Sometimes a buyer may fund their PayPal payment by eCheck. An eCheck is a payment funded by their bank account, but without a backup funding source (ie the buyer doesn’t have a credit/debit card registered to their account). The only exception to this is if a buyer manually selects eCheck as a funding source (despite having a valid & registered card in place).

Most eChecks are sent by mistake. Nearly all of these happen because the buyer’s credit/debit card has expired and they haven’t updated it in their PayPal account.

There are detailed instructions for buyers regarding eChecks here: About Me: ajcardiac3

The status of an eCheck will remain Uncleared until the money has been taken from the buyer’s bank account and deposited in your PayPal account. You can see the expected clearance date of an eCheck in the PayPal transaction details:







You will also receive an email similar to this:





If the item is cheap and you would not wait for a paper check to clear, you could send the item on receipt of the eCheck. However, if the eCheck fails (because there are insufficient funds in the buyer’s bank account, or they’ve cancelled the Direct Debit Instruction) you will be left with no money and no item.

If it’s not a cheap item, you should wait until the eCheck clears before sending.

You will get an email similar to this when the eCheck has cleared:





and the status in PayPal will change to Cleared:





If the status of the eCheck changes to Cancelled, that means it has failed/bounced, like a paper cheque (i.e. insufficient funds in the buyer’s bank account for the payment) so PayPal (not the buyer) has cancelled it.

Refunding eChecks

If the buyer has sent an eCheck by mistake and wants to pay by an instant PayPal method, you can refund the eCheck.

Open the transaction details in your PayPal account and use the Issue Refund link, then follow the on-screen instructions:





The refund will remain pending until the eCheck clears then the money will be credited to your buyer's PayPal account (not their bank account).

No money will be taken from your PayPal account for the refund, it effectively cancels out at the point the eCheck clears and the money "bounces" back to the buyer.

The PayPal payment status will show as Cancelled.

Your buyer can then repay by an instant method when they’ve updated their card details in their:

• PayPal account Profile 
• Financial Information
• Credit/Debit Cards.

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The images posted here are limited in size and resolution by eBay.
If you would like to see the images in a larger, more clear format, please visit my on-line Help Page:

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/ajcardiac/Seller_eCheques.htm
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If you have a problem with PayPal that isn’t covered in this Guide, then take a look here:

About Me: ajcardiac3
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