I recently sold a piece of antique furniture to an online friend of mine through eBay.
And of course, Paypal decided to freeze the payment. The problem is, I cannot ship the product until I get that money because shipping something in a huge wooden crate is expensive!
The funny thing is, Paypal claims this is a security measure. My buyer has already called Paypal in person and explained that he trusts me and just wants me to get my money so I can ship the item. Where's the security issue if both parties feel happy with me just receiving my money and shipping the product?
I have, too, contacted Paypal customer service and I only get copy-pasted templates in return. It's like the company doesn't care about individual situations at all. I feel like the person I'm talking to is a trained ape or simply a robot. He disregards my arguments and simply repeats that until I have made enough sales, there will be a 21-day hold no matter what.
This wouldn't irritate me half as much if I didn't kind of understand what their true goal was.
Think of the financial profit they can make by holding millions and millions of dollars for 3 weeks at the same time. They can make interest off these.
And when a company is big enough, apparently they don't have to care about individual clients any more.
Sure, I understand that Paypal must be struggling with the fact that most people just empty their Paypal wallet right away and keep it empty. But I was planning to keep a hefty amount there anyway, and I only asked Paypal to release part of the funds so I can cover the shipping costs. How does Paypal reply to this reasonable request? By copy-pasting their last message about payment hold rules.
Well guess what, I've been a member since 2008 and because I deal in big money items (antiques) I make nice profit for Paypal. This latest transaction of mine gave Paypal $130 in fees alone. Why do I feel like I'm one-sidedly funding a faceless corporation?
If Paypal continues to ignore my unique situation, I'm simply going to take my business elsewhere. Fortunately Bitcoin will eventually give people freedom to use their own money.
