My Love Hate Relationship With Paypal
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The Annoyance That Is Paypal
I’ve been using Paypal for 10+ years now and I can’t say I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. They have ridiculous rules, they charge outrageous fees, and their customer service is atrocious.
Let me explain…
They’ve imposed limits on my account, my wife’s account, and my work account multiple times for absolutely no reason. For example, when I registered my account with a Paypal Here reader they decided it would be a good idea to hold 20% of all my money for 60 days. Their reasoning for this was to ensure the buyer was satisfied with their purchases. Okay, that’s somewhat understandable. But, the fact is I’ve had my Paypal account open for 5 years with no problems. Why do they need to impose such a limit? The most annoying part about it was, they held 20% of all the money that came into my account. So when my friends, wife, family members, ect. send me money via Paypal as a gift or reimbursement, 20% was held. Also, 60 days? Most stores DO NOT have 60 day return policies.
The fees are just as bad as having your own money held. They charge 2.9% + $0.30 when you send money with a credit card, or you sell something on eBay. Since eBay already charges an outrageous fee of 8%-15% and Paypal is owned by eBay, it’s ridiculous that Paypal charges an extra fee on top of that. But wait, their customer service is bad also!
When I had that 20% of my money held, I called Paypal to see why money being sent to me was held. I was on hold for about 5 minutes, before someone answered. When they did they did their polite talking and removed the 20% hold, so they said. I went back to my account, saw it was still held and called back. Yay, another 5-10 minute wait! Apparently, 6:00PM is their busy hour. Who knew? Again, they told me they removed the hold. This time I checked Paypal, while the CSR was still on the line. Again, the hold was still there. I found out that both times the customer service reps “removed the hold” they only released one fund that was held (I had quite a few being held). So, they went through this big process of contacting technical support, removing the hold, blah blah blah. It was a long process, but eventually got fixed so that’s something.
This rant may come off as very negative, which it sort of is, but hold the phones – Paypal is still a great resource!
Reasons I Love Paypal
- Paypal Cash – Paypal Cash is great! I commonly buy it every month at Family Fare with my American Express Blue Cash Preferred and earn 6% cash back on my purchase. I then load it to my Paypal and liquidate it by loading Serve, or by sending money to my wife.
- Paypal Business Debit Card – If you have a Paypal account, I highly suggest upgrading to their business account. It’s completely free, you don’t need to have an actual business, and you get a 1% cash back debit card. As I mentioned above, I load my Paypal account with Paypal Cash and liquidate it by loading Serve or Bluebird with my Paypal debit card. That way I get 6% cash back when I buy Paypal Cash and 1% cash back liquidating it.
- eBay Integration/Purchases – There’s no denying that eBay makes it very easy to buy and sell with Paypal. In fact, they make it impossible to buy and sell without one. This could be negative or positive, but I like to think of it as a positive. Here’s why. When you make purchases through Paypal on eBay or any other site that accepts Paypal, you have an extra layer of protection if the purchases awry. If you make a purchase through Paypal using a credit card, your doubly protected.
- Paypal Here – I’ve mentioned a lot of Paypal Here deals, because they pop up all the time. If you have a Paypal account and you haven’t bought any Paypal Here readers, what’s the hold-up? There’s no reason not to, since you earn credit card rewards, a little cash back, and the cash back is instantaneous. Paypal Here is also good if you have rebate cards you want to swipe through and don’t mind losing 2.7%.
My Thoughts
Paypal is a necessary evil. If you do a lot of manufactured spending, sell on eBay, or want an extra layer of protection on your purchases, Paypal is a must. However, all good things come with a cost and Paypal has plenty of less-than-satisfactory rules, and regulations that you need to be aware of when using it.
