I wanted to post this and bring this to everyone attention and maybe have some people at PayPal review their policies and maybe come up with something better.
Over the course of the last 12-18 months I have been using Gift Cards that you find in several stores from the "Gift Card Mall" (GCM for short) brand. With these cards you are able to go onto the GCM's website and register a card with your name and address so you can use it for online transactions. If you complete this step, you are able to use the Gift Card on Paypal *IF* you add it as a new card.
Now of course most of your Gift Cards are "one-shot" cards. They have X amount of funds on the card and when that limit is reached the card is worthless. So then you remove the cards for your account once the transaction is complete.
Well something that I learned today, is that currently you are only allowed to add and remove 19 cards on your account in the course of your lifetime on your account. If you add/remove more then 19 cards, then your account is locked and you have to call up customer support to have it unlocked.
Now, I understand this as a security measure. I also understand this may not effect everyone, but I also see that your average person will have up to 3 cards (or more) tied into there Paypal account and that if those cards expire every 3 years then you will hit that limitation in 7 years. That is not including any Gift Cards that you may have "added" to your account.
Your Uncle gets you are $100 Gift Card for Xmas, there goes one of your 19 cards.
You work gives you a $25 Gift Card for a reward, thats another one gone.
I *guess* if you wanted to start fresh, you could just close your account and start a new one. For people using personal accounts that is not an issue, but if you have a bussiness account and your "score" is an important , you cant go and remake your accounts every 5 years.
I can say that I have been with Paypal for over 10 years and so far I have not had any issues with them, but with as much as consumers use gift cards during the holidays and other events, *real* credit cards getting replaced, and multiple cards on an account, more people maybe hitting this limitation more and more as PayPal becomes older.
As someone that works in the accounting and has worked in retail, the law only required to keep credit card transactions on file for 7 years. So why is PayPal keeping records of cards from 10 years ago?
Of course, if there is a way to "tell" the difference between a *normal* credit card and a *gift card* on PayPal's end, then they could make gift cards exempt from this limitation or have a seperate way to transact gift cards.
