Paypal Business Debit Card Declined Repeatedly

[bearcatnat]

I'm having an issue with my business debit card being repeatedly declined in the past week. I've been using this card regularly with no issues for at least 3 months. I had lost my banking debit card, so have been using my Paypal debit card, with my bank checking account as the backup funding source. I've used it for hundreds of transactions, but in past week, I just keep getting declined, declined, declined. I've had some payments made recently to my Paypal account (eBay and Etsy), and when there are funds in my Paypal account, my debit card works.

I called Paypal and the rep suggested that I send a manual transfer of funds from my bank account. He said this should fix the issue. The transfer went through today, but still my debit card doesn't work. So I called again tonight, and the rep told me that I need to "build up my banking history" for my Paypal account by making regular manual transactions from my banking account into my Paypal account. This makes absolutely no sense to me. Since I no longer have a banking debit card, I now have no easy access to my own money! I keep having to pull out a credit card to use instead.

Additionally, I have a monthly subscription payment that is billed through my Paypal debit card. That transaction was also declined today. So I tried logging into Paypal and making a payment with my bank account directly via Paypal (not my debit card), and that transaction was also declined!

I was enjoying the perk of the cash-back you get with the Paypal business debit, but if the card can't be relied on to work 100%, what's the point?? I called my bank to check that there wasn't some security issue on their end, but they don't even see that any transactions were attempted. Has anyone else had this issue with the debit card?

[k8Catlin]

Hey PP Decline fam, I have had the exact same issues described here, and I'm not wasting my time being lied to buy customer service, either, especially after Michael told us the info about his call. I'm only replying to point out (if anyone from PP actually reads this) that I'm joining your club and going to stop using my PP debit card. I got a credit card with better options, so I guess since obviously PP is being super shady to avoid paying a perk they advertise, I'll do that instead. I also am in a business incubator, and I WOULD'VE recommended PP to all my peers, but now I'll be actively discouraging it's use. Way to go, PP.

[ABell777]

Did you get this resolved? I haven't been able to use my business debit card at all yet since getting it. It has been declined everywhere I've tried and I have a decent balance in my PayPal account, plus it's linked to my bank account. 

[MHTwigg]

So,

After trial and error, and seriously zero help from PayPal what worked for me was the following. I loaded funds for 60 days, and this managed to reset the algorithm.

Both times it happened to me when I had to reverse a charge from a vendor off ebay who ripped me off.

I'll bet in every instance there was a funds issue...then Paypal flags it...and the only way I got it to sort was loading funds...haven't had an issue since.

[Tellemfred]

I’m having the same issue now, but only when the card is run as credit. Like most others I’ve used the card for years and practically pay for everything with it because of the 1% cash back. Never have funds in the account but my bank is linked as backup and it’s worked fine until a few days ago. That morning, I made a purchase online with no issues. Then in the afternoon it was declined for another online purchase. I thought it might be the website and I was able to “pay with paypal” so I just did that, with my bank as the backup, and it worked fine. Next morning tried another online purchase and it was declined. Called PayPal and they said it was because I had too many pending transactions (at the time there were 4, totaling about $400. I’ve had WAY more). I was still able to make multiple purchases as debit in person when entering my pin. My issues seems to only be when the card is run as credit. This is concerning because like others have mentioned I have a few monthly payments linked to this card. I’ll wait until the pending transactions process and then call again to get the next runaround.