First time using pay in 4 for Target. My PayPal says it’s waiting for “authorization.” It’s been 4 days already, the first time payment has been taken out of my bank account. The items I “paid” for is still in my cart with no emails about a confirmation… do I still wait?

https://www.paypal.com/us/campaign/5-bnpl-offer-terms

PayPal limited the recent Pay in 4 promo to one eligible purchase per customer, moving away from the previous dollar limit. They will be honoring purchases made before this point under the old terms, according to the email.

I hope you all got your MS in! 😁

Full email below:

Hello Stanley

Thank you for being a part of our limited-time Buy Now Pay Later holiday promotion. We’re so happy you’ve been able to take advantage of it. You’ve reached the limit on this offer given our new terms, which can be found here.

Any eligible PayPal Pay Later transactions you made before today will receive the benefit of the original offer terms. You can check the status of any pending points in the rewards hub of the PayPal app.

During Black Friday and Cyber Monday, shop with PayPal Pay in 4 interest-free and with no fees. And you can check out other cash back offers in the PayPal app.

Thank you for being part of this promotion.

The PayPal Team

I've been an eBay seller for about 15 years now and exclusively use PayPal through eBay but have never used the pay in 4 option before. I really have 2 questions, i got far enough in the checkout screen where the next click will complete the transaction but i don't see the cash back banner anywhere how do i know that it will be applied to my order?

Also to be clear this is interest fee correct? I suppose the cash back would be more than the interest but i don't use BNPL services because they have interest built into the cost and as I always have fluid funds from sales I don't have issues paying up front but as far as I can tell this is almost just "free" 20% back because the 4 payments dont appear to add any interest?

Thanks for the help!

I’m trying to use the cash back offer on best buy right now, and up until a few hours ago it was working for a new MacBook. However this is an older PayPal account so I had to change my legal name (put a fake one before no idea why), billing address, and add a new card. However when I went to go check out using 4 now it only allows monthly installments now, which with the interest makes the cash back not worth it anymore. Is the offer gone or is it due to all the changes to my account?

Edit: I got a fraud detection email so I think it was just my bank being careful! According to someone else in the comments they were able to get it working again a day after. My friend did check out for me and was able to pay in 4, but I’ll try on another item on my own account tomorrow to see. A lot of people seem to be having issues though, why does PayPal have to be so shady about it lol.

Edit 2: turns out because I’m currently traveling in Korea the deal wouldn’t have worked for me rip, had to call them 2x to figure that out. Also from all the changes and fails I made not sure what the future of my account will look like BUT thankfully found 2 friends that didn’t want to use their codes and let me take them 😌 was a TRIAL but glad it worked out in the end, hope my account isn’t completely fucked

Just received this email from PayPal:

“Thank you for being a part of our limited-time Buy Now Pay Later holiday promotion. We’re so happy you’ve been able to take advantage of it. You’ve reached the limit on this offer given our new terms, which can be found here.

Any eligible PayPal Pay Later transactions you made before today will receive the benefit of the original offer terms. You can check the status of any pending points in the rewards hub of the PayPal app.

During Black Friday and Cyber Monday, shop with PayPal Pay in 4 interest-free and with no fees. And you can check out other cash back offers in the PayPal app.

Thank you for being part of this promotion.

The PayPal Team”

The new terms are here

https://www.paypal.com/us/campaign/5-bnpl-offer-terms

TLDR - offer is now limited to one purchase with a $250 max cashback. It was a bit murky before, but it appears the cash back prior to this was per transaction, not per account. Some people were concerned $250 was the max per account, but this appears to confirm the old rules were $250 per transaction!

PayPal is running a special with 20% back when using their Pay in 4 option. So for example, I buy something for $600, am I billed $150 or they deduct $150 from my bank account associated with them every two weeks? Or do they put the $150 on my PayPal Credit card on a every two week schedule and I pay it on my own? Getting $120 back seems like a good deal so I want to make sure I am using this option correctly without paying interests. Thanks!

Hey guys. Ran into an issue on Target's website. I filled my cart with a few items and was getting ready to check out. When I switched to the PayPal payment method, I logged into PayPal as normal. It sent me back to Target where I tried to finalize the order or whatever. Got an error saying there was something wrong with my card despite using PayPal.

Would never go through. Check PayPal and there is a pre-authorization charge for a few hundred bucks despite never going through. Apparently, it looks like Target immediately takes the money when you switch over to the PayPal payment option.

PayPal won't do anything for 30 days. Talked to a Target representative who said it would be refunded in 5 hours, but it hasn't been. They canceled chat on me when I tried to find out how to prevent it from happening again. Talked to another who wasn't helpful since there is no order or anything like that.

So, pretty much there is no way to resolve this except wait and hope Target fixes it. It is crazy that they even take the money out before the order is actually placed. I would not use PayPal to buy anything on Target right now. There is really no way to get the money back besides to wait and hope it is returned.

Since it is a glitch/fault with Target's website, I think there should be a better way to deal with this though. Some people can't sit around and wait for 3 - 4 days or even 30 days for a few hundred bucks to be returned. If you don't want the headache, I'd recommend avoiding using PayPal as your payment method on Target's website.

Hope this helps someone else avoid a headache.

I have chase credit card and I have read that chase doesn't allow BNPL purchases. Any advices how to use pay in 4 promotion before the deadline?

Need help. I just made 2 Pay-in-4 transactions, both of which were successful. However, when i tried to make a third one, it is no longer an option.
Now i feel like a dumbass, and not grouping all the items together.

I attempted to purchase something online and they had the option for pay-in-4. I thought it might be interesting and since it was a little much for me at the moment (I just got a new job) I thought it might be good that I can pay some every 2 weeks and it would line up with my payday. No big deal, right? So, I hit pay later and selected pay-in-4, and it denies me. Weird. So I go on about my day and later get a message saying that I have been denied use of pay-in-4 due to the following reasons:

Too many unsuccessful compared to successful payments using my PayPal account.

Too many declined payments on my debit card.

And here's the kicker:

Too few active bank accounts on my Paypal account.

Here's why this is horse shit:

Unsuccessful payments and declined payments basically mean the same thing. This happens when I try to purchase something using money from my checking account, and there's not enough in there because the rest of my money is in savings. I prefer to keep my money I savings and transfer a few hundred into checking every once in a while for online shopping and so on. As if I knew I'd need to KEEP TRACK of this so later down the line I could use some new feature, and that I'd get declined for having mistakenly tried to purchase something when I didn't have enough In checking. Fucking awesome.

"Too few active bank accounts" - what the FUCK? I only HAVE one fucking checking account on my PayPal. Hell, I only HAVE one checking account. This reason is so full of it I can't even find a way this could possibly be valid.

If I'm wrong and genuinely don't deserve to use pay-in-4 for some reason, please let me know. But I personally think this is the most bullshit thing. Ever. If someone from Paypal is reading this, I need help, please.

I want to create a new account and try to use Payment in 4.

Will it work for new accounts?

Also i heard its not being accepted right now, is this true?

I'd like to purchase an Amazon gift card from Best Buy since they accept PayPal. It doesn't seem to specify in the terms that gift cards are not allowed. Can anyone confirm?

If not, is it possible to get the promo by getting a PayPal credit card and then checking out?

There's a graphics card I want that will only go on sale on Amazon and it's a lot of money...

I've checked the terms of the offer and also the general rewards agreement, and this does not seem to be prohibited but this is a big risk since gift cards aren't refundable

I used to use PayPal for most everything. Once they eliminated using my Bank as a backup source and I had to manually add money to PayPal to cover using my PayPal card I started only using it for Pay 4 and rarely to send and receive money.

Pay in 4 was very handy, especially with the option to create a virtual single use Pay in 4 card to use anywhere online, even places that didn't give you PayPal as a payment option.

I would go to Pay Later, scroll down to the "Getting Started' option, enter in the amount for the purchase, accept the payment plan and select finding source and it would generate a virtual card.

However, I went to use it this month for an emergency car repair and it is no longer an option. I go to Pay Later and scroll down and it just has information about using Pay in 4 or Pay Monthly when you checkout at a store. No "Getting Started'.

Anyone else notice this? Did they just stop offering it has an option?

I contacted help through the app and they just gave me a cut and paste info dump about Pay in 4, information that I already knew from using PayPal for years and in no way came close to addressing my question.

UPDATE: It seems like this was just no-strings-attached free money, except after a few weeks, I went to use pay in 4 and they tried to charge me. I stopped using it then, but I can definitely see how someone might have developed a habit and could now be stuck in a predatory situation.

Title. PayPal's pay-in-4 system was pushed to me recently, and it seems like a good deal to me--an interest-free, short-term loan over the course of two months. I don't see any gotchas in the fine print (e.g., "it's free now but we'll charge you later"). It seems like I should pay for everything I can through this system--an interest-free loan sounds pretty great. I'm not worried that I'll overspend--I've had a credit card for several years and have not paid a dime of interest on it. Is it a good financial decision for me to use this system?

USA, Washington State.