I have sent some money to someone and they are saying I need to verify it before the funds will be released. I can not find anything in my Paypal account that is asking for verification and the money is showing as having been paid from my account.
I Have had very similar but the other way round; I was the seller and the buyer was telling me that I needed to give them my verification code on my phone for the payment to go through. It states in the PayPal text to not share your codes with anyone. I was getting alarm bells. I have never heard of needing a verification code to make a payment or to receive a payment. It is a scam. I very foolishly give a verification code. All of a sudden I was logged out of my PayPal and my password wouldn't work. I checked my emails and I had one from PayPal stating that I had changed my password. This obviously wasn't me. I quickly changed my password using 'forgot password?' which requested a verification code as normal and then I could proceed to change my password. luckily, I think the scammers couldn't get any further with the 'scam' as no money was taken from my account and they couldn't access my connected credit card. I am hoping that my account is now safe, everything looks ok, no suspicious activity, so assume it's all ok now.
If its marked as completed in your Paypal account then you have paid. The fact its pending on the sellers account is between them and Paypal. Funds for new sellers are held for 21 days but released more quickly if they provide a tracking number (delivery + 1 day).
Even if the funds were withdrawn to their bank account they are still obliged to issue a refund if they lose a dispute. The hold is to protect Paypal from bad sellers that refuse, meaning Paypal may have to refund the buyer instead putting the sellers account into negative until they pay Paypal back.
If they refuse to send item/service then you could file a dispute for non receipt. That may impact their paypal account in some way if they continue doing so.
