Pending funds

[Jayden04]

 I am a first time buyer with Ebay and Paypal I had purchased something made my payment then automatically received a pending notice. At this point I am irate with Paypal the funds were taken out of my account days ago and they tell me that it has 3 to 5 business days to post the money to the seller that is an average normal time for the funds to be taken from one account to the other automatically. I understand but when the funds were taken out of my account 3 to 5 days ago but the seller did not receive the payment makes me extremely angry because you wonder where in the world are my funds if you have my money but not paid the seller!!! after speaking with paypal for everyday the past week I finally have received some information about where my funds currently are. They told me that Paypal does not remove my funds from my account. There is another financial institution that removes my funds from my account then they release it to paypal for the seller or buyer. This is completely disturbing! For 1 when I signed up for paypal and released my bank information to paypal I did not know there would be another financial institution with it that was dealing with my information. 2 that institution has no right to hold our funds without our knowledge. 3 If another institution has my money I should be allowed to contact them. I was told that they do not have the number for them. This is bad business! No way around it very bad business!

[surplusdealdude]

No, it's not bad business, you just don't understand what Paypal is.

Paypal is a payment service, not a bank.

They use Wells Fargo Bank for their transactions - Wells Fargo has been in business since the days of the Pony Express - they're completely safe.

When you issue an echeck ( which is what it sounds like you did), Paypal has to clear the funds through your bank, just like if you paid with a regular bank.  They send the electronic information to Wells Fargi, who does the actual clearing and then puts the cleared funds in Paypal's account, after which the funds are released to the seller.

This is a common practice in the banking system, done all the time through finance companies (who aren't banks, either) and many mortgage companies.