PayPal is undoubtedly the best system to pay for online purchases and payments for some subscription services, given the ease with which it is possible to "hide" the data of our credit card or bank account, which in fact it will never be communicated during the transaction. However, it may happen that you have to cancel or even block some PayPal payments, perhaps from subscription services that we no longer wish to renew or to cancel a payment order that has not yet been made (for an afterthought or by mistake). If we have come across one of these situations, in this guide we will show you how to block PayPal payments from PC and smartphone, so you can always have full control over the money we want to spend, blocking subscription services that are no longer required or payments not most needed.
READ ALSO: Create a Paypal account to pay and receive payments online
How to block PayPal payments from PC
In this part of the guide we will show you how to block all PayPal payments from a fixed or portable computer, both in the event that we decide to block a payment and in the event that we decide to block an automatic renewal of a subscription.Cancel payment transaction
In order to cancel a payment before it is collected (so we have to intervene fairly quickly), we open any web browser, go to the PayPal homepage and click on Login at the top right. We insert our access credentials, carry out two-step verification if necessary (always recommended on services of this kind) and, once we reach the personal PayPal page, click on the History menu at the top; from this page we identify the payment to be canceled then click Cancel .The transaction will be canceled instantly, thus avoiding that the expense will be charged to the current account or to the debit / credit card added to the PayPal account.
If the payment is already indicated as completed (so the cash transaction has already taken place), we can try to solve the problem by clicking on the transaction in History and using the Report a problem button.
It will thus be possible to report the undue payment by contacting the recipient and, in case of further problems, opening a dispute with PayPal itself (which applies a very effective return policy on many transactions).
Block automatic renewal of service or subscription
If, on the other hand, the payment to be blocked concerns the automatic renewal of a service or subscription, we open the PayPal homepage again, click on Login and select the gear-shaped button in the upper right part of the window. In the screen with all our information, we select the Payments menu and then click on the View button, next to the Manage your automatic payments item .
A new screen will open where we will see all the automatic payments configured with our PayPal account; to filter only the active ones, we put the check mark on Show active and, if we want to block an automatic payment, simply select the service from the left column and click on the Cancel item.
The payment will be canceled and the service will no longer be able to carry out transactions automatically (such as when we pay Netflix, Spotify or Google). To review the services that are no longer active (for second thoughts) just tick the Show inactive item, so you can reactivate a previously blocked automatic payment.
Note : automatic payments cannot be removed from our PayPal page, but only made inactive. In any case, they cannot reactivate themselves, we always need our specific action to be able to re-enable an automatic payment (which will therefore be inactive and blocked until our new order).
How to block PayPal payments from smartphones
If instead we use PayPal from our Android smartphone or iPhone, in this part of the guide we will show you how to block payments for transactions; unfortunately at the moment it is not possible to block automatic payments from the app, but we will have to act from PC (as seen in the previous chapter). If we still don't have the PayPal app, we can download it for free for Android and iOS.Cancel payment transaction
To cancel the payment of a transaction or an online purchase, we will have to act within seconds of the incident (so that we can actually cancel). We then open the PayPal app, enter the access credentials of our account and go to the Your history section, present in the home of the app.We will find the list of all transactions: we tap on the one to be blocked then we confirm by clicking on Cancel . If the transaction has already taken place (so the money has been transferred) we can always act by reporting the problem to the recipient, opening the transaction card and pressing the envelope symbol (so that we can send an email via PayPal).
If you intend to request a refund or open a dispute, we recommend that you act from the PC site, since the options are easily accessible (from the app we will only be able to check the progress of the transaction and possibly block it).
Conclusions
In this guide we have shown you how to remedy if we have purchased the goods by mistake or we want to cancel an active automatic subscription; PayPal offers all the control tools necessary to manage our money, although we must note that the mobile app is really too limited (it does not allow you to carry out most of the operations that can be carried out from the PC).If we are looking for a method to be able to pay on Amazon with PayPal, we invite you to read our in-depth analysis on How to pay on Amazon with Paypal or bank account .
If, on the other hand, we are looking for valid alternatives to PayPal, we can continue reading our guide to Alternatives to PayPal to pay and receive money via the web .
