How to cope with PayPal?

[Drewsworld]

Kate , Funny I asked him the very same questions and my response was "something sounds funny there" but there wasnt a problem with any other entity other than Pay Pal, or at least that is what he said and I didnt investigate myself....I was personally jilted when they told me I couldnt make a purchase without verifying my accout because my lifetime limit was used up? For a minute I thought i was on candid camera or something!!!! As far as him getting a new bank he did almost IMEDIATLEY, but that didnt help the matter at the time...

[Kate51]

I think you can still send somebody money, all you need is their e-mail address, but they do have to register before they can get use of the cash. But I think you can only use the account up to $500 before you have to verify your account now, I looked quick but couldn't find it right off, but I know there is a limit. But verification is a good thing, that way no one but PayPal has any of your financial info.
"Bill Me Later" is a good one also, if a merchant doesn't use PayPal sometimes they have that, and there's one other one also. A LOT of people are NOT using credit cards anymore. I traded mine in for a "money" card a few years ago and have saved thousands $$$. Most banks also have debit/credit cards now, but those are also linked to your accounts for payment. Pretty hard to get scammed anymore, also, or "pfished".

[mikea]

Originally Posted by Vicks Vap-oh-Yeah

Open a new bank account, with bare minimum cash in it - give that information to paypal to mollify them.

Well, it might work -- and it's kind of a lot of hoop-jumping-through to mollify them. And what happens when that bare-minumum runs out? Are you suddenly P.N.G. at PayPal? Despite the "quadrillions of people use PayPal and never have a problem with it" responses in this thread, message threads I've seen in other places, over the past several years, suggest to me that there are also a lot of people who have run afoul of PayPal, and to have an account run out of funds in a case like that might be one of those run-afoul situations...

[mikea]

Originally Posted by Drewsworld

What alot of people dont realize i there is lifetime limit of $10,000 dollars for anyone who dosent have an approrved account (aproved meaning linked to your bank)

I've been making online purchases for years, including from PayPal. The "spending limit" appears to be a new "feature" of the service in my case. It was only within the last couple of weeks that I began getting "here's how to remove your spending limit" e-mail messages from them.

For whatever the reason they set my "spending limit" at something more like $1,000. (There's no way I've come anywhere close to spending $9,000 in online purchases.)

I'll read every word in this thread, carefully, and I'll be interested to see if anyone addresses this one -- mentioned in my original post: why is it that PayPal will accept a credit card when I log in, and yet declares that the same card is "unauthorized" when I don't log in? It's com-bloody-pletely irrational.

Why would a card that will be honored, without question, at every merchant imaginable -- in this country or in Europe -- be rejected by one, and only one, company: PayPal?

[mikea]

Originally Posted by Kate51

To avoid a problem with any personal accounts you have registered with PayPal, use a DIFFERENT account JUST FOR YOUR BUSINESS, WHICH YOU SHOULD BE DOING ANYWAY.

Most of this response appears to be written from the point of view of a vendor, not a customer or "end-user." Are you under the impression somehow that I'm a business that uses PayPal for its receivables?

If all your "I's" are dotted and "T's" are crossed PayPal is totally reliable and covers bases for BOTH Buyer AND Seller. That is what they do. For a small fee, of course. Remember, there's an occasional bad egg buying

Imagine a transaction on Amazon.com. The buyer turns out to be in arrears paying off his card and the credit-card company, contacted electronically after the potential buyer has clicked a "Pay now" button, turns around and conveys back to Amazon.com: no way; we won't authorize this payment.

What happens then? Is Amazon somehow going to proceed with the transaction anyway? Of course not.

That system works. My point is: what is wrong with the safeguards, in such situations, that are already in place? Why the additional "layers of abstraction," required by no other type of payment system I've ever encountered on-line? They ask for your card; you provide the correct information; they take a moment to verify it. And you're done.

but once in awhile there's a bad egg selling.

Right. And that is also handled by the credit-card company if you contact them about someone's bad business practice. You, the buyer, are protected by that credit card company.

Try to get your mind around that and that's about all there is to it. Sorry for the wordy explanation, but I've seen a lot of PayPal bad-mouthing going on in the Forum, and it's like people calling their bank a rip-off because their check bounced!

I beg to differ. This is the second time I have run across PayPal's flat-out rejecting a card from me, a card with no problems whatsoever, issued to someone (me) who has excellent credit. There's no analogy here at all between me, in this situation, and someone who writes a check against an account without funds and then resents the bank for having bounced it.

[mikea]

Originally Posted by Elendil

For every one "horror" story about paypal there are millions and millions of transactions that go through without a hitch.

That's heartening indeed. As it happens, I'm trying to deal here not with millions of other people's successful transactions but with (among other things) PayPal's flat-out rejection (as "unauthorized") of a card that every other merchant in the world would accept.

Speaking as someone who has been in banking for 20+ years, there is nothing that Paypal could do to your bank account that your bank could not immediately fix. If your bank tells you differently, you need to get a new bank.

I haven't had any such conversation with my bank, let alone one in which they told me "differently." I will, however...

[Kate51]

Mikea,
From your posts, I find it confusing. You started the thread by saying that many vendors use PayPal. And you expressed a particular disdain for it. Look, PayPal is like a clearing house, but if you don't have money in your checking account you shouldn't be buying anything. If your CC is maxed you shouldn't buy anything. You sound totally distrustful of PayPal so I was trying to explain how it works, I guess you just didn't get it. So sorry, if you still don't get it. You have to have an account with them in order to use it. So don't then. Pretty simple. Excuse me for trying to help. Send money orders, or use BIll ME. If you don't care if you have to wait for two weeks for your order, that's ok with me. Paypal is just for convenience anyway. I understand, that's not for some people. Geez. Millions of us just happen to like it and trust it, that's all. It's a simple matter to become a verified member. If you aren't, there are top limits to using it. Apparently you reached that limit, so you must've thought it was ok till that happened. Didn't you know there was a limit? Did you know that some banks won't cash a check for you if you have no account with them? Or they will cash and charge you a fee for it? Yah. This is fine. It's called Commerce. Like putting money in the collection plate at church. If you're gonna go, you gotta pay. (Or you should want to. Somebody's gotta pay the bills.) And if you use your credit card through PayPal and have trouble with the transaction, your credit card company would still be fixing it for you. Golly, you're really mad at 'em, aren't you. And see, if you don't get your accounts verified, you can't use a credit card especially. They need to know that's your real name and your real address on it. Otherwise you could be using mine, if I had one. That's naughty. Oh, and here's a thought...you can even send money to PayPal, that's your money, and when you buy something they use that. You don't need a bank account to do that. But don't try to spend more than is in there, otherwise the sale is voided. And PayPal doesn't have a sense of humor, or any sympathy. They're a clearing house. And, they pay interest on your balance. Now there's an idea.

[booboo]

I love Paypal and almost refuse to buy anything online from vendors who don't use it. They have had my bank account number and I their debit card for 10 years+ and never had a problem In fact, I use the debit card as another checking account because it pays interest and you get cash back bonuses every time you use it. They have protected me and got my money back from worthless sellers who tried to rip me off and I've never had a problem with them (knock wood). I buy ALOT of stuff on Ebay and online, and with continued security over 100's, if not 1000's of transactions, I don't understand what you are griping about? I don't understand the log-in credit card question? How would you pay by credit card with paypal without logging in? And why would you want to?

[Kate51]

I wish I would have invested in some stocks 10 years ago, instead of spending a fortune through it! Same with eBay!
I'd be in a pickle without both of them, since within twenty miles of home there's a Walmart, an Ace store, and a Shopko. Half the time they never heard of what I want, plus spending half a day going to look for it......

[mikea]

Originally Posted by Kate51

Mikea,
From your posts, I find it confusing. You started the thread by saying that many vendors use PayPal. And you expressed a particular disdain for it.

I don't know how you get disdain out of it. I'm describing a problem dealing with their policies and their having rejected a perfectly valid credit card that every other merchant (retail store or on-line vendor) has accepted without question. How do you spin disdain out of that? "Disdain" has nothing to do with it.

Look, PayPal is like a clearing house, but if you don't have money in your account you shouldn't be buying anything.

And where did that come from? Did you see any statement to the effect that I don't have money in my account? You did not. It appears you have been reading something into these messages that isn't in them at all.

If your CC is maxed

And where did you get that idea? It is NOT maxed. Not even close.

You sound totally distrustful of PayPal so I was trying to explain how it works, I guess you just didn't get it. So sorry, if you still don't get it.

Judging by your reply just now, it appears you did not understand the issues I've raised and have interpreted the original message to mean something entirely different from what I actually wrote. It is you who are not "getting it."

Excuse me for trying to help.

The sarcasm is out of place and out of line, considering that your reply misrepresents what I wrote -- and you're responding not to what I wrote but rather to your own misrepresentation of it. Strange sort of "help," that...