Funds", and to my understanding, you put money from your bank account into your PayPal account, and that's how you pay the seller. So I added the $50 last Wednesday, and it said it would take until July 9th to clear. Fair enough.

So today is July 10th and it hasn't cleared yet. But I won an auction, and wanted to pay as soon as I could - or at least look into how the paying of the things work. So I went through all the "Make a Payment" screens, etc, to see what I would have to do, and like one of the last pages said "Make payment from:" with a drop-down selection menu, with our bank account details highlighted. I don't remember if I went through the menu to see what other choices there were, but I remember being confused because I thought that having PayPal meant that my bank account wouldn't be involved at all.

In the end, I went "stuff it" and clicked yes. It was only about $12 altogether so it's not going to break the bank (this week). It doesn't show up as a transaction on our bank statement, but it shows up on the PayPal account page... and I'm a tad confused as to what actually happened.

I took some screen shots to hopefully help a bit. This one is what comes up when I open the PayPal account:
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h232/sjep1983/paypal1.jpg

Down in the recent activity section, that top one (with the -$12 whatever) wasn't there before I made the payment, so obviously that pertains to my purchase. And see how the transferring of the $50 hasn't cleared yet?? Yeah.

Then I clicked on the "details" bit for that top activity, and this screen comes up:
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h232/sjep1983/paypal2.jpg
(text shrunk to fit everything on the screen.)

...

I am officially confused. I really wanna know what's happened, and I think Shroomy really wants to know too... :oops: If you know PayPal really well, can you PLEASE tell me what I've done, whether I've done it wrong, and the meaning of liff?

vindemiatrix
July 10th, 2007, 10:11 PM
I wasn't aware you could actualy transfer money to your PayPal account! O_o That just seems a bit weird to me!

Whenever I use it, all I do is make the payment using the PayPal account and PayPal takes the money from my bank account. This way eBay sellers don't get your credit card details or anything.

So maybe that's what's happened?

adelaidejane
July 10th, 2007, 10:20 PM
Well that does make sense as to what has happened with me... I guess I should have probably figured out how to use this dang thing *before* I used it... :oops:

I guess I'll have to wait and see if it comes up on our bank statement.

Aquamonet
July 10th, 2007, 11:17 PM
I know you can put money in and take money out of your pay pal account. Cause when my Mum and Dad sell on ebay it goes the money into a paypal account and they have to then debit it into their account.

However when ever I buy stuff using pay pal it just takes it out of my bank account. So i guess that's what it's done here. You can probably also put money into your paypal account and pay out using that but I don't know about that. Paypal does have a good FAQ section so that should explain it all.

Hippie
July 11th, 2007, 12:04 AM
I had issues with paypal... I just ended up getting a money order from my bank... >_>

Thuriel
July 11th, 2007, 02:34 AM
Yeah, I did some research on PayPal a while ago and really didn't like what I saw. *shrug* I consider it something to avoid as long as possible.

adelaidejane
July 12th, 2007, 09:26 AM
Okay well I think I have it working good now. The $50 I had put into the PayPal account is now wizzing over our heads on its way back to my bank account. And PayPal activity has shown up on our bank statement too, so I'm feeling much more at ease.

Thanks for all your advice, guys. I wuv youse *gwoup hug!*

cat_lover_4113
July 20th, 2007, 11:33 PM
My bro used Ebay for a bit, and he prefered money order like I do, so if they didn't have that down as one of their preferred he negotiated with them to send it that way.

Glad to see you managed to get it working :)