When I log into my paypal account it has the balance and then it says - accept the money. I never saw this before. Does anyone know why that is there? It might have something to do with paypal no longer letting you hold a balance in it unless you verify by social security number and open a special account for that purpose - but I am not sure. If anyone knows, I'd appreciate it.
Pay Pal no longer allows "unverified" to hold money in paypal?
- Thread starter One_of_the_girls
- Start date
Many years ago, I opened my PP account and didn't pay a fee because the account wasn't set up to accept credit card payments. (I'm not sure it's still allowed, but you didn't have to upgrade to a fee-based account until the first buyer made a c.c. payment.)
Once a buyer funded a payment with a credit card, you were required to upgrade the account and pay fees. Once you upgraded, you'd accept the payment and all subsequent payments would have fees attached to them.
I'm not sure if that's what's happening with your account but it sounds like you aren't being paid unless and until you accept. And if you aren't willing to upgrade (a requirement of the TOS), ebay can sanction you.
Once a buyer funded a payment with a credit card, you were required to upgrade the account and pay fees. Once you upgraded, you'd accept the payment and all subsequent payments would have fees attached to them.
I'm not sure if that's what's happening with your account but it sounds like you aren't being paid unless and until you accept. And if you aren't willing to upgrade (a requirement of the TOS), ebay can sanction you.
You are not the only one that this is happening to. This happened to me and I initiated an online chat with Paypal to get to the bottom of it. Bottom line is this it will let you hold your balance and you can transfer the amount to your bank account , paper cheque, etc but it will not let you use your Paypal balance to pay out anything unless you verify by social security number, scan of DL etc and open . if you have a credit card on file with them they will pay out from that without you having the special account. Otherwise you cannot use your balance to pay anyone without opening up this new account. https://www.paypal.com/us/smarthelp...ance-when-i-haven’t-been-asked-before-faq3832
It's only for people who don't have a credit card or bank account linked to their account. I believe it is so that they have a secondary source to tap in case of a chargeback.
Ah yes - thanks. This is apparently it. Thanks. Glad to find out I'm not alone on this.
Thanks. I do have a linked but never gave my social - never will - so I guess from what I"m learning - that means I"m unverified and only verified people get their special account which let's them leave money in paypal. I had to transfer it out to the linked which is a pain having that account now to show all paypal transactions instead of just keeping it on paypal. BOO CFPB!
What do you mean - sanction me? I never paid a fee either nor do I accept credit cards through pay pal - at least - I don't recall ever enabling that and I don't think any buyer has ever paid that way - to my knowledge anyway. I think vw6vert is right and it had to do with that special account setup for keeping a paypal balance which I liked because I used it as my little play money. Now I have to transfer it to my linked account and it comingles with my other life money so spending it isn't quite the same. Plus, I have to do more math to reconcile that account now. I tried to get that special account instead of "accepting the money" but it wanted my social so I just backed out and accepted the money - in other words - it just moved my pay pal balance to my linked but it was confusing because they never really explained what was happening. All of a sudden it was there instead of balance.
When you have a paypal account, one of the terms they have requires you to accept any type of payment a buyer makes. So if the buyer uses a c.c. to pay and you haven't upgraded the account to accept credit card payments, you are required (by the terms you agreed to when you opened the account) to upgrade.
(I don't know if it's automatic now that all accounts take credit cards and all accounts have fees for accepting money; my Paypal account is close to 20 years old and at the time, not all transactions had fees. If a buyer paid with a Paypal balance or a bank transfer/echeck, there was no fee.)
By "sanction," I mean that it's a violation of Paypal's policy to refuse to accept certain types of payments. If they think you do it too often, they can close your account or warn you that they will close it if you don't abide by the terms.
https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/listings/choosing-get-paid/getting-paid-paypal?id=4183
From Paypal:
"Remember, if you offer PayPal as a payment option on eBay (either using logos or text in the item description) you must accept all forms of PayPal payment including payments from an existing PayPal account balance, bank account transfers, and credit card payments. You can't tell buyers that you'll only accept specific forms of PayPal payment. See our Accepted payments policy for more information. When a buyer sends you a payment through PayPal, the money is usually available in your PayPal account right away. However, in some cases, the payment might be "pending" for a few days, or it might be held by PayPal for up to 21 days."
Wow - I never knew any of that. Thanks BeenBurned. This forum is SO IMPORTANT! I don't have a business account though so I wonder if that makes a difference. My Paypal is probably about 10 years old now too.
I just noticed yesterday that I couldn’t pay my eBay fees with my sale proceeds sitting in my paypal account. I usually pay shipping and eBay fees with my balance, then transfer the rest to my bank account. I miss the days when eBay and PayPal were the same company and worked together rather than against each other. Guess I’ll be transferring my balance out and charging shipping labels to my CC. Paypal doesn’t need my SSN
Absolutely not. That's how I feel too. I just transfer the money right out of paypal now. Thing is - when it is in my account - I don't like spending it. When it was in paypal only - I considered it my play money. So now now I don't buy anything on Ebay anymore either. I don't like all the records now being shown in my regular account and don't feel like doing extra book-keeping. But I won't give my SSN to Ebay either -(I actually trust them less then I trust paypal) - so at some point I won't be able to sell there anymore anyway. My sales are close to nothing there anyway. Now that they have the mandatory GTC - I only list about 25 things max - as opposed to the 300 things I used to list there when I got the free listings offers before the GTC. Now it is too much trouble to keep ending and relisting so I don't bother. My time is worth more than the few dollars I'd make if something sold - and the views on the auction listings are way down - very little traffic coming in there.