Hello all,
Seems I am not the first to encounter these issues. I am a freelance writer and provide content for a number of different websites. Many of my customers are located outside of the UK so PayPal is the most convenient way for them to make payments to me.
Today I received a payment for around £150, which was placed on hold, as the client chose that it was for goods or services. But paypal doesn't seem to recognize the "Services" part of their option. This £150 is a payment for services I have already provided. There is no tracking number to provide in order to release the funds faster. It seems rather unprofessional demanding my clients send the payment as a friends and family transaction in order to sidestep this.
What am I supposed to do here? I cannot wait 21 days every time a client pays me for work I have already completed. I need the cash immediately. Even the client doesn't have any way of choosing to release the funds for me manually, by stating that he has already received his item and is happy with it. They want a tracking number, which of course there isn't one.
Am I just scr*wed here? I do have a friend with a business PayPal account that I have the option of us using, which doesnt accept friends and family payments, however this does add significant extra fees to the transaction as well when this account is used. In fact, I have been charged nearly £6 just for refunding the client today, which I can't imagine he is very happy about.
Is there any way of telling PayPal that these payments are NOT for physical products that need to be delivered and they are infact wage payments for work I have completed, and therefore there is no need to hold them for any period of time. The client would not be sending the money in the first place if I had not delivered the product to them.
PLEASE can somebody help me I really needed this payment today and now I have refunded it and it appears my client has left work for the day and cannot let me know now what he wishes to do - send to an alternative address, which I feel is unprofessional and suspicious, or opt for a friends and family payment which may not be a legal way of him settling his accounts. There MUST be a solution to this ? Paypal are not new to this, the gig economy isn't a new thing, can we use Paypal for this type of transaction or not?
Thank you for your time,
Chris
