Paypal and Withdrawing Funds

Blarghy

So, I've had a Paypal account for the purposes of buying things online for many years now. The account is and has only ever been linked to my credit card, but I don't use it all that often (mostly for the odd bioware DLC nowadays). In the past the only funds that the account has received have been tiny amounts that I could just keep on the account until I spent it on something.

However, one of the companies that I've been doing work for online has decided to switch all their payments from paper to Paypal. The sums involved are large enough that I would like to transfer them to my bank account. However, I've heard many horror stories of Paypal taking funds from accounts unbidden. I don't sell things on ebay or anything though, and don't plan to, so I may be safer there.

I live in Canada, so Paypal debit cards and the like are not available to me, so I guess what I'm asking is whether it is relatively safe to associate my chequing account with Paypal, especially if I'm not an ebay seller?

bowen

Go to a bank unrelated to the bank you currently own a checking account in, perhaps a credit union that doesn't care you only carry a $5 balance in a savings account. Open a checking account with it. Use that account to link to your ebay account.

Transfer the funds from your ebay account to the bank account, paying the premium on the transfer, and then go down to the bank, and take the money out from the teller (leaving that $5 in the savings account forever), then go over to your local bank, and deposit the money in it.

Edit: Ebay is not really privvy to the regulations on banks and stuff because they're essentially a wire transfer service, so they can get away with all sorts of nasty bullshit like locking your ebay account, locking your actual bank account, or so on. Even if you didn't do anything, for any reason whatsoever. Is this actually going to ever happen to you? Probably not. Though there is nothing wrong with putting caution to the wind and doing this.

GnomeTank

Most banks you can do electronic transfers between banks, provided you have all the account numbers...so you should just be able to walk in to the bank and say "transfer these funds in my account to this other account". It usually takes 24'ish hours, but it's easier than having to do the bank-around-town routine. Some banks will even let you do b2b transfers online (mine does not, only between my own accounts).

As a side note, I don't link anything to my primary bank account, for this reason. Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada. I keep a separate checking account for that kind of stuff. It's at my current bank, because really EBay and PayPal have no power to do a true hold on your account, only the IRS and state tax governments can do that (usually, some courts can order it for other egregious debts). They can certainly withdraw funds from a bank account you've attached to their service, but they can't "jump accounts" if you will, even within the same bank.

bowen

Yeah I was being overly cautious.