Kiva Withdrawals Sent Twice

[Guest]

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[RichardF]

Date: 10/27
From: Kiva Staffer

We haven't sent any of the withdrawal payments for requests that were made after 10/14/2009 yet, so the inconsistencies you see should be cleared up once those payments are sent.

[KFLiaison]

I sent Gerard a pointer to this thread early today and summarized it, asking for information.  I've received several responses from him, to the effect that they used their new, more automated withdrawal processing tools for the first time on the 16th (which involves integrating PayPal's Mass Pay API into their system and introducing a way to capture bounced or otherwise not-accepted withdrawals and return them to lenders' accounts).  At that time, the system sent a bunch of withdrawal requests twice, and Kiva paid out a large amount of extra (duplicate) cash to lenders who had requested withdrawals.  Quoting now from Gerard:

[W]e took a two-pronged approach to try to get as much of that [money] back as we could:

1 - Ask the lenders to refund the extra payments.
2 - Ask PayPal to reverse any of the extra payments that don't get reversed by lenders.

On the 23rd, we ran a script that added the duplicate withdrawal requests to the lender’s transaction history. For lenders who had sent the extra funds back to us, we then turned around and voided those duplicate withdrawal requests to even things out (We had to put the duplicate requests in the transaction histories so that our bookkeeping would tie out).

For lenders who didn’t refund the duplicates or if the payments could not be reversed back to Kiva by PayPal, we just showed that in the lender’s transaction history. If they didn’t have enough credit to cover the extra withdrawals that were sent, then the account would be in the negative.

We’ll be going back over the next few days to reach out to lenders who have a negative balance to let them know how to bring it back up again.

He would like anyone whose account is still in the negative to send him email directly.  If you do not have his email address, drop me a PM and I'll give it to you.

--Diane.

[RichardF]

For lenders who didn’t refund the duplicates or if the payments could not be reversed back to Kiva by PayPal, we just showed that in the lender’s transaction history.

They also showed this transaction as being "requested" by the lender, when, in fact, it was initiated by Kiva.

[KFLiaison]

First, did Gerard say the problem with the new system is now fixed or are we to expect this problem is going to continue.

Gerard tells me that the problem should now be fixed and should not recur.

Second, when is Kiva going to give us the money we requested more recently (since October 15th). I requested a large withdrawal on the 16th and it has not been transferred into my PayPal account as of yet.

As mentioned earlier, the problem first occurred on Oct. 16th, withdrawals were paused when the problem was noted but are beginning again now.

--Diane.

[David2051]

I just got the PayPal notification of the withdrawal that I requested on the 16th.  Hopefully things will go better from here out...  

[Eli]

I, too, just now received notification of my withdrawal requests from all accounts.

[Dolphine]

Same here.  I got my withdrawal today.

[waywardcats]

Gerard tells me that the problem should now be fixed and should not recur.

As mentioned earlier, the problem first occurred on Oct. 16th, withdrawals were paused when the problem was noted but are beginning again now.

--Diane.

  Diane for taking the time today to get us the full story!!!

-Kerry-

[RichardF]

As of now, My Withdrawal Requests/payments and duplicate/unduplicate payments balance out. 

That leaves just one remaining mystery for me that doesn't show up anywhere in my Kiva transactions file or their communications to me.  I've told Kiva more than once, but I still haven't received any form of acknowledgement about it.

So, is anyone missing $9.38?  This is the current unreclaimed amount of "free money" Kiva sent to me.

According to Ian's spreadsheet, this 3/8 of $25.00 repayment is not rightfully mine. 

Any takers?  Just send your account verification info and I'll redeposit it to your Kiva Credit.  

[TheTatiana]

I had a withdrawal processed correctly today.