Gift Certificate Funds - when will PayPal release?

[sketcher]

Any help is appreciated.

We have tangible products and online subscription.

We receive money for gift certificates - which we immediately fulfill.

BUT PayPal does not release a "hold" (seems indefinite) on the funds. We've had $85 on hold for well over a year now.

Reading PayPal's "help" it appears that we will not receive the funds "until the certificate is redeemed or 18 months)

1) How in the world does PayPal know that the gift cert has been redeemed? We redeemed it.

2) 18 months - REALLY?

(unhappy PayPal user since 2003)

[BigKahuna97]

Are you serious?  A payment on hold for over a year?  Oh my......I don't believe I have ever heard of such a thing.  It might help if you can provide a picture showing todays date and the $85 that's been on hold for a year.  At least future PayPal users could consider alternatives to PP in order to be paid and by providing proof to the community it would show clearly that in many cases PP may not be the best answer for your business.

[sketcher]

a little history:  Not using eBay... using Web Site Payments Pro.

Have been using PayPal as merchant since 2003.

Here is the only information on PayPal's web site  I can find in PayPal re: gift certificates**:

: What is the gift certificate rolling reserve balance?

A: The gift certificate rolling reserve balance is a running tally of proceeds from gift certificate sales. The proceeds remain in the merchant's reserve balance and are transfered to their available balance at the time of redemption or 18 months after the original gift certificate purchase date.

https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=xpt/Merchant/merchant/GCFAQsOverview

**note - I did go through the rigamarole of asking PayPal the question - their answer: PayPal does not offer gift certificates.. (!!!)

The $85 has been on hold for over a year now.

PayPal has never responded to my questions about it.

[sketcher]

and....

it's not worth my time again to provide a screenshot of when the $85 was submitted.

when you look at the reserve balance - there is absolutely no information associated with it (I even had to figure out on my own that it was a gift certificate). 

There is no payment number that is associated with any 'reserve' balance, no buyer, no  date, no nothing. it takes sifting through months of transactions to find information on it.

[[ It took me about an hour six months ago to even determine who the buyer was since she bought the certificate initially for $70 and then added a couple days later $15. ]]

[BigKahuna97]

You could always call corporate and stop the whole 1800 number annoyance as so many people do.  If you google PayPal "parting of ways" it should return a few sites where corporate numbers are listed.  You could literally be a glitch that no one cares about.