A PayPal meltdown

I just booked a hotel stay in London the other day, confirmed with PayPal but then, shortly after checking my PayPal account, it showed two transactions.

Thinking I had paid for the booking twice, I raised a dispute with hotels.com and PayPal about two charges.

Now, as regular users of PayPal would know, it’s not two charges. The first is showing an order and the second transaction shows the payment confirmed. IMHO, this is a failure of PayPal, as it looks like two payments are being taken, but then regular users of the service are probably familiar with this way of presenting their account status. In my case, it looked like the transaction was processed twice, so I complained to PayPal and hotels.com. What happened next was just disturbing ...

The next thing is that Expedia emails me, and says only one payment was taken. What’s it got to do with Expedia? Oh, it turns out Expedia acquired hotels.com in 2021. Fairy snuff, only one payment was taken. I’m a happy bunny. But then an Expedia email follows up with notice that the hotel booking is cancelled and no refund is provided as, under the T’s and C’s, the hotel booking was non-refundable. So, I have purely raised a question about the booking being paid for twice, and not cancelled the hotel, but Expedia/hotels.com has cancelled my booking.

Then PayPal email me and say they have refused my claim in the dispute about the transaction, when I thought a dispute was purely raising a question and not cancelling the transaction which, as it turns out, is how PayPal, Expedia and hotels.com viewed it.

After hours of calls to all relevant parties, it turns out that PayPal regularly show two transactions on orders – one saying you made an order, and the second confirming the payment of the order. Again, imho, that’s a mistake. I only want to see a payment made. Why are you showing me that I’ve ordered something and then the order is confirmed with payment. My bank and card companies do not do this. Why does PayPal?

Then the second mistake is that if you offer an opportunity to dispute a transaction, why would it then cancel the transaction when purely a question is being asked?

Finally, the third mistake is with Expedia/hotels.com. The hotel cancelled my booking as I raised a question about the payment. Then, the hotel and Expedia/hotels.com tell me it is not refundable.

The resolution turned out to be that I had to make the booking a second time, and then Expedia/hotels.com would refund the first payment. That’s fine, except the second booking cost $100 more than the first, and it is all PayPal's fault.

A really frustrating and annoying experience which, bearing in mind we spend all of our time in finance talking about customer journeys and experience, was all caused by PayPal’s stupid system of showing two payments being taken. The answer is that PayPal should show either one transaction or, if two, that one is purely a request to pay in one colour and then, in another colour, a confirmation it is paid.

C’mon PayPal, wake up.