Paypal has various security procedures to verify accounts; as the account gets more verified, they’ll allow you more opportunities to use your Paypal account.
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Link a Credit Card
The basic first step most people take when opening a Paypal account is to add a credit or debit card to the account. This will immediately make the billing address of the card a ‘confirmed Paypal address’.
Application: If you order something with a Paypal payment and have it shipped to a different address which isn’t confirmed by a credit/debit card, it can sometimes get flagged, depending on the amount of the purchase and other factors.
Verify your Paypal Account
To upgrade your Paypal account to ‘Verified’ status, you need to confirm your bank account or your credit/debit card.
Confirm Bank
Paypal actively encourages you to link a checking account to your Paypal account. Once you link and confirm a checking account, the PayPal account is called ‘Verified’.
The verification process is done by Paypal making two small deposits into your checking account and having you confirm the amounts. For larger banks, you’ll also be able to verify instantly by giving Paypal your login info.
Confirm Card
Another way of becoming verified is to confirm your credit/debit card. The way it works is that Paypal makes a small $1.95 charge on the card; alongside the charge details, there’s a number that comes up.
Find the number confirm the card in your Paypal account. (Paypal then deposits the $1.95 into your Paypal account so you don’t lose any money in the process.)
Applications
Note: Paypal used to only allow confirmation via the bank account method, I believe. They now allow either by bank or by card, as noted. That said, it may be that for some things they still require the bank verification and not the card verification.
Application: Until you are verified, you won’t be able to make any purchases from Paypal Digital Gifts.
Application: Paypal initially limits accounts to withdrawals of just $500 or possibly $1000 per month. In order to be able to withdraw unlimited amounts you need to do two of the following three things:
- Confirm bank account
- Confirm credit/debit card
- Give in last 4-digits of SSN
After going through the verification, I found that my limit was removed completely, but a friend tells me that they’re limit just went up to $1,000.
DOB/Social Security Number
Paypal will also occasionally prompt you to give in your DOB or the last 4-digits of your social security number.
Application: In order to add cash to your Paypal account with Paypal MyCash cards, you need to give in your DOB and the last 4-digits of your SSN.
Application: In order to apply a credit card, debit card, or BillMeLater line of credit from Paypal, you’ll have to give in your DOB and social security number. More on Paypal financial products below.
Application: While you don’t need to give in your DOB/SSN when opening a Paypal personal account, it is required when opening a Paypal business account. (Paypal allows each person to have one personal account and one business account.)
Disadvantages of Linking a Checking Account
There are disadvantages of linking a checking account to your Paypal account.
- On many accounts, Paypal force-defaults you to the checking account and you have to manually override this on each purchase. This leads to a situation where you may inadvertently pay with your checking account in place of your choice payment of a credit card.
- There are a few (very few) merchants who accept Paypal but don’t have their system set up to be able to enable switching the payment method; you’re forced into your default payment method. (Giftcardzen.com is the only example I know of off hand.) If your Paypal account doesn’t allow you to make the credit card as the default payment type, the only choice will be to pay with your checking account.
If you don’t add your checking account, these issues are mitigated since your default payment will be the credit card. Also, if your Paypal account allows you to make a credit card as your default payment method (this varies by the Paypal account) then these issues won’t apply to you.
Paypal Financial Products
Paypal offers various financial products:
- Paypal BillMeLater line of credit
- Paypal Business Mastercard debit card
- eBay Mastercard credit card (currently unavailable, apparently)
- Paypal Extras Mastercard credit card
- Paypal Prepaid account.
Here are some things to keep in mind:
- You can have a Paypal Business Mastercard attached to your personal Paypal account so long as you have received $500 in payments within the past 12 months. You can even have two Paypal Business debit cards – one on your personal account and one on your business account.
- You can technically have a Paypal/eBay credit card on each of your Paypal accounts. Paypal allows this completely, but the bank backing the credit card – Synchrony – doesn’t usually approve you for two eBay/Paypal credit products.
- Each Paypal account can have one debit card and one credit card/line attached to it, not more.
- The eBay/Paypal credit card is managed completely through the Paypal login, not on a separate website.
- The Paypal and eBay credit cards are the exact same product, the only difference being that the eBay version gets a $30 signup bonus and the Paypal version does not.
Other eBay/Paypal Posts
