Forum

Using REFUNDS as a tool to overcome a limited PayPal account - PP Refund
 

My Paypal account was limited with about $1600.00 stuck in it for 180 days. Can I refund this amount to one of my trusted customers eventhough it exceeds the original amount paid??

I will refund this in an effort to get it deposited into one of my other Paypal Accounts by this buyer.

hi- from what you are saying- i have tried before, you cannot straight out refund larger than orig recd from paypal, unless you do a send money, then that high amt would be questioned, sometimes on a limited, a day or so later, they will recap for you- i got one in july that said. although we are parting company,,,blah blah... you now have the ability to withdraw funds. also, i believe refunds are only there for 60 days , then the radio button disappears..someone correct me if i am giving incorrect advice. Thanks!

Larger Paypal refund
 

Yes....the refund option is only there for 60 days. Sounds like I may have to wait the entire 180 days out without my money. Thanx for the speedy reply.

Can you refund a few of your buyers and ask them to pay you with a different form of payment?

I've had to do that before and it worked - but I was very lucky and could trust my buyers as most of them were repeat buyers.

Good luck!

Using REFUNDS as a tool to overcome a limited PayPal account
 

For those still using paypal don't get caught with your pants down.

Yes I heard a good comment on this site about protecting your money from the Paypal demon--like make sure your transfer of funds is completed before you send out your product.
But for those of us here who get limited and have no way out consider not refunding your customers but instead refund yourself.
The concept is straight forward -- what you are doing is making money requests to yourself which you pay, then immediately transfer to your account.
Now the only loss to you so far is the paypal fee incurred but you will get this back when you refund yourself.
Now someone here suggested that when limited you straightway refund all your customers sending your account into negative territory.
If possible, which I think it is, this seems to be a major flaw in the Paypal system--but only because their intention is to cheat people.

Regardless, the concept here is to always maintain a cushion of say $2000
per month which is your fee to Paypal in case you go down.
If you go down they will be hit with a fee of your chosing--as much as you can refund yourself.
Now this is just a concept and has not been verified by myself or approved by this site but what you would need is a reloadable card that you can either refund to or do a reversal of funds on, possibly the reloadable visa debit card such as the one recommended on this site by Chris Hanson?

Prepaid MasterCard & Checking Account | 100% Approval | No Credit or ChexSystems Check | Free Online Bill Pay.

Make sure your paypal accounts don't get linked and if paypal won't let you refund, you can file a dispute.

You know.............

Actually someone could even use that technique to make money on paypal.

# Send a bunch of money to yourself. Pay using credit card.
# Sell stuff on ebay for a small fraction of the money you sent to yourself. Make sure you make them all use a confirmed address and tell them to use a credit card behind paypal for their safety blah blah.
# Withdraw the funds you sent to yourself equal to what the other people gave you.
# Wait for those funds to clear.
# Refund yourself. Money will go back onto your credit card and not to the paypal account.
# Close your associated bank account.
# Customers will later file disputes with paypal and then paypal won't refund them so they will hate paypal and trust it less. Then, if they paid with credit card and not bank account or paypal funds, then their money comes back and paypal loses money.


The only problem is this would have to be small amounts and you'd have to keep opening bank accounts which might cause problems after a while.

I have 20+ bank accounts at a single bank, not to mention all the others. Never caused me a problem. My bank manager knows about PayPal and just asks me "they closed another one?" when I walk in. :D

i can open a bank account through my online banking in 2 clicks lol. so opening new bank accounts is no prob.
one thing is i dont really get this technique..

lets say you have :
Account1 and Account2

Send 500$ from Account2 to Account1

Withdraw the money from Account1 to bank

Accept payments into Account1

Account1 Gets limited.

Cancel Account1 Bank Account
Refund EVERYONE + the 500$ From Account1 and just leave it all be..

so at the end you have 500$ in Account1 BANK, and the 500$ BACK into Account2's BANK/CC

wow wait lol i just got it. that's 500$ for free!! hahaha omg... wow....jesus..

Whoa...has anyone tried this???

That would be embarressing to me. I'd also feel I'd get thought of as a fraudster. I know I would get real redfaced if asked about this.

I'd much prefer to do some kind of online banking. Some online banks charge you $7 or $15 to close an account (I think netbank does), but if I can just open and close accounts online, it should be easy. Plus less paperwork.

I still would think if a bank sees someone opening lots of bank accounts getting money real fast, then closing them over and over, that they'd suspect the person was doing something fraudulent. Plus it would be a pain to explain this when doing your taxes, listing all these bank accounts, with all this paypal stuff going into them. IRS getting suspicious of money laundering or criminal activity.

Plus as for paying yourself, I think there's only one way to do it. Bank of America credit cards have something called Safe-something. Where you make virtual credit cards that link from your main credit card. They have the same AVS though but as for buyer accounts it should be fine. Just give if you like at 300 Clinton St, zip 90210 Then say you live at 300 Reagon St., zip 90210. This wouldn't work on the same seller account since the same zip and first numbers would get a link but ebay and paypal I don't believe are so picky on buyers. Plus you can use the buyer account again another time on your next paypal account.

If paypal freezes your account and you think it's for good, then clearly your ebay account is useless since paypal and ebay link. So you should try to refund yourself until your paypal balance goes to 0. Then don't ship anything and don't answer emails or log onto your ebay or paypal account again.

The only thing is if your paypal account doesn't get limited for a while, I am not sure how far back you can refund yourself. You certainly can't file a dispute after a while--I think 45 days. So you have to either keep sending yourself money and not only get your accounts possibly linked, but lose money in paypal fees. Or you can refund yourself later, but then send it again and possibly get both accounts frozen for acting weird.

There's another CC company that allows u to create virtual CC #'s through your main card. And the great thing is u can create a value on the card. You can also change the address on your CC account immediately by logging into your CC account online.

For example, I have a CC with a $3000 limit. I can create a virtual CC with a $200 max usage on it. Change my address on my CC to the ⊗⊗⊗⊗ address I have on ebay...then add the virtual card with a max amount on it to paypal and confirm the ⊗⊗⊗⊗ address. Then send the $200 from account 2 onto account 1. Then proceed to withdraw and file chargeback.

Also, I want to add that account 2 would have to be a ⊗⊗⊗⊗ account. It's probably even best to make sure that both accounts are ⊗⊗⊗⊗ accounts so that Paypal doesn't put the negative balance on your real name.

Oh man can each virtual CC off the main account have its own different AVS rather than changing AVS for the entire card all at once?

What CC company does this?

YES it can! I've pm'ed u the company

Also I want to add that instead of buying gift cards like many ppl on this forum, I just use the virtual CC from my credit card company to make new ebay/paypal accounts.

Same here. My bank in Japan allows me to create virtual cards, I just request one and its in my inbox 12 hours later.

..................

Need expert advice on issuing refunds
 

Hey,

My account got limited yesterday and I have around 400$ I would like to claim. I did the big mistake of doing refunds from my paypal (which sent money from MY BANK account to the buyers) so now I sent them my money, and the items' money is still in paypal.

What am I suppose to do, how do I get this money???

Please help me

your situation does not sound good. all you can do now is submit all of the info paypal is requiring. if you cannot do that they will end ties with you and hold your money for 180 days. hopefully you have submitted an address that is legit, because if you did not then after the 180 days the check will be sent to your ⊗⊗⊗⊗ address, and you will never see the money.

So when you did the refunds your saying PP didn't take them from the $400 they took them from your bank account?

Hmm, someone posted that they were able to send refunds on a limited account, but you're saying that it was direct from your bank account? That's pretty harsh.

Would filing a chargeback work on this?

Yeah it was me and they took from my Paypal balance...

yes, i have never had refunds taken from my checking when i had a balance in my paypal even when i was limited.

Taking from paypal balance is a heck of a lot different from taking from bank account. This has to be clarified quickly: much potential for problems.
Heck, I allow only the bank manager and me to touch my money.

atmxl....please advise us as soon as possible.

guys, they took the money form my bank account, not my paypal balance...So I am basically screwed here because I can't even file refunds from my paypal balance to the users who I have already refunded... I have no idea what to do.

I refunded 2 guys so far (money from my bank account it turns out) but they will return those funds...(they I mean my 2 customers)

Please give me advice lol...

<help>

lol

I haven't heard of Paypal taking a refund out of your bank account..im not sure how to help..be careful about your buyers returning the funds as they might go into Paypal balanceand not your bank..see if they will pay with googlecheckout or something..

fyi there is a thread called paypal try to take funds from bank account dated
1/23/2008. When I re-read it, there is info about what paypal does.
Maybe we should all make sure to keep full control over our monies.... and avoid
paypal.

Fed up...All of this because of a tiny mistake that blew a small problem into a bigger problem. I will let that account die... I created 2 new accounts in the past 2 days and I will use these two and hopefully they will last a good month or two...

Man, don't knock yourself too hard. Make this a lesson and do your best to
keep beating the ebaybeast. The forum is here to help if you need.Good Luck.

Yeah, I learned a few thing from my mistake, Ive learned a lot from my own mistakes in the past on ebay, so eventually I will be almost bulletproof :p

On a good note, on my original account from 2005 which I still have, I became a powerseller this week. As for the 2 refunds from my bank account, the 2 clients will return the funds as soon as they receive them.

:)

Paypal limited my account with 7K in it - I have a plan, but will it get me TROUBLE?
 

After not having used Paypal for months, I finally started accepting it on one of my accounts because Google Checkout is such a hassle and because there have been reports that people who play the Paypal game properly are doing ok without getting limited.

Anyway, about a month ago, I started listing on a 60 day old ebay and paypal account, and started to pull in 1K in sales a day into the account without being limited.

Unfortunately greed got the best of me and I started selling more and more on this account, so I was forced to pull higher and higher withdrawals. Anyway, to play it safe, a couple weeks ago I put a few of my own credit cards on some other virgin paypal accounts, and racked up 5K worth of purchases to protect myself in case I got limited.

Well that time has come, and they're asking for a SSN, and I got 7K in there. I plan on refunding every buyer of that 7k the money they paid, and give them an explanation and request that they pay me via Google Checkout or ship the item back to me postage paid. I guess that maybe a third will cooperate, and the rest will run off. But not refunding them only benefits paypal, whom I HATE right now, since even if they were to send me a check in 180 days it would go to another name in another state.

In addition to refunding the 7K to my buyers, I will also refund the 5K that I funded with my credit cards. So that will put me 5K in the red. I know the first thing Paypal will do is try and pull that money from my linked Wamu savings account, but it's been closed. After that they will send collection letters to some address that doesn't exist. But what will they do after that? Will they go to the authorities and try and track me down through that wamu account number?

I've stiffed paypal before for 300 because a buyer did a bull**** chargeback, and all they did was send out collection notices and that was it. But $5000 is a totally different story. Can I pull it off??

Yea I think it'll work out just fine. Also many people on the board have reported that Paypal will send the check to any address u give them once the 180 days are over.

Also, since its 7k - Thats a high figure so I'm guessing you've pulled out some money and still had 7k in there? I would talk to all your customers and only refund the ones who have assured you they'll cooperate with the googlecheckout plan. Some might assure u and still run off but this way your chances of getting all or most of your money back are much higher. And then play the 180 day waiting game and get your money back.

Personally, if I were u I'd wait it out without refunding anyone and try to get all my money back after the 180 days are over. That is, if Paypal will really mail the check to any address u give them after the 180 days.

I have a ⊗⊗⊗⊗ name on file with Paypal so even if I received the check it wouldn't do me any good.

Regarding refunding myself first, I'll definitely do that, but I plan on refunding the 7K to all my customers because I've learned from experiences past that whenever you try and do stuff like this with buyers they automatically assume you are trying to scam them. If I refund the money FIRST to them, I have a far better shot at getting their cooperation.

My biggest concern is Paypal coming at me criminally if my account is 5k in the red.

Don't worry about the ⊗⊗⊗⊗ name on your Paypal. When you get the check you can just endorse it over to your real name on the back. Your bank will then deposit it into your account. It's very easy.

Also, you're right about customers thinking you're going to scam them. Some of them will think that for sure. Like I said, 7k is a large amount of money. I wouldn't risk taking the chance of hoping customers will pay you. Once they get their money back, very few will go along with your plan. Just wait out the 180 days and get all of your money back by check.

If you're still planning on doing the refund thing anyway, ask them what they think about the plan BEFORE you refund them. Don't refund them first...most will never reply you afterwards. You can't trust strangers.

Don't refund your buyers. Chances are 70% of them won't ever send you back anything. Just wait 6 months and PayPal will allow you to withdraw.

I figure 70% of my buyers won't send me back anything. But keep in mind with the strategy I've laid out, I only need 2K of the 7K to pay me back for me to come out even. I think those are decent odds, as long as I don't get the feds at my door or something.

Couldn''t you just add a new bank account to paypal once the time is up and do a direct transfer? The name on the bank account wouldn't have to match.

There is no way I'm waiting 180 days for this.

I guess my question was, If I am 5K in the red with a paypal account, would there be a criminal investigation or something of that nature?

But I'm guessing nobody has been in a similar situation with an amount that high, so I don't have an answer. Oh well.

There will be a "Paypal investigation" which is mostly the The Collections Agencies letters. Unless you were a fraudlent seller and that 7k is money you stole online your good. Only thing they will do is send a Collection letter to the address registered on paypal.

I wonder how my situation is different from that of a "fraudulent seller" in paypal's eyes. Because from their point of view I'm taking 5K from them and running off.