PayPal Community

This will happen for your first 25 transactions. And even after those 25 transactions are done you'll still be in that holding pattern for the first 90 days of your new account being opened.   Also, even after each of your transactions have finally gone through the paypal 2/3 week "verification" process, you still won't be able to get your money as they then put your withdrawal to your bank account on a 3/4 day "withdrawal hold" as well.   So, you basically have to bankroll paypal for your first 25 transactions while they're busy collecting interest for themselves on YOUR money.   I'm in the same boat as you are (a freelancer), paypal put the same holds on my new account too which renders that new account useless as I can't afford to bankroll paypal out of my personal bank account so it means the new account will never get past the 25 transactions and is therefore totally unusable.   My advice to you is to bin paypal before they send you into bankruptcy, and use a different provider, and make an official complaint against PayPal to any/every authority you can find.     ... View more

@Incandescent1 "they are not regulated by UK law" - that's the crux of it, they're based in Luxembourg, people in the UK have virtually no protection against these scammers (ie paypal).   These are the details of the "PayPal" organisation that operates in the UK: https://register.fca.org.uk/ShPo_FirmDetailsPage?id=001b000000Mg3m1AAB   NOTE: "This firm is not registered under the Money Laundering Regulations."   They are essentially only regulated in their own country (Luxembourg), and they might as well be in Nigeria or Afghanistan for all the good that does.   They are simply stealing people's money, and because they're based in a financial/legal/tax haven and have no presence in the UK at all, they should be avoided at all costs and treated/seen no differently then the emails that you get like "Mr Nogobo has left you $100million in his will, click here to enter your bank details to receive the money"   PayPal are scammers, pure and simple.   A note that I got from the FCA, included this:   "Paypal has something called a service passport, which means they don't have a presence in the UK but do business on a distance basis, for example, online. This means that they don't have a presence in the UK, and so they don't have to follow our rules about how they deal with customers."   ... View more

A word of warning; if you need your club to have the money that people pay you in a reasonable timeframe in order to survive, then don't use paypal, as it could easily cause you to go bankrupt.   Paypal puts holds on new accounts, so you'll be lucky if a given payment from one of your customers/buyers ends up transferrable to your bank account within a few weeks.   If money that people send you being held-back for many weeks (that's AFTER you've already provided your service/products to them) isn't a problem, then sure, go ahead and use paypal.   But if you need the money that people send you in a reasonable timeframe, then steer clear of paypal at all costs as they'll use your "new account" status to hold onto your money for as long as possible so that they can earn interest from it.   Just have a look at the "holds" forum topic, and you'll get a more accurate picture of what paypal really do to sellers. ... View more

I'm in the same boat as you are, as are several million other people (as you'll be able to see from the humungous amount of posts from other very angry people on the relevant forum subjects about holds and related matters; those posts are obviously the tip of the iceberg; most people wouldn't post on the forum, they'd just get annoyed and then refuse to use paypal).   There's really no solution other than using another provider and letting as many people as possible know what paypal do so that their business either collapses or they change their processes.   With paypal's current processes, it's only a matter of time before one of those 2 things happens, because they can't survive long-term by doing what they're doing as competition in their market will end up destroying them if they don't fix things.   I've personally made a complaint to the relevant UK authorities about paypal's processes, as they basically steal people's money (ie they hold onto it for as long as possible, even when there's no security/fraud or potential chargeback risk, so that they can earn interest from other people's money).   Make no mistake; the holds are absolutely nothing to do with fraud or security checks, or chargeback risk; those are just excuses and even when those excuses are confirmed as irrelevant in a given situation, they STILL keep your money, they ARE thieves.   So, my advice is: 1) Stop using paypal for any future payments. 2) As soon as the current money in your paypal account is fully available, withdraw it from paypal into your bank account. 3) Delete any links you have in your paypal account to your bank account or cards if possible. 4) Make an official complaint to as many authorities as possible in your jurisdiction (but keep your paypal account open while doing so, so that the authorities and you can see the history of the account). 5) Tell every person/business that you deal with who ever ask you about payment systems, including family and friends, to never use paypal, and tell them why.   You were lucky if you had the money held for 7 days; mine was repeatedly held for several weeks, and even after that (when it became "available for withdrawal"), they then held it for another few days while the withdrawal itself was put on a " withdrawal hold", and all that happened despite there being no physical goods involved at all (just virtual products/software, and service (time) paid in arrears), and despite there being zero chance of a chargeback risk as the clients and types of payments are identical to what I had on another paypal account which never has any holds on it because it's been running for so long without a single dispute ever.   Don't bother to phone their customer-services or message them; they'll just give you the standard "it's in our terms" reply and keep your money for as long as humanly possible, regardless of the situation.   My sympathy is with you; I know what it's like and how frustrating it is, but at the end of the day the only real solution is to simply never use paypal ever again, complain to as many authorities as you can, and tell everyone you know what a scam it all is. ... View more

@kernowlass But I'm not a "seller" in the ebay sense, I'm just a bank account holder; I might be wrong, but in the UK/EU I thought that paypal is now classed as a bank, not as a kind of selling-agent like they are in the US, and that what they're doing under those circumstances is basically illegal.   But, even if I were a "seller", that doesn't mean that I'd just live with unreasonable and unworkable holdbacks, I'd sell through other channels.   I mean, if I wanted to sell my phone, then would I: 1) use ebay where I know that I'd end up sending my phone to someone, and then not getting any money for it because paypal/ebay will always come down on the side of the buyer no matter how malicious the buyer is and no matter how much proof of receipt there is etc? (ie I lose my phone, have to pay postage to send it to someone, but don't get any cash from it either). or: 2) Sell it via my local newspaper's website.   I know which one I'd choose if I were a seller.   The "they're big, so they can do what they want" argument doesn't work in the long term; just ask myspace. ... View more

@kernowlass yes, we'll just have to agree to disagree.   I'll tell you something though, with my web-developer hat on, every single site-owner and business owner that I ever speak to in the future will learn exactly what paypal do from me, and they will then pass that onto everyone they meet too.   The paypal business model is doomed; people WILL move to other processors once the paypal approach becomes common knowledge. ... View more

@kernowlass "We may hold your funds to the extent and for so long as reasonably needed to protect against the risk of liability. "   That's my point; their holds are for the most part completely unreasonable, and they're not being done to protect against risk, they're being done to earn paypal interest.   Is it worth the fuss of moaning about it, ie should I just carry on using paypal and deal with it?   It's definitely worth the fuss; paypal are fleecing millions of people over this, and putting people into financial hardship by it. Startups are going bust because of it.   Should I carry on with paypal and live with the holdbacks; no, because I can't afford to finance paypal out of my personal cash reserves; I earned my money fair and square from my customers, my customers paid me for my services, and I want my money.   Also, this is my "real life job", I don't sell on ebay, I was just using paypal as a way of billing my customers. I bill my customers in arrears; the service has already been completed. So I'm already in arrears before paypal even start their 2-week-to-a-month holdback routine. ... View more

@kernowlass I haven't agreed to a blanket hold in the user agreement.   I've agreed that holds can occur in some instances when it's appropriate.   Paypal is putting unreasonable holds on new accounts purely in order to earn interest and not for security reasons.   "And yes if you provide a service you often have to wait up to 21 days as you can't prove delivery with a tracking number." I provide a service that's billed in arrears; I've flagged it as "shipped" on my account, if the service hadn't already been rendered, then the customer wouldn't have been invoiced.   Paypal KNOW that the service has been completed, they KNOW that the clients have been with me for years on another account, they KNOW there's zero chance of a chargeback, but they still hold the cash back.   It's got nothing to do with security or chargebacks; it's 100% designed purely for paypal to get as much interest as possible.   And, yes paypal are not the only processors out there, and I DO use other processors now where appropriate because I've now learned what a bunch of crooks paypal are, but "well, you can use other services" is not a valid defence for a company stealing all your money for a month. ... View more

Paypal don't just do this for ebay transactions, they also do it even when you're simply using paypal as a form of payment from your existing customers (ie when they're simply acting as a bank/payment-processor).   Want to know the really nasty part?....   Even after the 2/3 weeks has gone by and they've made your money "available for withdrawal", when you try to withdraw it, they then put you on a 3-day "withdrawal hold" as well (even when your bank account has already gone through the full paypal confirmation processes).   If you're in the UK, contact these people and make a complaint against paypal: http://www.fca.org.uk/ http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/ ... View more

4 days? you're lucky; paypal held onto my money for 2 weeks for a service that I'd already rendered (nothing to do with ebay; I was just using paypal as a form of payment)   Even after that 2 weeks was up and paypal approved the transaction (ie after it became "available for withdrawal"), paypal then held onto my money for ANOTHER 3 days (maybe more; not sure, they still haven't sent the withdrwal to my bank account) while they put my withdrawal to my bank account on a "withdrawal" hold as well (even though my bank account had already gone through the confirmation process by paypal).   Paypal will, of course, cite security and fraud checks and potential chargeback protection as the reasons, but that's not true, because even when you provide all evidence that the product/service has been completed, that there's zero chance of a chargeback, and the transactions were all genuine, they'll still hold onto the money.   It's like going to your local bank, asking the teller if you can withdraw £100 of your own money from your own account, you provide the teller with your driving license and signature/pin etc, they say:   "Yes, you do have those funds available, it is your money, and I confirm that you are the account owner."   The teller then takes £100 out of the bank's cash drawer, logs into the system and flags the £100 as being taken out of your account, and says:   "I've now taken this £100 out of your account, so it's no longer in your account."   The teller then waves your £100 in your face, laughs at you, and says:   "I'm going to put your £100 in our bank's reserves to earn interest for a few weeks. Come back next month and if you're lucky then maybe I'll give it to you."   If you're in the UK, contact these people and make a complaint against paypal: http://www.fca.org.uk/ http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/ ... View more