Rolling Reserve

[hk343]

I recently applied for a merchant account with paypal because I have generally been very happy with them.  I do a lot of business through ebay and thought it would make life easier to have my credit card transaction going in to the same account.  

I am completely regretting decision.  One week later, after several headaches and hours on the phone with customer service to get the account set up, I am now left with an account with a 20% rolling reserve for 90 days.  20% of all payments I am getting from ebay sales are now being held for 90 days.  This is insane.  No one can run a business like that.  Customer service has been completely unhelpful in resolving this.  The best they said they can do is to have the reserve department (which apparently does not have phones) review the situation.  Although I have cancelled the merchant services which triggered the reserve, I am still stuck with this reserve.

This is a nightmare situation.  I tried to give paypal more business and got completely screwed by them  I would urge anyone thinking about setting up merchant services with paypal to strongly reconsider.  Keep in mind, I got no notice that a reserve would be applied to my account untill it actually happend.  I would never have signed up had I known this would happen.  I have gone from someone who was very happy with paypal's service to someone who absolutely hates paypal.  Paypal should really take notice, I am sure I am not the only one this has happened to.  

If anyone has been in a similar situation, please let me know if there is any way to fix this.  

[BlackAsylumEnt]

They have placed a reserve on 100% of our funds.  This is ludicrous.

[Uphaar]

We tried out the PayPal Here Card Reader for a recent retail show as a replacement for our Streamline/Worldpay card payment machine. The card reader worked fine however PayPal have applied 100% reserve for 30 days to our merchant account. PayPal's customer service said that it was in the T&Cs when downloading the app for the PayPal Card Reader and they would give feedback to the sales team. The 30 days reserve certainly wasn't obvious to us in the T&Cs.

This would play havoc with our cashflows if we put volumes through PayPal and to add insult to injury PayPal is the one making interest on our cleared funds for 30 days!

We don't think we'll be moving off Streamline/Worldpay which do pay quickly straight to our bank account and any payment disputes and charge backs are handled using the direct debit to our bank account and the contractual T&Cs.

As for PayPal get your act together! Nice card reader idea but then you just had to ruin it with the rolling reserve!

[pipkins]

thanks for explaining, I used the paypal here app at a retail show a couple of weeks ago and now i understand why I have funds on hold ! I didn't read that in the terms n conditions either - how would you on an app?

lets hope they are released after 30 days or ill be contacting customer services 

[Uphaar]

There are a lot of mobile payment providers who have entered the market over the last year. It's worth looking at alternatives like Intuit Pay. Having missed the 30 day clause in the PayPal T&Cs we mistakenly chose PayPal over Intuit Pay due to the strength of phone support which Intuit did not have at the time. I believe this is something that Intuit are now in the process of fixing. Also Intuit are very clear about transferring the funds within a few days.

[Chaz99]

I too have just started using the card reader.  Took card details over the phone for nearly £900 and I now realise that I can not have that money for another month!!!  I am trying to run a business and Paypal seem to want to put obstacles in the way at every turn. Ringing customer service was hopeless, he said to write a complaint.  I asked if it would make any difference and he said no!  I asked for the name of the CEO of the company and he refused to tell me.  Anyone know the contact details?  I was told repeatadly that he understood how I felt-obviously in the script.  Grrrrr

[Melbond]

This had just happened to me .. I'm drop shipping and this is ridiculous 20% of all sales is more than people's profit margins .. I've got three kids and was doing this for a bit if pin money but it's costing me at the moment Anyone help ,,,,