Unknown Cash Advance Fee

[CarMal3]

I have used PayPal numerous times for Uber rides, event admission fees, online yard sale items, and a few online purchases with no problem at all. I get my usual small percentage fee on top of my purchase and all is good. I recently purchased something from someone for $30. I was expecting the $1.17 fee that was added to my purchase. To my surprise I received an additional $10 charge for "cash advance" fee, plus my credit card charged me 19 cents for this transaction. Never in the purchase was I informed I was agreeing to an additional $10 in fees. I was floored. I never changed a single setting on my PayPal Acct, so I don't know what happened there for the last transaction to go in as a cash advance. I checked with the seller, she received just the $30 she was expecting. I will be deleting my PayPal Acct if I cannot get this resolved. Anyone able to help me out here as to what the heck happened on this transaction?

[bfei]

Came here to see that someone had the same problem as me.  It also turns out that at least 3 other people agree.  These are all very recent so I am wondering if there is a new type of way that some merchants are trying to scam credit cards so they do not pay the transaction fees.  

This is a huge burden on the customer (me) that was expecting a normal transaction. I am currently working with my bank to understand how a Merchant charged a "Cash Advance" instead of a purchase from me and how PayPal allowed this and caused this headache.

I am currently working with my bank since PayPal automatically closed my case.  This is really upsetting that PayPal is allowing this and has no way to disable the Cash Advance feature on my account when re-billing my credit card.   This seems like a huge security risk to allow these shady practices to hurt the people using PayPal to purchase.  

[JennysMom]

I had that exact thing happen to me.

I ordered $10 worth of products from a vendor I have purchased from dozens of times before.   I suddenly find a $5 cash advance fee on my credit card, and Visa says the purchase was marked as a cash purchase from the vendor, so it's treated as a cash advance.  This has never happened before, and no idea what has changed in the past month for orders to suddenly be processed this way.  Looks like I'm out the $5 ... plus interest as interest is charged on cash advances differently from purchases.  

No luck so far with any explanation from the vendor either.