All posts in paypal

When I went to Kyrgyzstan for my holiday, I took along my VMI Debit Card with me, I put it to a test and withdrew from an ATM that bore the Cirrus logo. And the result? Voila, It worked!

It was nice to be able to withdraw my PayPal funds even when I was on holiday.

However before you proceed and purchase your own VMI Debit Card, there is one thing to consider. You must have heard people talking about their PayPal account being “frozen” or being limited (cannot receive & send money). That talk is true, because my own PayPal account had been limited for this same reason – using VMI Debit Card. But it has been restored back since.

Good news is that VMI Debit Card is still working for withdrawing PayPal funds. After my PayPal account has been restored, I tried to withdraw my PayPal funds and it was successful. So it’s working fine for me at the moment, unless of course PayPal limits my account once again. You can expect anything from the robots of paypal ;)

VMI Debit Card’s other uses

While most of Asian and other non-US countries use VMI Debit Card to withdraw their PayPal funds, for non-PayPal users it’s just a normal debit card with lots of features. So if you do not have PayPal account, or if you do not want to own Credit Card for various reasons you can opt to such debit cards.

Here is the list of benefits you can enjoy while owning VMI Debit Card:

• Accessible globally in over 140 countries at millions of locations.
• All the convenience of a bankcard for persons currently having no banking relationships
• Accepted at gas stations, supermarkets, department stores, restaurants and places of entertainment
• Benefits of not carrying cash with the convenience associated with bank account holders
• Facilitation of instant transfer of funds to another card holder at a much lower cost than that of current options
• Convenience . easy to use and easier to carry than cash
• Immediate anytime access to account information via the Virtual Money® web site or telephone.

Where do I get?

VMI’s official website do not offer any option to buy from their website, you have to buy from their agents instead. I bought from Millie Luong by sending her email. She was nice and very fast in registering and sending the debit card. I have blogged about it here.

Do let me know about your experiences if you have used VMI Debit Card.

Related:

After sending two batches of documents to paypal, finally today my PayPal account has been restored. It’s a good news for me, no it’s a great news. Because it has been restored just before I am about to receive my payments. Unfortunately few payments have already bounced back. But that’s a small matter.

Related:

Reading this site made my hair stand (now I have a short hair, so actually it was already standing ;). Anyway all jokes aside, this is a topic that all paypal accont holders should be aware of.

eBay Sellers
Most of the people that had serious issues with PayPal were eBay sellers. The case is usually like this, seller gets the money, ships the item, then PayPal takes back the money. Seller lefts with no money and no item. PayPal tells the seller that the funds were from fraudulent sources, therefore it was refunded to the bank.

Taking back your money from PayPal can be very long process, it can take months or even years. PayPal’s communication with its customers is very poor. We have noticed that in the recent problem of international users being not able to accept incoming funds.

Frozen Accounts
Another problem was people’s accounts being suddenly frozen by PayPal. In this situation, user cannot withdraw the funds until their account is cleared. This can be a very long process and in some cases your account can be closed indefinitely.

Unauthorized Charges
Some people report that their bank account that were linked to their PayPal account, was charged multiple times. In some cases it totaled up to few hundred dollars.

Vanishing Funds
And yet some users claim that their funds were taken by PayPal, part of their money simply disappeared. I am not sure how true this claim is, but in case if it happens there is no way of proving it that PayPal is stealing from you. Because balance is not shown for each transaction, but only for the total. So you wouldn’t know, where the stealing occurred (after which transaction). The only way to prove is to screen capture your PayPal account after every transaction you make.

Recommendation
All these while, I have never had a problem with PayPal. But being safe won’t hurt you, therefore you need to take basic precautions. Here are some of the recommendations:

• Don’t keep too much money in your PayPal, if your account gets frozen or worse suspended, you might not be able to recover your funds.
• Don’t link your main bank account to PayPal, instead link debit card bank account if possible, or open a separate bank account specifically for PayPal. And keep limited money in this account. This way if it gets charged, you won’t loose much.
• If you want to know if you are not loosing any funds, do a routine screen cap. You can do this after every transaction or once after few transactions.
• Lastly keep your password changed/updated frequently. And do not click on any paypal related links in the emails.

So be alert, and be safe! This was a reminder service from AdesBlog.

If you login to your PayPal you will notice that PayPal has added some User Interface elements to its members area. The new design has lots of white space and looks a lot more cleaner now. New UI elements are tooltips on the links, when you mouseover on them they will show description of the link or function (as shown in the above screenshot). I like this feature.

Recent Problem
For the past 2-3 days, many international users have been having trouble accepting funds in their PayPal. There used to be an option like “Accept funds without adding US bank account”. Now that option is gone! Users either have to accept the funds and add US bank account (many international users do not have US bank accounts) or reject the funds altogether. Since they cannot add US bank account the only option has been to return the money to the original sender.

Connection?
I am not sure if the new interface design had anything to do with this problem. Affected users have been contacting PayPal regarding this, but so far no clear answer has been given. I hope they will solve this problem really soon, otherwise it’s affecting international users very greatly (and PayPal is loosing lots of money too). Have you been affected too? If yes please do comment, let the PayPal hear your voices!

Update: 29 May 2007 – This problem has been solved. Now all can accept funds in their paypal account, without adding a US bank account.

PayPal funds that I withdrew on April 29 have arrived to my VM Debit Card account.

So for those who have asked if this debit card is still functional, “yes, it is”. One day if VM Debit Card follows the footsteps of gCard, I will let you know.

Update: Withdrew successfully!

I am receiving lots of emails regarding the VM Debit Card, which I blogged about it here. People are asking me if I still can withdraw my PayPal funds with this Debit Card. The answer to this question is yes. I still can withdraw my paypal funds with VM Debit Card, just to test it I have withdrawn yesterday and it went well, here is the screenshot from my PayPal account:

As you can see withdrawal went well. When the money is in my VM Debit Card account I will update you guys once again.

Issues with VM Debit Card:
Some people are saying their PayPal account has been frozen after they have used this card, some are saying PayPal is giving them error when try to withdraw to this card. So I am guessing, PayPal actually responds to each individual differently. Because all these while I have been withdrawing my PayPal funds with this Debit Card. And so far so good.

So please take extra caution if your PayPal account is new, and if you are withdrawing your funds for the first time. I think if you had PayPal account for a long time, and if you have a good record with them (no fraudulent transactions before) then you should be fine using this Debit Card. http://www.virtualmoneyinc.com

Note: This debit card should work for anyone in any country worldwide that cannot withdraw PayPal funds in their local banks. However please check with the card issuer or an agent before you order the debit card.

After the discontinuation of a Debit Card provided by gCard, I have been looking for another Debit Card that will enable me to withdraw my PayPal funds at ATMs in Malaysia (and Worldwide). Recently I found Virtual Money Debit Card and decided to give it a try. After ordering the card and activating it I sent a test *amount* to see whether it will go through. And go through it did! I was able to withdraw. [see the screenshot of my first withdrawal below]

Let me write the rest in the form of a tutorial, so that you can follow it and learn Continue reading →

You might be aware that some of PayPal’s international users are still can’t withdraw their funds, they can only withdraw to US bank accounts. Recent introduction of Debit Card by PayPal had made many such users happy, unfortunately their happiness didn’t last long, because this debit card is not for everybody. And even worse it’s not for international users it’s mostly for US users. One of the features of PayPal Debit Card is that you can withdraw cash from your PayPal account at ATMs worldwide. This could be a great solution to the problem that international users are having, for now they have to use third party Debit Cards like VMDB.