A few days ago I received a payment from a new customer, but the email I received from Paypal said that the payment is under review.
This is what the email looked like:
Hello [NAME],
[NAME] just sent you money with PayPal. To help protect you, we’re reviewing this payment.
The Payment Review may take up to 24 hours. When we’ve completed the review, we’ll either clear or cancel the payment. If the payment clears: You may proceed to process the order. To know if your item is covered, check the ‘Seller Protection’ section of the ‘Transaction Details’ page and ensure that it states ‘Eligible’.
You shouldn’t ship the item until we let you know that the payment has cleared. We’ll send you an email when we complete the review or you can check the Transaction History tab of your PayPal account.
[NAME] is a Verified Customer
Payment Details:
Amount: $20.00 USD
Transaction ID: XXXXXXXXXXXXX
You can view the details for this transaction by logging in to your PayPal account and clicking the “History” tab.View the details of this transaction online It may take a few moments for this transaction to appear in the Recent Activity list on your Account Overview.
As you can see in the email, the buyer is a “Verified Customer,” and their “Address Status” is “Confirmed.”
I also talked to this customer before they made the purchase, so I know they’re not a scammer using a stolen Paypal or something like that. So it made no sense why would Paypal put this payment under review.
At this point, whether you’re selling a digital or a physical product or a service, unless you really know and trust the customer, you Do Not deliver any work until the payment clears. And then you wait for Paypal to complete their review.
Payment Review Outcome: Cleared, OK to Ship
About a day later I received an email from Paypal informing me that the review is over and that the payment is cleared.
Here is that email:
We have completed our payment review and have cleared the transaction below. You may proceed to process the order. To know if your item is covered, check the ‘Seller Protection’ section of the ‘Transactions Details’ page and ensure that it states ‘Eligible’.
You can now provide the item or service purchased.
At this point the money was cleared in my Paypal account and I was ready to delivery the work to the customer.
Even though I trusted the customer was legit and that the payment would eventually clear, I still waited on it to clear before I did any work. This was a brand new customer, and I had to be sure I get that money, free and clear, before I do any work. The customer didn’t mind waiting too, so it all worked out.
Video where I talk about the situation:
Final Thoughts
If this happens to you all you can do it wait and hope for the best. This is actually Paypal trying to protect you and themselves from shady payments, so I can’t hate on them for it. And they did indeed review the payment and make their decision in less than 24 hours, so it didn’t cause any problems for me as far as my customer goes.
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