Hafa Adai and Tiroow,

If you both buy and sell on eBay then you may have found yourself in a situation which happened recently to me. I had bid in good faith on a few eBay items from several Sellers with all of the auctions ending within the upcoming few days. At the same time a Buyer of an item that I had sold on eBay filed a dispute against me which automatically debited my Paypal Account the amount of the item's purchase price and which consequently froze my Paypal account until the matter was entirely resolved. I was therefore unable to pay for the transactions in which I was a Buyer in a timely way. I pride myself on paying in full within 24 hours of auction's end and could not figure any way to speed up the clearing of the issue so that I could pay.

Here is what I did. I emailed every Seller from whom I had purchased an item and honestly explained the situation with my apology about not paying immediately and my promise to keep them informed.

I kept trying to pay for the eBay items and kept receiving an error message giving me three options to pay off the negative balance in my Paypal Account.

Transfer funds instantly from one of the credit cards that I had linked to my Paypal Account. I did not want to do this because I did not wish to incur the cash advance fee that my credit card would charge.

Transfer funds from one of the checking accounts that I had linked to my Paypal Account. Although this takes 3 to 5 days, I did initiate a transfer large enough to using completely replenish my Paypal Account and to bring the balance back into the black. I let the Sellers know.

Mail a check in to Paypal and have them apply the money to my Paypal Account. I rejected this option simply because it would take too much time what with the possible surface-mail and check-hold delays.

I escalated the dispute from my Buyer to a claim, asking Paypal to actively investigate which I believed would hasten the resolution of the Buyer's issue so that the amount withheld from my Paypal Account would then be fast reversed and put back into my Paypal Account. I let my Sellers know.

I discovered that I could pay one Seller directly from Paypal using Paypal's Send Money feature and the Seller's Paypal email address. As that transation processed I learned that Paypal insisted upon automatically bringing my negative Paypal Account balance up to zero as part of my paying the Seller and my Paypal Account was instantly restored to full use. I let that Seller know that I had paid directly with Paypal and not through eBay.

Within minutes I paid the rest of the Sellers. The delay of my Paypal Account being frozen lasted less than one day.

In addition to this story please take heed of my advice to obtain a Paypal Credit Card . I have written a Guide on this topic because none of this difficulty would have occurred with a Paypal Credit Card.

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Very Respectfully Yours,

Laura

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