Why Your Electronic PayPal Payment Might Be Pending Or Unclaimed

PayPal has helped change the convenience factor of paying for goods and services. The company helped popularize online payments worldwide, opening the door to all sorts of electronic payments like Zelle, CashApp, Venmo and more. The service is indispensable if you are a small business owner or if you are a freelancer. It is available in virtually every corner of the world, and in every platform and device imaginable as a payment method.

Before we had Apple and Google Pay, it was PayPal that dominated the digital wallet market — thanks to it being quite easy to set up and use, along with widespread availability.

That said, despite how easy PayPal can be to use, it doesn't mean it is completely free of issues. A common problem that may arise when sending a payment is that it is not accepted. There is a variety of reasons for this to happen, and you might see a payment being labeled as "pending" or "unclaimed." Before you panic about your money being lost forever, there's a few things to consider.

According to the PayPal help center, in its simplest terms, a pending or unclaimed payment means that "the recipient hasn't received or hasn't accepted the payment yet." One of the main reasons for this to happen is when the payment was sent to a non-verified PayPal account (the wrong email or phone number), or when the recipient hasn't set up automatic acceptance of incoming payments. The latter reason could be due to a difference in preferred currency between sender and receiver, for instance.

To fix this, make sure you sent the payment to the right address or number, and that the receiver verifies their PayPal account and the transaction. Regardless, the receiver has 30 days to accept or deny the payment. If not, PayPal will automatically cancel the pending or unclaimed payment and refund you the money. This process can take up to 5 business days for bank account refunds, and up to 30 days for credit or debit card refunds.

An unclaimed payment can also be canceled by the user on the PayPal website: Go to Activity, then select "Cancel" under the unclaimed payment. Otherwise, so long as you've verified the recipient's information, it's probably on the seller to verify the payment (or determine the problem on their end if they cannot verify your payment was sent).