Any one affected by Paypal $500 payment limit

[lissie]

According to a freelance site I write for if you receive more than $500 / month into your paypal account you will be forced to upgrade to a business account and therefore have to pay 3-5% of receipts to paypal

I haven't had this problem yet but its a possibility in the future. First off has anyone outside of the US had this problem? My account is NZ based but Australia would probably have the same rules but everyone I have heard with the problem has been US based to date.

Is there anything stopping me starting a new paypal acocunt : different email/differnet bank account / differnet credit card - ie do I have to be careful and hide my IP address too.

[DeMerchant]

BS - I get significantly over $500/mth into my account and have a personal account. I BELIEVE the difference is the ability to accecpt credit cards.

[Tel]

From what I can see there is only a limit if you don't verify your account, although they will start asking questions if you exceed $1,000 in a month on a personal account. I have both a personal and business account in my name by necessity.

[lissie]

Strange - there an awful lot of freelancers complaining about it - and I see no reason to accept credit cards as a freelancer - and if Iwas selling items on ebay I think Id just get a separate paypal acocunt!

[bgmacaw]

I've got a business account that I've had for years.

The $500 limit is kind of a compromise they made a year or so ago to help out occasional eBay sellers while weeding out those who abused the system by taking credit card payments for free. Credit card processing and currency exchanges cost money so they have to charge for it.

[lissie]

This is not about receiving credit card payments: its purely receiving direct deposits for freelance work. I am thinking that if I go the $7 script route I am going to have get a business a/c for that - because of using their "shopping cart" for the pay now button - that's fair enough.

[Gotafish]

I've used a premier/business account since payal was launched and have never ran into any limit barriers for weekly or monthy transactions. the small amount you pay in fees is worth the increased ease for customers to make payments in my opinion.

[Brawnydt]

I have had the problem. A client recently made a payment to my unupgraded account, which is verified and working, and Paypal tried to hit me with a much higher percentage than they charge on an upgraded account. I can't remember exactly but I think it was around 6%. Thankfully I denied payment and no charges were incurred. It's pretty much official, I hate paypal and ebay for how much they price gouge.