I’ve got an email from Folksy saying a buyer is having problems paying. What should I do now?

The quickest and safest way to pay is by Paypal, so we would always recommend that you encourage buyers to go through the Paypal system. However if customers are having problems paying, there’s a link at the bottom of the basket taking them to a form where they can detail their problem. That automatically sends an email to the seller (as well as to the customer confirming their order) letting them know a customer has bought an item but needs help paying.
 

In the majority of cases, the issue will be:

• the customer doesn’t have a Paypal account
• the customer wants to pay by debit or credit card and doesn’t realise Paypal allows card payments by checking out as a guest, or PayPal are forcing them to log in or sign up to PayPal
• you haven’t enabled ‘Paypal Account Optional’ on your Paypal account
• their credit card has not been accepted by Paypal
• the customer has exceeded their allowed number of guest transactions on Paypal
• the customer doesn’t want to use Paypal

Please note that postage is calculated by PayPal and so if a buyer has placed an order by filling in our alternative payment form, postage will not have been added to the order. You will need to add it to the invoice that you send your buyer when you request payment.

So if you do get an email from us saying your customer is having payment problems:

1. Check the email for details of the problem.
2. Make sure you have ‘Paypal Account Optional’ enabled on your Paypal account (more details here)
3. Email the buyer as soon as possible to acknowledge their order.
4. You can then send them a PayPal invoice to their email address to allow them to try again – find details on how to do that here. There is also the option to send an invoice through Stripe, or many other payment processors if you also use an alternative elsewhere. 
   Remember to add the postage when invoicing.
   
5. Or arrange an alternative payment method – eg cheque.
6. Once the customer has paid, mark the order as paid on your dashboard.

Don’t worry if you do not wish to offer alternative payment methods – you can simply cancel the order. We would recommend that you email the customer to let them know the reason for the cancellation.

How to refund and cancel an order on Folksy