Buyer has sent an echeque...anyone come across this before?

[bobkate]

Sorry - it may well be common practise and that as a newbie I've just not come across this form of paypal payment...
This was the email I received from paypal...

You've received an eCheque payment. An eCheque may take 5-7 working days to clear, so you'll see the transaction status set as 'Pending'.

Here's what happens when you get paid by eCheque:

The buyer's bank gets a request to pay PayPal.
PayPal receives the funds from the buyer's bank.
PayPal will transfer the money to your PayPal account after the funds have cleared and will not be at risk of being reversed by the buyer's bank.
Your buyer has sent the payment, but we suggest you wait until the eCheque has cleared before posting the item. We'll email you as soon as the money is in your PayPal account.

We estimate the eCheque will clear between 29/06/2012-03/07/2012.

Should I get in touch with the buyer and say that as soon as the echeque has cleared I will post immediately. Or do you think they'll be expecting me to post tomorrow as as far as they are concerned they have paid?

This happened to me once, but I was the buyer - it was something to do with my having reached my limit for transactions (or something!) the seller, posted the item once the cheque cleared - which I thought was entirely reasonable.

REject the echeque and ask them to pay again by standard paypal. It's probably they didn't realise they've done this. Set your cettings to not accept them in future.

I'ts important to reject it as otherwise it'll take something like 10 working days to clear. Your buyer will get a bit pissed off even though it's their fault.

On the off chance your buyer is just naive then you'll yet the money eventually. HOWEVER do not send till that has happened as e cheques have a reputation for being "rubbery" and can be recalled by the buyer even at the last minute- I have had one not pay out at the last minute.

Thanks malakadoush and Theas18. I've emailed the buyer, just saying her payment came through as an echeque which will mean I won't be posting until it's cleared, which could be up to 10 days time, unless she wants me to reject it and use standard paypal. I didn't want to reject straight off without explaining to her first. Perhaps I'm being a bit daft, but I like to think it was a similar situation to Malakadoush.
When you say, theas18, to set your settings to not accept them in future...do you mean settings on ebay or on paypal as that is something I'd like to do

Paypal settings

Thanks theas18

As far as I know you cannot block echeques for Ebay sales. You can for personal payments and off Ebay sales, but Ebay has always been exempt. It's possible this has changed very recently though and I'm unaware of it.
Echeques are a pain and can take ages to clear - however you can cancel them and buyers can pay again. I have done this a few times and second attempts have always gone through immediately.

All sorted - she wasn't aware she'd reached her limit and her bank account hadn't been linked to paypal yet - she did that, I rejected cheque and she paid immediately via standard paypal. All good. Thanks for your help

This happened to me the first couple of items I bought - I didn't realise I hadn't linked a card to my account.