If you place an order with a merchant who accepts PayPal outside of eBay, and the merchant does not immediately accept your payment, the payment can hang in "limbo" for up to 30 days while the merchant decides whether to accept your payment or not. I was totally unaware merchants had the ability to accept, place payments on hold or reject payments at will. Another screwing for the consumer I suppose!
As ridiculous as this sounds, take the case of a consumer who orders an in stock jacket from an on-line store who operates a chain of multiple stores. He pays with his PayPal balance (cash in his PayPal account) and notes the amount on PayPal is shown as an "Authorization" rather than a payment and "Pending". Using the "Live Chat" feature on the web site after a few days, he finds out that although the item is purported to be in stock, the store that does the selling can't find the item as it's supposedly at one of their other stores and they apparently are not sure which one. (incidentally, calling their toll free number is useless since they do not answer and do not return calls either)
PayPal now states the standard operating practice for some merchants is to not accept the PayPal amount until the item is actually found and shipped, no matter how long that takes, up to 30 days. And during that time, no matter how much you need your order, you can't cancel or get your money back, because the merchant has you by the ass until they decide to release the money or ship the item. Which could take several weeks after the 30 days if they drag it to the end. And all this time, PayPal has taken the money out of your account so you can't use it and is holding it for that merchant who isn't doing you a bit of good either.
Imagine a $500 or $1000 order or a Christmas or Birthday present being handled like this? Or an item that will be out of season before you get it. (I think this could happen to me...it will be 90 here this week!)
The caveat is DO NOT PAY MERCHANTS WITH PAYPAL unless you are using eBay where you have buyer protection and there is a stipulated shipping time on the sale. If you must use PayPal, only use your credit card for payment so you can refute the charge. DO NOT USE YOUR PAYPAL BALANCE! In fact, just bypass PayPal completely and go right to the merchant with the credit card. In that way if they don't ship in a timely fashion, you can refute the charge immediately with your credit card company. The PayPal buyer protection is useless in this sort of case if you use your PayPal balance and can't refute the charge on your credit card.
UPDATE: The merchant found the item and was so nice as to ship it second day air at no extra charge due to the extended wait time. They had been in inventory so the phones were not being monitored properly and the merchandise was not easily found. That had to check all 40 plus store locations and it ended up being at the last store (isn't that the usual luck?) and then it took three days to get it shipped out. Facts are had I not sent e-mails and called and left messages, I feel this might still remain unresolved.
The caveat still holds. Use PayPal with your credit card unless you are using your balance on eBay.It's your money...you decide who gets to hold it, not PayPal!
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