Hi all,
I'm in the market for a used laptop, and the best place to purcahse one is eBay. Of course, eBay being eBay, many purchases have to go through PayPal. This is where I run into a problem. Although I have had, for many years, a PayPal account linked to my bank account and my debit cards and all that jazz, I just don't use PayPal that often. Most of the time, If I want to order something online, it's through Amazon: no PayPal needed. But it appears that despite confirming my bank account and all, suddenly making a large ($1000+) transaction on PayPal out of the blue is just not a thing that the fraud team is going to allow. Which I guess I understand, but it is quite frustrating to have to use PayPal for things I don't care about in order to, down the road, use it for something I do care about, if that makes sense. I spent several hours on the phone with the PayPal Customer Service team (not the most helfpul folks in the world, as you all probably know) verifying my identity and all that, and while I can (finally) log into my account without having to verify my computer for the four millionth time, I still can't get the purchase I want to make to go through. I called my bank and confirmed that the holdup is not on their end, so it has to be a PayPal problem.
So here's my question: 1) Am I correct in assuming that PayPal is reluctant to let me use the service for a large payment without having an extensive history of smaller payments? 2) Is it worth it to try to build up my PayPal history and then try a larger purchase again in a few weeks? (eBay stock varies of course, but the price on the model I want is consistently less expensive on eBay than on Amazon marketplace or any similar site.) 3) My dad has a more extensive PayPal history (used it to buy some video production equipment through eBay a few times)---would it be a good idea/is it against the Laws of PayPal to have him buy the item in question for me (with his presumably "more trustworthy" PayPal account) and just let me pay him for it? And if so, would I be able to have him set the item to ship to me (as though he were buying a gift, basically), or is that also likely to trip the PayPal fraud alarm? I'm just trying to figure out how to access the items I actually WANT to use PayPal for without wasting my money buying other things through PayPal that aren't important to me. But if push comes to shove and there's no other way than to build a PayPal history, I might (eyerollingly) consider it. All advice and help is much appreciated!
