PayPal should not be withholding access to our funds. When a buyer sends a payment, it's their perception that the seller has the money immediately. If a potential customer isn't comfortable with a seller then they shouldn't buy from them. That's why the feedback system exists, to show who can be trusted, not to be a method for verifying a purchase has been delivered. We already pay fees to UPS, Fedex, etc. for delivery confirmation. PayPal isn't holding the funds to protect the buyer. They're doing it to protect themselves. I just recently had one package in a multi-package shipment get lost in the mail. While I was sorting it out the buyer submitted an action with PayPal. I had already withdrew the funds so PayPal put my account in a negative balance for the amount of the entire transaction even though the customer indicated all but one item had arrived. This shows PayPal is definitely on the side of the buyer and that they'll debit the seller as soon as a problem is reported. It's then the seller's responsibility to prove the order has been fulfilled. If these policies are a result of rampant fraud then they should require security deposits on new accounts or something instead of attacking those of us who've proven ourselves trustworthy. Unfortunately we're the low hanging fruit because PayPal knows we'll always make good on our transactions. As was stated in another post, PayPal is not a bank or an escrow service. However, here's a bit of trivia, PayPal did start out as an online bank. The company name was X.com and I had a checking account with them as one of the very first customers. They still have the very cool x.com domain which they use for their developer network. It's time to give Google payments a try or re-open my merchant account with Authorize.net.
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