Cash Apps payments are always instant and unrecoverable, as long as it has been deposited into the recipient’s account. If it hasn’t, however, you still have some time to cancel the transaction and get a refund if the payment still appears as part of your pending payments.
If you’re unsure why a payment is in the pending section, it’s probably because you’re a first-time sender to the recipient and they haven’t accepted the payment yet. The payment could also show up as pending if either the sender or recipient has hit their limits for the day. Either way, a pending transaction hangs your money in the air.
If you cancel a pending transaction on Cash App, how long do you have to wait before it shows up on your account? Since most people haven’t been in that specific scenario before, I’ll show you exactly how long you may have to wait.
How to Get a Refund on Cash App?
- Tap the Activity tab on their Cash App home screen.
- Select the payment.
- Tap the three dots icon.
- Select Refund.
- Press OK.
- Get a refund for a pending transaction
Cash App payments are usually instant, so you don’t have any time to see the transaction in the pending section of the app. Also, when a payment goes through successfully, it’s typically unrecoverable. The combination of unrecoverable and instant is why most people who make errors during their transfer never get their money back.
However, when sending money to a specific person on Cash App for the first time, they’ll have to accept the transfer before it shows up in their account. From the time you send the money up until they decide to accept the transfer, the transaction will continue to show up as “pending” on both ends.
If you’re faster than them, you can quickly open the Cash App on your smartphone, head over to the Activity tab, and check the transactions in the pending second. You can bring up the details of the transaction and choose to cancel the payment. If the recipient has still not accepted the payment, it should revert to your account.
- Get a refund for a completed transaction
While you can get an easy refund for a transaction that hasn’t been completed, we can’t say the same of one that has dropped in the recipient’s Cash App balance before you can even think of getting a refund. And in most cases, a transaction will be complete before you’ll even attempt to get a refund for it.
If that’s the case, there’s a pretty low case that you’re going to get the money back. The reason is that the fate of the refund rests solely on the merchant or the recipient of the money. If they decide not to honor the refund request, you’re still not going to get your money back.
For that reason, you may want to ensure that you only send Cash App payments to people you know personally. Also, using Cash App to pay for items you haven’t seen or received is likely to be a scam. Paying for such items with your credit card will give you some insurance if it happens to be a scam.
However, you can still try requesting a refund to see if you can get the recipient to honor the request. To do that, you’ll have to head over to the Activity tab from your Cash App home screen. The tab is denoted by a clock icon in the bottom right corner of the screen.
From there, you’ll see a list of your pending and completed transactions. From the completed section, select the one in question and click on the three dots on the top right to bring up extra options. Then, select the Refund option and you should have sent a refund request.
After requesting the refund, you can only hope for the best since it’s up to the recipient to release the money. You can also call them before the fact to discuss the refund before tabling the request to increase your chances of getting your money back.
How Long Does a Canceled Cash App Refund Take?
After cancellation, it can take up to 10 business days for the refund to reflect on your Cash App wallet. However, If you have questions before the refund arrives, contact the merchant directly.
If it’s a pending transaction, the funds will revert to your Cash App balance instantly. However, we all know that you’ll probably never have to cancel a pending transaction, because, who has ever seen it, anyway?
If it’s a completed transaction, however, there’s no specific timeline due to the parties involved. After canceling the payment, you still have to wait for the recipient to approve the refund before you can get it back. The time it will take to process the refund is roughly the same as the time the refund will take, as you’ll receive the funds instantly after the approval.
Conclusion
When you cancel a payment on Cash App, you should get a refund instantly if the payment hasn’t already been completed. However, if the payment is already complete, I’m afraid there’s almost no certain way to get your money back.
While you may try requesting a refund from inside the Cash App, it’s up to the recipient to honor or decline the refund request. If they happen to be a scammer, you shouldn’t expect them to accept your refund request, even by mistake.
John Gurche was born in Los Angeles, California, and raised in Utah, England, New York, and Los Angeles again. He attended the University of California, Santa Barbara, earning his BA in 1969, and his Ph.D. in 1975. He is the author of 10 books, including: A History of Western Philosophy (with Stephen Toulmin), The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, and The Liberal Imagination.