Advice Needed: Refunded the Money?

[HaruTotetsu]

So about a month ago I bought a character from someone via ToyHouse, sent payment and they sent the character over. Today I got an email from PayPal saying they were refunding the money due to them not accepting it for over a month. This I find doubly odd, since they sent me an invoice.

I've never had this happen before and I'm not entirely sure what I should do about it, so I need some advice.

To be clear at this point I've done nothing because I'm absolutely confused and uncertain what to do.

[baja]

Apologies for approving this a bit on the late side.

You need to talk to the person you bought the design from, flat-out.

If something was acting up with Paypal and they suddenly do not have the funds, then your original transaction would be considered void (just going by general etiquette with adopts)

It could not hurt to reach out to Paypal to see what's going on with that, if you have not done so already.

Be sure to **call** Paypal and do not leave it to chance with automated responses or chat functions (these are **horrendous**))

[HaruTotetsu]

Thanks baja. Not to worry about the late approval, I know things can get hectic.

I've reached out to the person i bought the character from telling them about what PayPal said and offered to send the money via PayPal again, or via another place to send them funds.

I should add that PayPal said they weren't a "verified" member of PayPal yet, so it might be they have introduced a policy that if you don't verify your account you need to accept any money sent to you, or it'll be refunded. So I think this is just a security measure PayPal has, rather than a refund made in error or due to the other users account being closed (it hasn't affected my account at all as I've commissioned artists and others after the initial transaction, and after I got the message about the "refund").

I don't know if the fact they made it so it has our physical address on the invoice as if its marked as a physical item being delivered to my physical address, or if this might be a more universal policy with unverified accounts at PayPal though.

For now I'll wait for the adopts owners response and proceed from there. Don't know if they'll be more to post here about it, but I'll post a comment if anything comes up, that might be of interest to others. But I think the "PayPal issues refunds if you don't accept the money when your account isn't verified" is worth mentioning.

[baja]

40 minutes ago, HaruTotetsu said:

Thanks baja. Not to worry about the late approval, I know things can get hectic.

I've reached out to the person i bought the character from telling them about what PayPal said and offered to send the money via PayPal again, or via another place to send them funds.

I should add that PayPal said they weren't a "verified" member of PayPal yet, so it might be they have introduced a policy that if you don't verify your account you need to accept any money sent to you, or it'll be refunded. So I think this is just a security measure PayPal has, rather than a refund made in error or due to the other users account being closed (it hasn't affected my account at all as I've commissioned artists and others after the initial transaction, and after I got the message about the "refund").

I don't know if the fact they made it so it has our physical address on the invoice as if its marked as a physical item being delivered to my physical address, or if this might be a more universal policy with unverified accounts at PayPal though.

For now I'll wait for the adopts owners response and proceed from there. Don't know if they'll be more to post here about it, but I'll post a comment if anything comes up, that might be of interest to others. But I think the "PayPal issues refunds if you don't accept the money when your account isn't verified" is worth mentioning.

I do not want to assume, but I am going to speculate the design your purchased may have been under $50, around there?

You can open a Paypal account at any time, but until you verify it (by linking a bank account/card, verifying your personal info), you are limited in doing a lot with the platform.

I recall when I was younger (before the minimum age limit was hard set at 18), I set up an account under a fake name and I could not withdraw more than $25 until I verified my information, like $25 was my hard limit and I could do nothing else with the account. This was about 15+ years back, so things may have changed since then, but it does sound like an account that isn't properly set-up for the platform.

It could be the case that the individual never completed the set-up and may not be of age to be using Paypal, and if this is the case from their Toyhouse profile? I would wash my hands of the design and not deal with the individual again.

[HaruTotetsu]

4 hours ago, baja said:

I do not want to assume, but I am going to speculate the design your purchased may have been under $50, around there?

You can open a Paypal account at any time, but until you verify it (by linking a bank account/card, verifying your personal info), you are limited in doing a lot with the platform.

I recall when I was younger (before the minimum age limit was hard set at 18), I set up an account under a fake name and I could not withdraw more than $25 until I verified my information, like $25 was my hard limit and I could do nothing else with the account. This was about 15+ years back, so things may have changed since then, but it does sound like an account that isn't properly set-up for the platform.

It could be the case that the individual never completed the set-up and may not be of age to be using Paypal, and if this is the case from their Toyhouse profile? I would wash my hands of the design and not deal with the individual again.

Ah good to know. I'll definitely take that into consideration, though its a bit more complicated since they aren't the characters original designer, and the character design in question was created more than 4 years ago. I've also looked into the characters original designer and they have had a DeviantART account for 12 years, and on their ToyHouse account state they are 24 years old. The character in question only has a SFW image and there's nothing inappropriate for kids involved in the sale, just this odd issue with payment.

I did some extra digging and found the DA account of the person i bought it from and that is only 5 years old with nothing on it, and the initial transaction was via DA points. So you may be right about them not being of age. There is still a chance this is all a misunderstanding though, like they're old enough but just haven't validated their PayPal for some reason, as I know some object to giving companies certain details in this day and age because of AI data harvesting.

I'm thinking I'll wait for their response and ask for them to clarify things, and after that I'll decide what to do. I'd like to give people the benefit of the doubt. Though I worry if I simply return the design this'll just happen to someone else.

Thanks for all your helpful advice baja.