Paypal refunds

I've just come across a curious problem with paypal that I didn't know existed.

I've just completed a zen-cart store and was doing a test purchase with my credit card using paypal, this worked fine, no problem.

I then got the store owner to refund the transaction, but when I went to paypal to accept the refund, paypal said I had to upgrade my account to accept the refund back to my credit card.

Is this correct?

I could see this causing some unhappy customers, if they pay by credit card they don't want the hassle of creating a paypal account just to get thier money back.

Have I missed something or has it always been this way?

Yes, unfortunately this has been the case, and the reason that most will obtain an actual merchant account for CC's.

Now if an individual chooses to use your pay pal link and has an account or not they can use a credit card but they chose the paypal link over your provided cc link i.e. MC visa etc.

steveyork136:

I could see this causing some unhappy customers, if they pay by credit card they don't want the hassle of creating a paypal account just to get thier money back.

Have I missed something or has it always been this way?

Unless something has changed recently (and I see no recent changes in PayPal policy to this effect) this is NOT the case.

If your customer does NOT have a PayPal account they do NOT have to create one to obtain the refund. (that would be violation of tthe CC company TOS).

On the other hand if customer already has a PayPal account associated with the credit card in question, and purchase was made logged into PayPal, then the cutomer might have to upgrade to a "verified" account to obtain the refund.

YMMV but I recommend avoid logging into PayPal when making cc purchases.

Disclaimer: Everything I stated above may be incorrect. Best to contact Paypal directly for info on their policies. ;)

Woody

This is a moving target,,, as PP in the past required an account to use for anything and changed to allowing non account holders to pay for a members items with out setting up an account. So they have changed at least that, for fear of losing $$ and might have adjusted this policy also, or intend to??