My Happy Depop Bubble Popped by Paypal

My intention was to walk through the process to start your Canada Post small business account and the workflow to create labels for your online sales. Please forgive the change in schedule as I have run across a nasty pitfall that I hope others can avoid.

This is not my first business. I used to be the proud owner of a craft supply store. In the early days of my business I bought and sold materials and finished items on ebay. At that time PayPal was part of ebay.  My ebay account is nearly 19 years old and the associated Paypal account is as old as Paypal itself.  Paypal was an easy system for managing payments back then.

Fast forward to 2021. My husband and I were married in a lovely intimate Covid era wedding. When I tried to change my name on my account it created an entire web of system snags , that after 1.5 years have not been resolved.

When we began selling items for Robertson Resale I thought it would just be easier to start a new Paypal account. Depop uses PayPal exclusively for payments. I went through the whole process of verifying my bank account and there were no notifications or outstanding issues. When my Depop sale went through PayPal locked my account for unusual activity. Literally my first transaction. I was given a task list to verify my identity which included uploading various documents. The message said I would receive an email from PayPal 3 business days after I sent the items. No email arrived. I messaged customer service and received no reply. 

The following week when Depop sent through the debit for their fees, Paypal flagged my account again for unusual activity. This is still the initial sale. I had to resubmit all the information again and wait for the mythical email saying my account was cleared. After over a month my account finally showed the $70 balance. I was relieved to finally have access until I tried to transfer it to my bank. The request was denied as it said my account could not accept deposits. The same account they had verified a month earlier. I tried using an etransfer to send the money and it was also denied.

As it stands the money is still sitting in the Paypal account unable to move.

If you are using Paypal for your resale business try not to use a new account if possible, double check that your financial institution is supported (many no longer are), and be prepared for unexpected holds and delays on your money.