Paypal fury - what can I do?

[psophia17]

I hope someone sees this and can help...

As many of you know, I am starting a WAHM business, and things are running very smoothly at the moment. But now Paypal is a wrench in my plan.

I have a funded paypal account because I don't have any credit cards. In Canada, I don't have a Social Insurance Number, so I can't even apply for a CC, but Paypal is funded and I have a bank account tied to it, so all is peachy, right? Well - to make a long story short - no.

I've been waiting for a bank transfer to go into my Paypal account since June 13, it was taken out of my bank June 18, and this pretty large amount of $ won't be appearing in Paypal until June 27 - that's 15 business days, a full three weeks. And after it goes in, I'll be coming close to having moved $2000 in and out of my Paypal account, at which point if I don't give them a credit card # I can't do any more transactions.

What kind of insane system are they running here?

I just got off the phone with them, since they never responded to any of my emails, and I'm so ticked off. The only help they can give me is to suggest I give them a CC# now - but I don't have one!

Do I have any recourse here? What other system of payment can a WAHM business without any CCs work with?

[pritchettzoo]

Have you posted this in WAHM Well on MDC?

What about using DH's credit card?

Anna
Mama to Gracie (Sept '03)
and a BOY! (coming July '05)

[Wife_and_mommy]

I think my dh was able to get confirmed via a bank account. Try that. I've never been confirmed with them because I don't want to give them bank account info.


Elizabeth

http://www.gynosaur.com/assets/ribbons/ribbon_gold_12m.gif[/img][/url]

Our second morsel due early February 2006!

[psophia17]

I am confirmed - that's why I'm so choked about this - they have my bank account info, but until I am verified with a CC#, my total transaction limit until the end of time is $2000, no matter how much $ is in my funded account...

And to make matters worse, it counts every dollar double - so if someone pays me $25 for something, and I use the same $25 to pay for something, that's $50 worth of transactions...which means I'm really close to

My DH doesn't have credit cards, either - they get us both into trouble, but he's going to have to try and get one so that I can get around this...I've love it if my Mom would put my name on one of her cards, but it's bad enough she gave me start-up money to begin with...I'll never get her off my back if I do that...

This is so frustrating...

[Wife_and_mommy]

Gosh. What a pain. I'm sorry you're having such a hard time with it all. Paypal is great but they sure are a pain most of the time.

How about a Visa debit? Could you use that? Just occurred to me so I don't know if it's an option but I always prefer to pay cash and use the Visa debit when a CC is needed.

Hope you're able to get it figured out soon! :)

Elizabeth

http://www.gynosaur.com/assets/ribbons/ribbon_gold_12m.gif[/img][/url]

Our second morsel due early February 2006!

[psophia17]

I called my banker to ask - they don't do debit cards in Canada like they do in the States - that'd be perfect in this case, but no dice. I'm going to figure this out, one way or the other, if it kills me. The business is not allowed to go defunct before I have a chance to get it running smoothly...

[ColorBlue]

Could you get a bank account in the US with a debit card attached?

Tracy

Grace...my big three year old girl.
Ellie and Maddie...my little eight month old girls.

[psophia17]

Ooh - that's not a bad idea...maybe an online bank account, so I didn't have to deal with going to a branch...hmmmmm....

[Crisyn]

For receiving money, an alternative to Paypal is BidPay. I don't know much about it, except that I have used it to pay for Ebay auctions a few times. They take credit card payments from customers, and send you a money order.
http://www.bidpay.com/
Another option is Internet Banking transfers. If you have Internet Banking, you can receive and send cash transfers to/from anyone else. If you are both with the same bank, you just need their account information, and if not, just an e-mail address will work.
That's a frustrating situation! Too bad Paypal is being so non-helpful!

[kijip]

And I will drive to Bellingham and we can have lunch...tee hee....

Or just do a US on-line bank since you are a US citizen, no?

[psophia17]

I would totally love to, but I can't cross the border with Nathan until we have his citizenship papers from Canada without DH coming with me, and DH doesn't want to risk losing his green card (fat lot of good that did us) until after I have my residency in the bag...

As soon as I get it, though, I'm there :)

[pritchettzoo]

You can have more than one Paypal account too--so you could open a bank account for your business (which you probably should do anyway) and link it to that. Many WAHMs have a funded paypal acct and an acct for credit cards--keeps their fees down. If you start reaching limits in one, move to the other until you can figure this out.

As far as online banks go--we used Netbank for a while with a minimum of headaches. Our friends still use it and love it. You can get a Visa debit card through there. Another reason to have a separate bank account with your debit card too--we do this with ours--we have a bank account for everyday stuff with a small amount of money in it and transfer from our "real" checking account. If the debit card gets stolen, we only have to worry about less than $500 or so. I know the bank will refund the money eventually, but it's just added peace of mind for us. So if you have a debit card for your business (which you could still set up as a "personal" account to avoid fees, etc.) and give the number to Paypal, you won't have to worry about your and DH's main checking account's safety.

Anna
Mama to Gracie (Sept '03)
and a BOY! (coming July '05)