"Pay Pal spending limit" Topic

Has anyone else received a notice after using Pay Pal that they are near their initial spending limit? The notice goes on to say that you can remove this limit by either giving Pay Pal access to your Bank account or to apply for a Pay Pal credit card. This is rubbing me the wrong way. Access to my banking accounts seems risky and I don't really want or need another credit card.

For the bank account, they want to make two small deposits. Does it follow that if you can deposit to an account then you could withdrawl from an account?

For the credit card – I guess you could argue that it is their business and that businees is based on having reliable users and using their credit card give a certain gurantee of that reliability.

What do others think?

This has Phishing all over it.

How did you get the message – was it email, or can you trust it?

Log into Paypal – DON'T follow links on an email – use a URL you know is definately paypal I believe it is Paypal.com, and use the Help or Contact functions.

What do you mean access? I have it linked to my current account, and it takes money straight out when I make a purchase- How have you been transferring money up to now? If the bank transaction is declined it takes it straight off my debit card. Although the source of the money is the same, debit cards are Visa, so there is a guarenteed amount for the retailer.

I have never gotten anything like this either. Last Hussar is right, there is something very fishy here. I would do what Last Hussar advises and see what´s what.

Last Hussar,

My Pay Pal account was paid from another Credit Card. My Pay Pal balance is always paid by this card and my Pay Pal balance is zero at the end of the month.

Contact PayPal directly, ask them. This smells phishy.

I'd certainly not click any links in an email purporting to be from Paypal, *but* it's almost certainly genuine – their costs from credit card transactions are much higher than bank transfers, so a policy to shift people from one to the other if they're regular users would make sense. This link's the Paypal UK page on it – I'd assume the US site has something similar:

link

What they are asking is how I am set up with them and did that process years ago. I've had no trouble. They make a small deposit into your bank account (in my case £1.00 GBP) to confirm that it exists then you set up where they take money from to pay for your PayPal transactions.

As said earlier log on to PayPal to do it rather than follow a link other than that as safe as PayPal is.

x42

It is a legitimate albeit somewhat scarey inquiry.

I called and spoke with a rep. I explained that if I
did what they asked, then they could at any time withdraw
any amount from the linked acount, under US commercial
law.

He said they'd never do that – although he agreed they
*could*, lawfully.

So I don't do business with Paypal anymore, save as a
'guest.'

This is standard Paypal policy, probably not phishing. It's one reason I dislike Paypal. Not the only one.

Paypal can be very dangerous to your financial security. If some crook hacks his way into your Paypal account, he can clean out your linked checking account. Then the helpful folks in Paypal support will explain that the hacking is your own fault for failing to secure your account password. Ask me how I know this. I did eventually get the money back, after considerable trouble. Thank goodness the barstools didn't tie up my rent and bill money.

One way to limit your risk is to set up a new checking account, seperate from your main personal account (at a different bank!), link that to your Paypal account, and only keep a small balance in it, enough to cover your Paypal activity. Then the most a thief can grab is the balance in that account, and you'll still be able to pay your bills while the problem is resolved.

Stay safe out there.

I think it's genuine when I first started using paypal they did the same thing to me. They have my bank details (though I wanted to be able to move money I made on ebay to my bank account so it's slighlty different) and I've never had a problem. I probably have 3-4 paypal payments come out of my account every month.

PayPal does do this (whether the e-mail is really from them is another story). If you link just a credit card to your account, you are considered not verified and have a spending limit (per month or per year, I forget which).

If you link a bank account, they make two small transactions to confirm that it does exist (less than a dollar). This is how they verify you without having to do the heavy work. The idea is that the bank has already verified your identity (as required by law, I believe). If you give them access to a verified bank account, then your identity is verified for them, too.

Linking to a bank account also lets you transfer money out of your PayPal account, as Prince Rupert of the Rhine says. Then you can take it out of that bank account to use normally or just to keep it away from PayPal's grasp.

Yes, they can take money out of the account. This is what happens a lot to sellers when a buyer makes a complaint (valid or not). PayPal errs on the buyer's side and grabs the money until the dispute is resolved. So yes, they would do that. I get around that by using an isolated checking account, not linked to any other account, and keeping a minimum amount in it. I think I have something like $0.37 USD in it currently.

All,

Thanks for feed back. I will proceed with caution.

Mark S.