So hello everyone,
I have been dealing with a really, really huge issue with Paypal since the beginning of this year. Recently (from what I've been told several times by employees/customer service) they changed their system for how businesses receive and confirm transactions. I am a digital commercial artist, I work on assets and artwork for video games, browser games, and app games for multiple companies. I have been in the business for over ten years, and I have been using Paypal for almost as long. Before this all started, I (and other artist colleagues like myself) had no trouble with invoices - clients would pay the invoice, and for us digital service/goods businesses (like myself), we could edit the tracking information on the invoice transaction ourselves (and select "no tracking necessary") and the payments could be approved without having to involve or harass the clients but still use the invoice/business services Paypal provides for freelance artists.
Now, here's where it gets messy and really, really frustrating....
The new system no longer allows me to edit/change/modify the tracking on any incoming payments without client's approval and confirmation. This means that after I've sent an invoice and they've already confirmed it (paid), my money gets put in a perpetual hold loop because every business transaction gets automatically marked as physical/shipped goods regardless of what I check from the drop-down box on the invoice page or what I do to try and edit the transaction details after I setup/send the invoice, so every single time I send an invoice, I have to annoy my clients and ask them to double-confirm and edit the tracking on my transactions every single time. Sometimes it works fine, and they approve the money within a day or so with little assistance/guidance on my part (most clients/buyers are not familiar with how tracking/transaction editing works or where to click) but 90% of the time I am left for a week or two struggling to communicate and get my clients to go back to payments they already approved to (you guessed it) approve them again and release the money they already paid me.
This wouldn't be such an issue if it was just this little hiccup of dealing with the clients, but it has affected my business to such a severe degree I have been forced to miss bill payments, unable to buy groceries, and unable to function on a day-to-day basis because I'm constantly dealing with waiting on clients to approve money (or having communication issues,someone isn't responding, or a client is out of town and forgot to double-approve it) for 3 - 6 days at a time. My power was shut off a few weeks ago because I got stuck in a holding loop for 3 days and couldn't get the money to release in time to pay for it, so it overdrafted my bank account from the automatic payment to my power company for hundreds of dollars, and because most of my bills are around the same time (and like most modern humans, I have them set to automatic payments) it caused me to go into severe debt for weeks (my bank was -$500, I lost my car insurance because it lapsed the same day, and we had to push rent later on because of it to deal with the financial damages) and I am still trying to correct the issue after a month of struggling.
This isn't just a "small issue" I can just deal with. I have contacted Paypal twice about this, and both times I have essentially been told to just suck it up and accept it as a part of the new system, and that nothing could be done for me other than what I'm already doing. I am furious about this, I'm frustrated, and I am tired of being treated like this isn't affecting my entire life. Right now I can't afford to buy groceries because I am (yet again) stuck waiting on a client since last week who won't respond and already did step 1 to the payment - so now I have to just hope they eventually get around to it today so I can eat tonight. I am not a wealthy person. I work 6-12 hour days on game assets for clients who cannot afford to wait around for payments to approve so I can send them their digital products (I do not send the final copies of my work until payments clear) because they are companies working around the clock on a deadline to push out a game product, and if I'm holding them up waiting on payments to clear so I can send them assets then MY job is on the line. MY livelihood is being threatened. I can't just sit this out because it is literally destroying my business practice. My clients are annoyed with me, I'm tired of waiting around on money for work I've already done, and I'm really sick of being told that this isn't a big deal. It is for me, and I need something to change because I cannot keep working like this.
So please, Paypal, can someone help me for once?? I would really appreciate a better solution to this...
