Paypal to Hold Funds

[prescott9376]

Had a few payments last night via Paypal, Only about £25, this morning I purchased some postage via Paypal but then found my Paypal balance hadn't reduced & all the payments had been paid through my bank.

The money in my Paypal account was all placed on hold and cant be withdrawn or used for purchases until it goes over £100. I haven't done anything wrong or misused the account, there is a steady flow of cash in & out and have had it for about 20 years.

Apparently this is in case I have to refund any of the sales. So what it boils down to is effectively I now have to pay Paypal £100 to use the site, Which I may get back if I close my account but even then I would have to wait 90 Days.

I have a micro payment account on Paypal, fees are only 5p & 5% a lot lower than the Ebid option and is the Ebid payment method of pay used widely enough to ditch the paypal?

[Policequilts]

I haven't had this happen to me . . . yet.
I am waiting with slow sales and not using Paypal on a regular basis that this may happen to me.

I saw this on the Paypal community help area
Why is my payment on hold or unavailable
https://www.paypal.com/us/smarthelp/...ilable-faq1987

How can I release my payment(s) on hold?
https://www.paypal.com/us/smarthelp/...n-hold-faq3743

[prescott9376]

Thanks for those links. It seems they are going to review on a 90 day basis, but £100 seems to be the minimum. So you can only withdraw cash with a minimum of £50 without charge, that means £150 has to be in the account before you can withdraw £50

[prescott9376]

Just had this in a Paypal Email.

As part of our ongoing effort to make PayPal an even safer place for you and your customers to do business, we're holding a percentage of the total payments you receive each day as a reserve in your account. This reserve helps make sure that you have money in your PayPal balance to cover any payment reversals or chargebacks. We're going to start holding 100.00% of your daily sales until you reach a minimum reserve of 102.71 USD.

[theElench]

May I ask, are you registered with PP as a Private or Merchant account?

Not long ago we had PP announcing in their usual "clear as mud" fashion that anyone using a Private account "primarily" to receive sales proceeds would be required to up-grade to a Merchant account.

Now this seems to be saying that from whenever it is introduced, any sales proceeds will be put on Hold until they reach £150. That implies that PP is telling a good many private sellers and even micro-businesses to get lost, as effectively they won't see their money for months or even years, with the only way to have the money released being to close the account.

If this applies to only Merchant Accounts it might explain PPs decision to make anyone selling almost anything at all become a Merchant and subject to the hold. If it applies to all Private Accounts that receive sales proceeds, doesn't it make it even clearer that PP doesn't really want any private account holders selling anything and is making doing so as un-attractive as possible?

I edited to add that I have a Private Account with PP and so far haven't had any e-mails about holding on to funds.

[tony41]

At the moment, we seem to have one member who has been told that payments will be held or partially held against possible default. No one else has reported the same message yet. We know that Prescott has a micro-payments account but we do not know if it is a private or a merchant account or if it is his only account. Until we have more details of others affected or of the circumstances of the one member who has been affected we cannot draw any useful conclusions.

[theElench]

I can add that the thread on the other site now has four replies (including the OP) saying they have had similar e-mails from PP. A couple of details gleaned from these other replies.

One says they are on micro-payments, the other says they are not. One has been set a reserve of $100, another's reserve is $1000.

One quotes the PP email they received saying (roughly) that PP would be holding 100% of sales proceeds until the reserve was met.

Being realistic, PP has never clarified why it cannot get PSD2 to work reliably with any method other than a mobile phone.
Nor has it clarified in any way the announcement that anyone with a private account, "primarily" used to process sales payments would be required to up-grade to a merchant account

I don't expect any clarification of this latest either.

All I know is that PP has been making my life difficult and looks like it might be going to make it more-so.