PayPal: getting verified

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

I have a PayPal account through which I collect a significant portion of my business income. Every now and then I withdraw accumulated funds from my PayPal account by having them send me a paper check via US mail, which I then manually deposit at my local bank branch. Costs $1.50 (PayPal's fee) and takes a couple of weeks.

 

Would like to receive my money quicker and without a fee, but that requires supplying PayPal with my bank account #. I'm skittish about doing this because unlike with a credit card, my understanding is that you don't have a lot of recourse if money is fraudulently wired out of your checking or savings account. Is this accurate?

 

Basically, I'm wondering: if I supply PP with my checking account #, is it possible for money to be withdrawn from my checking account without my explicit authorization? If someone hijacks my paypal account and empties my checking account on a spending spree, do I have any sort of legal recourse, or am I stuck with whatever resolution procedures PP might offer?

[David]

You are correct, which is why I have a separate account for PayPal. That limits their ability to do damage.

[Boffin]

As I understand it, yes your cheque (sic) account can be emptied. To avoid this, I opened a new account that I linked to my PayPal account that I normally keep empty. I can use online banking to move funds between that account and my main account as needed, but my main account has a "firewall" in place.

 

ANdy

[smiller]

Take a look at this article... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8915217/

 

It would seem that you do have several protections under the law if you report the fraud promptly.

[eddd]

I've had my account verified for a long time. It is very convenient to just do a no cost transfer to my checking from PayPal. If I don't have a PayPal balance when I buy something I'm authorizing them to draft from my checking account which is also very convenient. PayPal seems to be a very secure operation. I don't see verifying with them any different that setting up bank drafts for my insurance, Dish Network, Verizon, XM, and so on.

 

Of course I not a Mojo Mogul!

[JohnBryer]

Why not get one of their debit cards, then just spend the money in your paypal account vs. waiting for a check to arrive?

[russell_bynum]

Take a look at this article... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8915217/

 

It would seem that you do have several protections under the law if you report the fraud promptly.

 

It happened to us once.

 

I had the same password on my eBay and PayPal accounts. (I know...stupid...I know better.)

Someone hacked the eBay account and got my PayPal account as well.

They took somewhere around $500 (I forget exactly how much)

I accidentally discovered it the day after it happened because I logged into PayPal to do something else and there was a fraud alert.

I started the dispute resolution with PayPal, then called the bank and started the process with them.

 

PayPal took care of it and I had my money back in about 2 days.

 

The part that really bugged me, was PayPal made no attempt to contact me to let me know there was a problem. They detected fraud on the account and put a hold on it, which is good, but they never emailed/called me to let me know there might be a problem.

 

Using a dedicated account for online purchases is a good idea.

[RFW]

Would like to receive my money quicker and without a fee, but that requires supplying PayPal with my bank account #.

You are lucky you don't live in Canada. Here, to even simply be able to PAY by Paypal, we MUST give them banking info. Really stupid.

[smiller]

The part that really bugged me, was PayPal made no attempt to contact me to let me know there was a problem. They detected fraud on the account and put a hold on it, which is good, but they never emailed/called me to let me know there might be a problem.

That seems ridiculous... how many milliseconds would it take them to send you an email message? If they don't even do that it makes one wonder if they really even want you to catch the error...

[Godfather]

Mitch, I opened a checking account for pay pal deposits only. I then have the funds transfered to my regular checking account. The bank does not like it, but Oh Well!

[russell_bynum]

The part that really bugged me, was PayPal made no attempt to contact me to let me know there was a problem. They detected fraud on the account and put a hold on it, which is good, but they never emailed/called me to let me know there might be a problem.

That seems ridiculous... how many milliseconds would it take them to send you an email message? If they don't even do that it makes one wonder if they really even want you to catch the error...

 

Yeah, it was really strange. They obviously detected the problem because they immediately froze my account. Most likely, that's an automated process. How hard would it be to have it send an email to the account holder notifying them of the problem?

 

I sent several emails to PayPal after the whole thing was resolved did not even get so much as a form-letter response.

 

(And yes...I checked my spam folder to make sure their message wasn't stuck in there.)

 

It's a great service and generally works well, but the lack of customer service bothered me.

[Twisties]

I've had my account verified for a long time. It is very convenient to just do a no cost transfer to my checking from PayPal. If I don't have a PayPal balance when I buy something I'm authorizing them to draft from my checking account which is also very convenient. PayPal seems to be a very secure operation. I don't see verifying with them any different that setting up bank drafts for my insurance, Dish Network, Verizon, XM, and so on.

 

Of course I not a Mojo Mogul!

 

Which I won't do. We did it once. When we canceled they kept billing for months. No recourse on back payments, no ability to stop even future payments short of closing down our account and opening a new one. Bank's position is that once you give them debit authorization it is all between you and them. You can only revoke through them.

 

The only place that has access to my account is my employer, and that is a condition of employment, e.g. required. I typically keep that balance low for that reason.

 

Jan

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

Which I won't do. We did it once. When we canceled they kept billing for months. No recourse on back payments, no ability to stop even future payments short of closing down our account and opening a new one. Bank's position is that once you give them debit authorization it is all between you and them. You can only revoke through them.

 

The only place that has access to my account is my employer, and that is a condition of employment, e.g. required. I typically keep that balance low for that reason.

 

Jan

 

For exactly the reasons you cite, I've always felt paranoid about giving companies permission/ability to "pull" money from my account; instead, I've always set up automatic payments from my end, "pushing" money to them on a monthly basis.

 

The only outside entity with my bank account #'s is my employer, for direct deposit.

 

Thanks to the folks who have suggested getting a new bank account for PayPal deposits and making a habit of immediately transferring money out of that account and into my main account; I think this is what I will be doing.

[Ken H.]

You are lucky you don't live in Canada. Here, to even simply be able to PAY by Paypal, we MUST give them banking info. Really stupid.

Yeah, but you don't have to give them you main working chequing account. What people advocate is opening a second chequing account with a minimal balance it and link paypal to it.

[RFW]

Yeah, but you don't have to give them you main working chequing account. What people advocate is opening a second chequing account with a minimal balance it and link paypal to it.

Yes, but it just seemed like a lot of hassle for the few times I have had to buy something from Ebay. In the end, I just used by son's paypal account. He set it up before Paypal became paranoid and required access to your account.

[Gregori]

As others here have advocated - the 'firewall' account is how I've done it for years.

PayPal is the ONLY transaction tied to the account, and has a balance of pennies, except when moving funds out of (or rarely into) PayPal.

 

I've also got the PayPal debit card - they give you back a small percentage (1.5% for me) of your purchase, which has the effect of making their fees for accepting money somewhat lower. But I don't ike to let them sit on any significant amount of MY money... SO unless I have an expected expense coming soon, I simply empty the PayPal (and firewall account) and deal with the fees.