Paypal woes

[5065AGuru]

I just got notified from Paypal to congratulate my 24 years of being a customer and that my "business" is doing well. So well in fact that if I receive payments of over $1000.00 per month those funds will have a 23 day hold placed on them. WTF!!!!

I've decided to transfer most of my funds into my savings account as at least then I can earn some interest. Also I will make sure that I NEVER make more through paypal that the $1000 a month limit.
Not quite sure of the rational but I'll be looking at other ways to do business.

Cheers,

Corby

[dorkshoei]

This is really off-topic for buy/sell/wanted forum.       Mods should move it.

That said I truly despise Paypal.    There is no bold font sufficient to express the degree to which I dislike them.

I try to use them as little as possible and shuttle all incoming funds through an intermediate bank that has a no overdraft (hard reject with no fee) policy.  It's inconvenient but there is no way I'd ever allow them to have access to my actual bank.

[thm_w]

There is no real benefit to storing funds in paypal, so should keep a minimum amount there.
The hold time is normal in case someone pays you with a stolen card or does a charge back, etc. If you are selling physical items and enter tracking numbers it should speed things up, and the limits will quickly increase.

https://www.paypal.com/us/cshelp/article/new-paypal-account-%E2%80%93-payments-on-hold-and-accessing-your-money-quicker-help848

[Stray Electron]

   I don't know if it's still "a thing" but in the US and in the past if you took money out of your checking account so that PP couldn't take it without your consent, the banks would tap into your savings account to pay PP!  So if you plan on keeping LOW balance in your checking account so that PP can't take it, then you'd better close all of your other accounts with that bank and move your money elsewhere.

   I don't know how PP and banks got away with this and I don't know the specific details but I've heard of it happening too many times to think that it didn't happen. 

  I use PP because I have to, and not because I like them or because I trust them. But I ALWAYS pay PP with my credit card so that I have a LEGAL recourse in case they or somebody else tries to pull a fast one.  That said, I personally have never had any problems with PP (other than their grossly excessive fees!)

   I used to sell a lot of Ebay but between packing and shipping costs, PP fees, Ebay fees and then taxes everyone but me was making money, so I quit selling there.  The LAST thing that I sold on Ebay sold for $200 and PP alone charged me $22. Ebay charged me about $10 for the Transaction fee and a few dollars more for the listing fee.

[dorkshoei]

   I don't know if it's still "a thing" but in the US and in the past if you took money out of your checking account so that PP couldn't take it without your consent, the banks would tap into your savings account to pay PP! 

This is why you need to be very careful what bank US account you connect to PayPal.  Because when you allow PayPal EFT access it comes with consequences from the bank, poorly defined ones.

I had a long conversation with my credit union and also with my wife's bank (for comparison).

If you have no money and PayPal tries to debit, even if you have no overdraft setup on any account most banks will still at their discretion decide whether to allow the EFT, put you into a negative balance and charge a NSF fee.   

I have overdraft setup on my checking account and my CU said even though I had created a separate account with them just for PayPal (no overdraft) because I had overdraft enabled on my primary checking account it factored into whether they would allow an NSF EFT on the PayPal account with the NSF fee.

Neither one I spoke to was able to provide an actual written policy.

There are a few banks (online only it seems) that have an absolute policy that they will reject any EFT which would result in NSF without an NSF fee.  I tested it and it worked as expected. I now use one of these as an intermediate to shuttle funds through.  I'm on my second.  The first got bought by a normal bank who imposed the above opaque rules so I had to find another.

[thm_w]

Yes in canada we have Koho and Wise.
USA has many more, probably some of these will work: mooch, neo financial, chime, revolut, etc. They should specifically say overdraft is not a feature.

  I used to sell a lot of Ebay but between packing and shipping costs, PP fees, Ebay fees and then taxes everyone but me was making money, so I quit selling there.  The LAST thing that I sold on Ebay sold for $200 and PP alone charged me $22. Ebay charged me about $10 for the Transaction fee and a few dollars more for the listing fee.

Ebay goes directly to your bank now, but its not like fees will be any less, 16% in your case above. And they charge taxes.
edit: just checked a recent sale it was 19% fee

[Zucca]

There are a few banks (online only it seems) that have an absolute policy that they will reject any EFT which would result in NSF without an NSF fee.  I tested it and it worked as expected. I now use one of these as an intermediate to shuttle funds through.  I'm on my second.  The first got bought by a normal bank who imposed the above opaque rules so I had to find another.

I have PP attached to my main checkin account, I use PP only if I am forced to... and more than one time they saved my ass.

That said I agree that it is stupid and I should do better. I would like to get a second checkin account only for PP and other www stuff (Venmo.... and so on) that require a bank behind the scene. Interesting discussion about EFT rejection and NSF fee. On my TODO list now....

[Psi]

For people outside the US who hold USA $ in paypal i've found that paypal start to get a bit nervous if the money in your account reaches some threshold. It seems to trigger more requests for account authentically and proof you are who you say you are.
But if you provide that they go away for a while.

The only reason i sometimes hold funds in paypal is to bring them over to local currency only when the exchange rate is good.

[coromonadalix]

and witch amount is referred to ?

under 1k$  ??   less / more ?

[Psi]

and witch amount is referred to ?

under 1k$  ??   less / more ?

If you are talking to me, the threshold was over 1k. but it will probably be country dependent.

[testpoint1]

my account balance is more than 10K in Paypal, but no hold, if someone pay you the money select goods, it will be hold until you ship the goods to buyer; if he select send money select as "family or friends", no hold, and no cost within US.

[watchmaker]

There used to be an advantage to holding money in PP. It was not reported, and it made sense to use those funds for purchases.  But.... All good things come to an end. I dropped my seller account after the egregious eBay policy changes around 2010 (I joined during the PEZ phase and liked the honest and useful feedback system;could even follow what other users were bidding on to find things you may have overlooked!)  When I dropped that account I disabled any links  between my bank PP account.

I ONLY fund PP through credit card.  That way I have 3 levels of recourse, eBay, PP and CC company.  NEver got stuck by a bad seller.