Help me to avoid PayPal BS

[Ikeaboy1]

For the Ebay/Paypal Savvy:

I'm about to hit my spending limit and it wants my bank account information to let me continue purchasing. Not gonna happen. From what I've researched, the spending limit will not reset, I can't close and reopen the account and expect positive results, and I can't start another account(as it's against the rules).

At this point it looks like I'm going to open a new bank account, keep $50 in it, and still use my CC as the default payment. I've heard too many stories to give them a back door to my $, especially since I've not had an issue paying for the thousands of dollars of items I've bought through them.

Does anyone have experience with this, or have any creative ideas to satisfy them without undue exposure?

[QuadcityDMC]

I use PayPal all the time. I have a bank # and CC on my account, but PayPal + eBay = crap.

[Ikeaboy1]

Thats what I primarily use it for, and it's linked to my AMEX I've never had an issue with them, but I'm not looking to fuel one. It looks like if I get their branded PayPal Mastercard they give me unlimited spending, but the card is managed through the PayPal account, so I'd have to give them the bank account info anyway to pay the balance on the card. Its looking more and more like I'm gonna have to set up a new account to appease them, while only allowing them access to the least amount of money I can hold an account open with. What a pain in the ass, and what a flaky ass move by PayPal.

[DeLorean]

Avoid paypal, use check / money orders.

[TTait]

Avoid paypal, use check / money orders.

ummm... with all due respect, probably not.

Paypal has multiple levels of fraud protection. The primary is of course the fraud protection linked to your credit card. Next Paypal offers their own protection on top of that as a safety net.

Paypal itself obviously uses 128 bit encryption to access the servers, and all data is encrypted on the paypal network itself. It's actually far more secure, even from its own employees than your bank probably is.

With Paypal you have the added advantage of knowing instantly when the funds are received by your recipient, a recipient who needed a proper password to get their hands on the cash I might add.

Checks are routinely stolen from the mail and or altered, washed, etc. From one stolen check a criminal can now create a series of false checks in photoshop and deposit the funds using an iphone app into their account and make off forever with the money in 3 days... They no longer need magnetic ink, proper paper and high end presses to create forged checks.

I appreciate that there may be some unique scenarios where a check could have an advantage, but I'm hard pressed to think of one.

The key to using electronic payments safely is to have difficult to guess passwords, proper spyware protection on your pc, and to not use public computers to conduct business. But even if you screw all of this up, you are still protected at multiple levels.

Ikeaboy:

As to the concept of putting $50 in a small bank account, Paypal verifies available funds before processing a transaction, so I'm not sure that buys you anything. You would likely be better served by opening an additional credit card and using that as your secondary funding source, although doing so may lower your credit score slightly. So long as all credit cards get paid off in full each month however, it will likely raise your credit score and improve your situation overall.

As to the horror stories of backdoor fraud, they are meaningless unless they are true. Just because something sounds convincing, doesn't make it true. If you have a concern about the security of your bank information, credit card accounts, paypal security, etc. Ask, and get a response in writing. Tall tales may be fun, but facts and written statements will get you farther.

[Bitsyncmaster]

There were problems with PAYPAL when it first was started but I have not heard of any lately.

When you have an account with your banking and CC card info then your payments are alway instant. If you keep a balance in your paypal account then you can let your banking and CC card info expire and your payments less than the balance are alway instant.

Only problems I know of are if you are the seller and the customer complains. Then paypal may refund the money to the customer from your accounts.

My bet is paypal is the most secure server in existance. It would break down paypal if they ever got hacked.

[Ikeaboy1]

According to PP, the purpose of supplying them with the account information is for identity verification, not verifying having $x dollars in whichever account. They do test thr account with small deposits to make sure it's valid. Never mind the fact that the credit card I've been using for years is clearly in my registered name, and I've received thousands of dollars of merchandise mailed to my registered address. Not good enough, apparently. They want the bank account. Every time I reiterate this to myself, it sounds more and more like a Nigerian Phishing scam.

Anyway, according to them, adding anything other than their branded credit card or a bank account isn't going to solve their engineered issue. I'm giving them a $5 bank account, and if that's not good enough, I'm gonna have to do without their 'service.'

[Kukem]

I received an email like that not too long ago too. When I checked my limits though, I still had plenty of money remainging in my limits as I had in no way sent over $11,000 im the amount of time I have had PayPal. I chalked it up to a phising scam and dismissed it myself.

[Michael]

I have had paypal linked to my bank account for the past 3-5 years, and I have just recently shared your fears about anyone having account to my bank account as long as they have my paypal password.

I use paypal quite often for ebay purchases, but if I am selling anything over a few hundred dollars, I go to ebay as a last resort. Paypal and ebay's(one and the same) fees are simply outrageous. It costs around 10% in fees to sell anything on ebay as you must accept paypal as payment(new ebay rules) no money orders, checks, etc.

If you ever do have a dispute, paypal is not much help at all. Trust me I know..I bought the Hot wheels SDCC Delorean pre-order and never got it. Of course since I waited too long to file a claim, (47 days) Paypal told me to sod off. You are much better off to use your credit card, in fact your idea of opening a new account might be exactly what I do as well.

[Ron]

I don't know if this is still good information but maybe worth a try:
"If you find that you're unable to access all of your PayPal funds and you don't want to use your bank account or credit card, you can contact PayPal customer service by emailing them at [email protected] ([email protected]) or by calling their 24-hour customer service number at 888-221-1161. They will send you a street address confirmation via regular mail. This will contain a 20-digit code, which you must enter into the appropriate box on the PayPal site."

Also, don't forget your bank! I had a problem with PayPal over an item that was damaged (even though the FedEx driver made note of the packaging damage). I got tired of screwing with them, called my bank and all it took was going to the main office and a signature.
Check with your bank first, but with my personal Debit card I have a one time total fraud protection (renewed at the banks discretion depending on circumstances...), comes at no cost with non-business accounts only.