I’ve had a couple of ‘sales’ (on FB, not Folksy), and both buyers are insisting they have sent payment, but I’ve had nothing this end. Nothing is showing in my Paypal account, I’ve had no emails etc. One buyer has got back to me saying they’ve checked, the money has gone from their end, and they have an email to say it’s been sent, but I have nothing at all. Anyone else had this issue? I don’t want to send the items before knowing the payment is there, and can’t anyway, as I don’t have addresses…it just seems odd for both sales today to be like this. Any ideas?
Thanks.
I’ve had pending payments before, but always with an email and the payment showing as pending in my account, but there’s nothing for either of these payments.
I sent myself a test payment of £1 from my personal Paypal to y business Paypal, and that worked fine.
I know if people type the email address in wrong it will show them as paid (but unclaimed) - I wonder if both customers have done that?
I’d ask them to send you a copy of their email so you can see what’s happened.
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Hi Sara
Several times I have not received the PayPal email but when checking the account the payments were showing. The emails then came a couple of days later. I put this down to my email host holding them for some reason. I have also had people spell my email incorrectly. If in doubt you could ask them to cancel the payment and you send them a request for payment rather than them pay you. That way you know the right connection had been made.
Hope you get it sorted soon
Hazel.
have you check they’ve sent the payment to the correct paypal address.
I had this problem with an American customer she’d typed my paypal email address in incorrectly so the payment was stuck in libo thankfully it didn’t go to someone else’s account.
Give her your paypal email address again and get her to check if she’s typed it incorrectly.
In my case my customer had transposed two letters of my paypal email and leftout a full stop.
Forgot to add my customer had bought from me before and hadn’t waited for me to send her a paypal invoice What she’d done was copy the inform from her previous order incorrectly and tried to pay me via paypal and let me know in an email. It was very confusing at the time. She’d wanted me to write up one of my knitting patterns and sell it to her for the same price as the last pattern she’d bought from me.
Yes, have asked both to check the email address (waiting for replies), no emails my end, nothing showing in my account.
I’ve tested by sending myself a payment from my other account and that works fine.
It just seems odd that it’s the 2 sales I made yesterday that neither of them are showing.
Thanks - I have asked both to check the email they sent the Paypal to. I will wait and see what they say next, if anything! They can always screenshot the payment page and send that to me to check if necessary.
Hi Sara!
I’ve had a few sales on FB and this has not happened to me and then I thought “Why?” and I remembered something. I always ask for the buyers email address and then invoice them using Paypal. This means that they can’t get anything wrong and what is more, they can’t pretend they have paid if they haven’t! It’s quite easy to do, just follow the instructions on the Paypal website. You can even add a personal note to your invoice if you want to. The buyer gets an email with a Paypal button on it which takes them straight to payment as it would in an online shop.
Hopefully your buyers are real and not just after some free stuff 
Love Sam x
I think you are always safest sending a paypal invoice in cases like these, that way you are in control. If the buyers are using the ‘send money’ option which allows you to receive it without paying fees then I believe that is against paypal’s t&cs (because you are trading).
I do often send invoices, but sometimes I post things for sale that are available in quantity on my FB page, and leave the paypal address so that if I’m not online people can buy straight away - a delay in sending an invoice can lead to a lost sale, but I can’t be online all the time or I’d never get any painting done LOL.
I d try and get people to buy via Folksy, but some just prefer to buy direct.
The buyers won;t get any free stuff - if they’ve not paid I have no address to post out to 
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I never ask for money to be sent as friends and family, and actively tell people not to do that if they mention it (I’ve been selling on line for years so know the rules). There are two ways to pay - sending money to buy goods, which charges the seller a fee, and the friends and family payment (previously ‘gift’), so yes, I fully understand how Paypal works, thank you 
I’m not on line 24/7, I have to have time to get on and paint, so if people want to pay immediately I put the paypal address up so that they can send payment. If they prefer to be invoiced I do that. Plus I have such a huge surge of enquiries sometimes that it’s a lot quicker to ask people to send payment rather than keep making invoices.
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Didn’t mean to offend you! But, as I said, if you’re not sending an invoice then you’re not in control of how they send the money. Although I can see why you work it the way you do.
That’s ok Sara! I’m sure you know much better than me what you are doing 
It just feels a bit sus to me, having worked in insurance claims. It’s the sort of thing that otherwise respectable people, who are used to dealing with big companies like say, Marks and Spencer, do. A bit like buying a nice dress from a shop, wearing it to a wedding and then returning it and getting their money back. The way it goes is they say “I’ve done everything I can from my end-can you let me have the goods just this once while you sort it out with Paypal.” Naughty!
I’m not for a minute saying your customer are doing that (because that would be theft), but a lot of people are capable of such things. And you are wise not to send anything out yet.
This is why I’m sticking to sending an invoice…but maybe I’m just a cynic
Love Sam x
I suggest you log into your Paypal online page and see if there are any receipts you didn’t know you had. In the past I have discovered receipts where I had not yet had the emails, and it has been a day later that the actual emails arrived. I have therefore been able to post the pattern right away, saving a day.
Hazel Rayfield Art In Wax above suggests the same solution. I now regularly go online to Paypal, especially if I have not had any emails from them for a day or two. All my orders come through Paypal baskets; I don’t need to issue invoices except in the case of some special orders.
ive had this with an order about a week ago and now i have lost the sale.
the customer didnt have a paypal and didnt want to open up an account so i offered her the opportunity to pay me direct and now she has stopped responding to emails.
i wasnt sure how much was operator error at her end as she didnt tell me whether she sent her payment confirmation email to folksy support (i copied them into the query as to where the process had fallen down when she said she had paid for the order)…but now im convinced this may have been a wider spread issue.
x