If you sell things online and use Paypal to receive money you have most probably received eCheck payments before. In this article I will explain what they are, how they work and what you should do if you ever receive an eCheck payment.
eCheck Payment In Progress
What happens when you receive such a payment is that the payer is paying using their bank account, and so it takes about 6-8 days for the money to be transferred from their bank account to your Paypal and for that whole process to be finalized and the money deposited to your account.
Most such payments are completely legit, and the only problem with them is the inconvenience of waiting for the money to clear in your account.
eCheck payments are Scams?
Yes, they are scams. What I mean by that is that it’s a well-known scam for someone to pay for something with an eCheck, then receive the product or service they purchased, and then the eCheck never clears. Then the scammer gets to keep the product/service and the money.
The biggest issue with such payments are for websites that sell products/services that are Instant delivery, like downloadable ebooks and things like that. In those cases the scammer buys, the payment comes through, they get the eBooks or whatever they purchased, and then the eCheck never clears. Great scam.
What I do and what you should do with such payments is, if the payment is coming from a customer who you know, like a repeat customer or someone you have talked to and believe is a legit buyer, then you can go ahead and deliver the product or service you are selling. However, if this is a new customer or someone who doesn’t inspire you with trust, then contact them and tell them that you need to wait for the eCheck to clear before you can deliver, and that’s that.
You can quote what Paypal tells you in the email to the customer, to make them understand that Paypal is advising you to wait before you do any work:
It usually takes about 6-8 days for you to receive the money (DATE). We recommend that you wait until the money arrives before shipping items. We’ll email you when this eCheck payment has been deposited into your account.
Notification of a cleared eCheck Payment
After the 6-8 days pass, if everything goes well the eCheck payment will clear and you will receive an email like this:
This email confirms that the Pending eCheck you have received for $ USD from [EMAIL] has cleared.
A recent payment to you didn’t go through
In case the payment fails, you will receive an email like this:
Dear [NAME]
A PayPal payment from [EMAIL] was not processed successfully at the sender’s side. If you sold tangible goods, please do not ship tghem as the payment did not complete. If you sold a service or a virtual item, do not deliver or provide them.
Here is a video I made on the topic:
Conclusion
At the end of the day, these sorts of payments are legitimate payments that you can receive, but they can also be an attempt to scam you out of your service or product. So if you receive such a payment stop for a second and consider who is sending it and for what, and take it from there.