So week 2 of being on my own again as a Sole Proprietor is almost over. The redness in my eyes and rocker head dozing are just two signs that I’ve worked my butt off to make it through. We’ve nearly doubled our sales force, my National Sales Manager is blasting off proposals to transitioning clients, my Regional Sales Manager is hanging in there waiting for our merchant accounts to get squared away, and my wonderful wife is behind me at the other desk responding to emails and filing receipts.
After the fiasco I experienced with Paypal this past week, it’s a wonder I even had time to breathe. Don’t cha’ just love Paypal? So here’s the deal with these *&&(*^%$: Two weeks ago I setup a new business account with Paypal with Virtual Terminal and all the bells and whistles. I hooked it up to my 1ShoppingCart.com account and we were rockin’. Hundreds of dollars of new sales starting pouring in and then it hit us, a total freeze was put on our account because apparently I had an outstanding balance on an old account from 3 years ago.
I immediately called Paypal, paid the $250 balance and said “release us dammit!” But did they? Nope. Instead they put a 1-3 BUSINESS DAYS hold on the account until the $250 cleared. Then we noticed something else on the account. There was a 30% Reserve for the next 90 days, WTF!?
Needless to say, I killed nearly TWO DAYS seeking out someone who’d be willing to buy the reserve with interest and finally found someone who did on Monday, just after Paypal confirmed the release of the freeze. So I get back to my desk after killing a day running around town for funding, get behind my computer relieved that we’d be back in business and I get an email from Paypal stating they closed my account for unusual activity.
So back on the phone I went, bitchin’, screamin’ and demanding a manager. Well, my Verizon phone was turned off when they were trying to contact me earlier in the day to inform me that they couldn’t reach some of the people who had purchased a product through our Virtual Terminal. The phone was turned off because I owed some $600 that should have been paid by the business a week prior – guess why it wasn’t? Yep, our funds were held up in Paypal.
Catch 22? I think not. Paypal knows how to kill a day (and quite possibly a business)? You’re getting warmer.
So today we opened a new business account with a popular bank, who promises to call me tomorrow to get the merchant account taken care of so I’ll never have to think about Paypal again. Now the fun part, I get to refund all the clients who bought through Paypal and ask them to allow us to use a different payment gateway (oh what fun). The alternative, according to Paypal, is to wait 180 days (6 months) – yah right.
Want to know how to kill a day with Paypal? Open a business account.