Not using my payPal balance to pay for something?

[duke46]

I leave money in PayPal for my own use and to buy things off eBay 99% of the time. Its my mad money and wife can't spend it. HAHA!

Now this happens a lot with me because I have friends that want to buy something of for me to bid for them and they deal in cash only. I buy they pay I take their money to the bank. But if I have a paypal bal of $100 and the item is $100 then I use paypal then you take my money. If it would let me choice to pay through my bank only or charge card or whatever then my $100 would still be in your account. But it looks like it want work that way? Why can't I make the choice on how to pay for an item without you automatically taking the $100 out of my balance all the time?

I would think if you operate any way like a bank then you would/could earn interest on what people have in their accounts but maybe you don't operate that way?

For me to get my $100 back into your account I have to do a bank transfer and that takes more time than it should to do it for some reason? So I have to wait till it is there to use it when I need to. Then the wife might get to it first!

Do I need two accounts with you maybe so I have better control?

[max_ro]

In fact there is another workaround, it involves using multiple currencies.

If you have to pay for a $50 item on ebay and you have $25 in ballance it will take that and another 25$ from credit/debit card.

But if you convert your ballance to another currency like euro or pounds , anything other than the item require, it will not take it, because paypal will look at the USD balance and will see it as zero so it will tkae the full amounf from card.

[Radharani]

Thanks, this is perfect advice, was wondering why Paypal did not use my balance, but paid in euros and my default currency was dollars.

Hurray Hurray Krishna!

[duke46]

I understand what the one person said about converting the bal to another currency but not sure what you are saying happened.

But I am guessing you bought something that was in another currency and because your was set on US it paid for the item you other default way I assume?

When I first ask the question a few years back about them taking from my account to pay for something was because what was in my account belonged to my son and really not me so I wanted it to stay there until he wanted to buy something. Well I bought an item and it took the payment out of what I had of his in my account. That would be when it would have been great if they had given me a choice on how to pay.

My son has passed away so that should never be a problem again but one never knows when I might have to sell something for someone else and he/she wants me to keep the money in my PP account. So I may do the conversion to keep it safe if that happens again. Thanks for that info.

[Radharani]

Wow, sorry to hear about your son! Yes, this morning Paypal debited my credit card, when I was expecting my balance to be used. Somewhat annoyed. But then discovered it was because my default currency was different to currency of purchase. So yes, it could work in your favor! 

Spoiler

[duke46]

I just posted that info for some of my friends so just in case they needed to know know they would. Unless PayPal changes the game.

I still don't see why they would not let you pick the way you would like to pay? Maybe they do not want to be a bank but then you can make deposits into your account to use latter. So at that time you are using them as a bank???

I guess if you went all the way back to the first page I am the one that started this post. Has been a long time but now we do have a way even though it is crazy but if it works it works.

[SpiritFly]

Hearing about everyone who's tormented by this issue it seems like it's a widespread problem, yet it doesn't make me feel better. In fact it makes me feel worse knowing that such an issue of this scale is ignored for years by paypal and they don't really care at all.

What does this say about their support??

I know what it is. It's about the fee. It's always about the fee for paypal. They want to get every single cent out of us, their clients even if it's at the expense of the functionalty. The fee is higher when trying to send money to another user from your credit card than sending it from your balance. They want to spend your precious balance money on payments where the fee doesn't matter, so you can send money from your credit cards with higher fees afterwards when it's necessary to send funds.

[timtak]

I am pretty sure that paypal takes from my balance in another currency.

I will see about transfering the balance to another account but, won't there be a fee?

It is a pain to create another account.

[timtak]

I was about to send myself the balance but it says the seller pays the fee and I am not seeing a present option. 

[timtak]

And anyway, I tried making a test payment to the other account to see if a <<this is a present>> option was given, and was told We're sorry but this recipient can't accept payments right now.

Whenever I tap the quotation marks key on my Japanese keyboard, this paypal forum converts it to an <<at mark>> which would be at the same place on a US keyboard. And I sure wish I could edit my previous posts rather than making additions in this way.

This is upsetting. I can understand how paypal does not want to pay the credit card company, so wants to use the paypal balance first, and allowing this to be a default is quite understandable, but not allowing us to turn it off is really painful. And I have reached the deadline for payment not realising that the conference requires paypal.

Ouch.

[timtak]

And now I tried the other obvious would-be-solution of attempting to pay the business expense with the new account but when I try and register the same card I am told I am sorry but your request can't be carried out now. Try again later. Why? I see that it is probably because I had not yet confirmed my email.

But, I read on another website (whose URL I cannot paste) that if I attempt to connect the same card to two accounts (business and personal) then my account will be locked or "limited". Perhaps my accoutn is already locked! I can still log into my other account. I don't want my account locked or limited, so linking to a second account is too dangerous.

Aaargh! Paypal. It is natural to want to seperate personal and business expenses!