Paypal Holding Money For 72 Hours!

[AngryIain]

So I recently created a paypal account just for the sake of one payment. My landlord in China couldnt bank transfer me my deposit back or western union me it so she suggested paypal. I create the account and she transfers the funds. The funds clear and I click withdraw. I get the notice that it may take up to two hours for the transfer to complete and I click confirm. After I click confirm I get the message saying it will take up to 72 hours. I have verified my bank, all details are correct so please may i know the reason for the "Paypal Review"? Are you just holding on to people's money in order to gain the interest to turn a higher profit or are you doing it to just be unreasonable. Surely you can see all the other user's angry comments on the site so why not try to resolve the matter or give an explanation as to the reasoning why? If paypal wants to remain the powerhouse of online money transfer I suggest they start caring about their customers more. Some people make a living off paypal and they need that money a lot faster than 72 hours. Resolve this paypal.

[Stapleman]

Have signed up here just to add some information that I found out while having this 72 hour hold placed on a withdrawal. After a 21 day hold of my funds I put through to receive an email to inform me of this 72 hour wait, so like any annoyed customer does I gave their customer service line a call. Some question responses were interesting. When I asked about why this hold occurs I was told that it is so that PayPal can make sure you are using the service and it is not somebody else, so they build info such as how you withdraw, what device you are using and so on. But my favourite part of this conversation was when I asked exactly how random is this process, to this I was told that 4% of ALL withdrawals are held. Now I'm not sure if I believe this, seeing as this is my 4th withdrawal, and all of those bar one have been held, and after reading this thread I'm quite 4% is nowhere near the actual review rate.

[jidimite]

I have read the comments here and it is no surprise to me that PayPal treat their customers so badly. It is simply because they are not too smart in Luxembourg, no that's right..... They are confused and unsure about the British. No that's not right either..... They are er, Morons..... Yep that's it

[FunkyJive]

A sign of the times  😞

[unicornjerk]

If you're soooo poor that a little three day or twenty-two day hold has such an effect on you, then maybe you shouldn't be using ebay or paypal. You people are big babies, and you're all lucky you're even allowed ot use paypal. If I ran Paypal, I would remove all the accounts of you haters/terrorists, and confiscate your money. You all need to learn to have some respect and stop thinking the world revolves around you. Who cares if paypal holds "your" money so they can bank some interest on it. You're the one using their service, and you need to just STFU if you don't like it. 

Seriously though, if your paypal transactions are so critical to your life that you cannot pay your bills without them, then you really should take a good hard look at your life, because you **bleep** it up big time. How about you get a real job like a normal person, and let the paypal stuff be your side pocket money that you use? Your poor life choices are not Paylpal's problem.  

[jasbod6029]

I do encounter with paypal holding on to my money sent to a friend oversea although my paypal statement show it has been sent and receive by recipient. From my interact over the phone, my friend has called his bank and was told that money was not sent but after calling pAypal, they denied and say they have release the money. I have previous dealing with my friend in the past dealing with thousand of dollars by tt transfer and every goes well but this time its merely 200US and I trusted my friend that he did not cheat me but paypal.

[kernowlass]

@jasbod6029

If you sent in dollars is your friends paypal account set up to receive dollars in his country?

[jasbod6029]

Yes, he did had a bank account and was ask to give a cofe from bank. After verification, he only get hos money a week later. I had interact with bank and they said the problem is with paypal. I dont know if I should believe in bank or paypal. One tell me paypal is hilding to money, paypal tell me thru phone interact that they will release the money immediately after verifying the code.

[kernowlass]

@jasbod6029

Receiving funds in another currency has nothing to do with verifying your bank account.

You have to "add" that currency as a receiving currency before it can hit your paypal account balance when you can then withdraw it to your bank account.

[FunkyJive]

I suppose the question is fundamental...

If money is sent to an account that is not already set up to accept funds in the sender's currency, is the recipient notified to this effect  -  particularly if funds have already been paid from the sender's account? With appropriate notice, was this merely an oversight on the part of the recipient?

FJ

[MarkAllen]

I did some testing around this having hit the issue multiple times in as many weeks and having had the usual nonsensical phone call that this is a security issue under investigation and quoting the policy to which we all agree by using the service. 

So.... 

<case>

I sent a paypal invoice as I am a business user.  My client then paid the invoice from their paypal account.  (common behaviour)

I received the funds and used my common method (mobile with secure encryption) to cash out to my bank a small portion of the money received,  lets say its 1000 units of currency I withdrew 250  The mobile app clearly states transaction should take 2 hours so at bare minimum this needs adressing to not create a false pretense. 

I then get the email telling me its 72 hours to release my funds to my account.  On calling I am again told this is a security issue and it will be pending for review.  Now,  I would warrant and believe this had it not been for the completely auromated nature of what happens next as the actual release happens as an automated process with no review,  this is not a review,  its a hold.  Please review english language before applying it to your behaviour. 

Unless your telling me your staff operate within a second which is exactly how long after 48 hours the funds were processed and released so I do not believe that there was any manual intervention in this process,  it was just held and your staff cant even tell me why which as a business is pathetic. 

</case>

<security ?>

So... Security is it ? 

I then decided to send some money to my friend to test the "security" claim.  I logged in on my least secure device,  laptop over HTTPS and sent my friend £250.  He cashed this out inside of 10 minutes and has it as cleared funds. 

I repeat the exercise with another friend and same thing,  he cashes it out and has it as cleared funds in his bank within about 10 minutes. 

And a third repeat,  same thing.  

So really paypal,  if this is a security thing,  and your claiming to us the end user that you put this stop on our accounts pending "review" why is it that exactly the same source of initiated funds passing through an account which is supposedly under "review" and going to third parties from an account you suspect or claim to suspect is exhibiting strange behaviour is able to be cashed out by said third parties with no limitation on their accounts?.  Surely if you see unusual behaviour on an account it should be suspended completely while investigated / reviewed,  not allowed to continue transacting to a level where any supposed behaviour may be malicious and hence I would now be down 750 currency units which are physically cashed out of your system... and I would wager would probably take another time period for you to recover. 

</security>

The largest item of amusement for me here was on speaking to the rep at paypal and asking the question why would I want to use you instead of bank transfer if you are going to erratically and inexplicably lock accounts and funds and his response was that paypal increase seller reputation ..... Really ?  because to date as a business the use case is limited,  service is absolutely terrible and in short 75% of my customers have refused to go near your system to pay invoices as they have had prior bad experiences with either the financial side,  locked funds or poor customer service.  

So at conclusion of month 1,  your offering is actually not business fit and I will be cancelling my account completely .... Approximately 72 hours from this article as I just pressed cash out.