Lost instant transfer after so many years due to 1 single discrepancy?!

[biggbird72]

Just recently, I noticed that I can no longer send money instantly to friends and family. I do this twice a month to pay my Ex wife child support. I have done this for years, with no issue. Last month, one of my payments was declined by my bank due to suspicious activity. That left a negative balance on my PayPal account for about a day or two (until I discovered it when she said it hasn't hit her bank yet). So I added money to cover the negative, and about a week later she finally received the money cleared as an eCheck. 

I thought, ok well that must be why, but next month should be back to normal. Not at all. So I noticed that when I try to send a F&F payment to her, it shows about a 7 day estimate to when it will be available to her. So I started researching different things to look for and try to no avail. I added another verified bank account and tried it from there thinking it might be because my main account was flagged somehow. Not it either. 

So I call customer service today, and they proceed to tell me that due to that ONE single time I had that discrepancy, that I have lost my ability to do instant transfers from checking accounts. Oh, but I can still pay the fee and do an instant transfer with my debit card! Of course I can! 

Has anybody experienced this before? Have you been successful in getting it reversed somehow? I could understand if this was a repeat issue, but after 15 years of being with PP, I have one issue that was beyond my control and PP decides I should lose my instant transfer privilege? 

[sharpiemarker · Accepted solution]

@biggbird72 

Payments with cards are generally always instant but not bank payments. PayPal fronts the money ahead on instant payments and they wait for the payment to clear. Users are screened for eligibility for instant payments with bank on transaction to transaction basis based on their risk factor and these days PayPal is super sensitive to risk so if you bounced a payment, you have to build it up again. Do several payments more without bouncing so the system will have something to go on and let you do instant payments with bank account again hopefully. 

[biggbird72]

Transaction to transaction basis, eh? So by that rationale my next transaction should not be weighed against my past transaction, since my past "no issues whatsoever" transactions were not taken into account when 1 didn't clear (again beyond my control, there was plenty of money in there) and they revoked it. 

/rant

I'll just use another means for instant pay. I will refuse to pay any fees to PayPal now that I know customer loyalty means jack anyway. Lesson learned. I appreciate you taking you time out to explain it! 

[Jaysub]

Hi @biggbird72 What do you mean in this sentence Payments with cards are generally always instant but not bank payments. I tbought that means the same Thing???

[Jaysub]

Did you get this problem sorted out,iv had same thing since start of april,every payment going on hold to friends family and echeques still now not clearing and going past there Clearing date.funny though so many paypal iv spoke to havent said this is reason as i too have been in minus with paypal,they always just say im getting reviewed randomly