Paypal promises to resolve pending withdrawals today

James Ryan Jonas

Update 2/9/2008 : The good news: As promised, Paypal did process some of the delayed withdrawal transactions yesterday. The bad: Not all pending requests were completed.  Several members, as seen in this PMT Forum discussion thread, are still waiting.

A follow-up to the pending Paypal withdrawals problem currently plaguing users: Paypal has issued an official announcement at the eBay site claiming they plan to resolve the issue by today, February 8.

The announcement, posted on February 5, goes:

February 05, 2008 | 12:54PM a PHT

We are aware that users in certain countries such as Malaysia, India, Indonesia and the Philippines, are currently unable to complete withdrawals to their Visa credit, debit or prepaid cards. We are working diligently to resolve this as quickly as possible so that you can access your funds. We hope to have this resolved in the next 72 hours and will let you know once we have more updates.

Thank you for your patience.

The PayPal Team

The “next 72 hours” lapses 3 days from February 5 so if the announcement is to be believed, Paypal should have resolved the issue by today, February 8.

Apparently, the delay in processing withdrawals was a result of a “technical issue,” as explained by a Paypal staff in an email reposted on Jerome Locson‘s blog:

From webform@intl.paypal.com Tue Feb 5 05:49:09 2008

Dear xxxx  ,

Thanks for writing to us. My name is Lotte Karell and I appreciate the
opportunity to assist you with your questions.

You are writing us because of your pending withdraw from Jan. 27,
2008.

I have reviewed your PayPal account and I can see the payment you were sending for $ 152,50 to your Credit Card is still pending. I can confirm that it is pending due to current technical issue in PayPal system caused by a recent update and I sincerely regret the inconvenience it has caused you. Our technicians are working to resolve this matter. I appreciate your patience and understanding.

Thanks again for writing, “my full name”, and thank you for being part of the PayPal community.

Sincerely,
Lotte Karell
PayPal, an eBay Company

While transactions under the new withdraw to bank account feature seems to be completed in just a few days, withdrawal transactions to the debit or credit card remain to be pending after almost a month.

Let’s see if Paypal can live up to its promise of resolving this issue today.

Join other members in discussing Delayed / Pending Paypal withdrawals here.

James Ryan Jonas teaches business management, investments, and entrepreneurship at the University of the Philippines (UP). He is also the Executive Director of UP Provident Fund Inc., managing and investing P3.2 Billion ($56.4 Million) worth of retirement funds on behalf of thousands of UP employees.