Three Accounts? Personal, Business & Micropayments?

[Aahz]

I have need of a PayPal micropayments account, but already have two PayPal accounts (one personal & one business).

I've read that it's allowed to have a third account for micropayments, but the PayPal FAQ still says a user may only have two accounts (one personal one premier OR business)

Meanwhile, the Micropayments sign-up page says:
You can request that your existing Business or Premier PayPal account be switched to micropayments pricing. Once your account is switched, you will no longer receive your old pricing, and instead you will be charged the Micropayments rate. You can only make the request with a Business or Premier account.

So now I'm confused.
Can I create a third account? (my prefered option)
Can I upgrade my personal to premier then convert it to Micropayments? (will miss having a personal account, but is livable)
Can I simply not have both a micropayments and standard business account? (this would make me sad)

The assistance of all your PayPal wisdom is much appreciated.

[sandypurins]

The following information is from an identical discussion on the eBay PayPal Discussion Board...

You are permitted to have 3 PayPal accounts... one Personal account, one Premier or Business account and one Micropayments account.

The PayPal User Agreement makes no mention of Micropayments accounts... it's not mentioned in the "Eligibility and Types of Accounts" section or in the "Fees" section. My answer is based on the following text at the following link...

Merchants who receive both macro and micro payments should maintain two separate accounts:

1. An account to apply their standard rate to macropayments.
2. An account to apply the micropayments rate to their micropayments.

Each PayPal account is associated with only one merchant processing rate.

http://www.paypal.com/IntegrationCenter/ic_micropayments.html

In case others need more assurance as well, check the fourth comment on the PayPal blog post here...

https://www.thepaypalblog.com/2008/10/micropayments-pricing-for-merchants

[lainworks]

I set up a micropayment account, but did not link it to eBay. Ebay lists that as my Paypal account, Somehow, eBay payments were made to my micropayment account without my approval, which cost me an extra 2.1%. How do I prevent this from happening since eBay is set up to send to one account, but the payments were credited to the other by PayPal. Alternatively, how do I stop micropayments?

[sandypurins]

PayPal payments for your eBay listings are sent to the email address which you have entered in the PayPal payments section of your listings. For future eBay listings, make sure you have the correct PayPal email address in the payments section of each listing... here's a screen shot of that section of the eBay "Sell Your Item" form...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v635/dulcinea02/payment03b.gif

[r3dsoxmatt]

I was trying to find out where I go to check my micropayments status update and I came across your post above.  I found micropayments through... merchant services, products and services, digital copy, pricing and it states:

"PayPal is committed to giving you the best pricing for both your micropayments and larger transactions. Your fee rate will automatically adapt based on the size of the transaction. Signing up for micropayment pricing is easy too – you'll be prompted to apply as you go through the set up process. *

For each transaction we'll charge you either standard pricing, or micropayments pricing – whichever is the lower rate ."

and it doesn't mention anything about creating 2 accounts.  I am worried that I am going to be charged the 5%+.05 on my higher ticket items when I was under the impression that it would automatically switch.

[PayPal_Olivia]

A belated "welcome" to Aahz and lainworks, and a much more timely one to r3dsoxmatt. We're happy to have all three of you with us!

As usual, sandypurins was spot-on! Great answers! I had actually started to type my own answers as I was reading through the thread, and then just deleted what I wrote since those answers were perfect.

r3dsoxmatt - That didn't sound right to me, so I did some digging to find where you saw that. Mystery solved! You were looking at the pricing for Micropayments associated with the PayPal for Digital Goods solution. It's a separate type of merchant account with some different features. Once a merchant has been approved for it, payments marked as digital goods payments will receive the adaptable rate. 

For anything else, Micropayments still works as sandypurins described.

I hope this helps!

Olivia