posted on September 18, 2002 04:56:25 PM new
I have had some problems with Paypal in the past but for those of you who still use the service I discovered a way someone could make some "easy" money with the service legally. Here is how it works:
What you need:
A real credit card preferably one with a year end cash back bonus.
A C2IT account or stored value card.
A Paypal debit card with 1.5% cash back bonus.
What you need to do is make sure that any money that you fund Paypal with is funded from the credit card so that if they try to pull a fast one and freeze your account then you can chargeback the balance and give them the finger.
Say you have $1000 credit on your card.
You fund Paypal with the full amount.
You then link your Paypal card to C2IT or a stored value card and use it to load $1000 to the card or account.
You immediately make 1000 * .015 = $15.00
Not much but if you use a credit card to fund Paypal that also gives you a end of year cashback bonus then you could very quickly begin to make some extra cash. Get some friends involved with several accounts and Paypal would be forking over a substantial amount of money as quick as you can click to transfer the money between accounts. I discovered this by accident when using a stored value card (Citicash). If it wasn't for the limits of the Citicash card $1000 load limit every 14 days then it would work perfectly.
C2IT is a little better but limits you to $200.00 a day and it takes several days to transfer money to a credit card or a bank account. The perfect case scenario would involve a stored value card that lets you transfer $10,000 dollars a pop in which you would make $150 a transfer from Paypal. Someone could easily make $1500 a week with only 10 transfers. The only thing is that one might run awry of federal reporting requirements for money transactions $10,000 and over. I would advise against trying this. Even though it is perfectly legal and is in line with Paypal's terms of service it would probably get your account restricted.
posted on September 18, 2002 05:29:29 PM new
Without going very far I see one problem.
You understand the requirements to being PayPal Preferred so you get the 1.5% cashback?
Do you think you can sell one $15.00 item on eBay and just fund your account with $985.00 from your bank account and they'll give you 1.5% cashback on $1,000.00 on a regular basis?
Your idea of funding your PayPal account via your credit card is going over my head. How do you plan on doing that? Make a purchase and have the seller refund the payment? That won't work, the funds will simply go back to the credit card, the funds won't remain as cash in your PayPal account.
There are simplier ways of kiting money with your local banks, but you're guaranteed to get caught in time.
posted on September 18, 2002 05:52:13 PM new
BTW, you're term "perfectly legal" isn't correct. Kiting and obtaining cash advances via your credit card though trickery isn't legal. On one travel message board some folks were sending the max amount each month they could though C2it to a friend to gain air miles on their Citibank cards. The friend would just mail them a check back at the end of the month. They were caught, and it wasn't "perfectly legal."
Since then C2it has changed their setup so credit card payments sent through them don't earn 'bonus points.'
posted on September 19, 2002 05:53:59 AM new
There are very few times that I agree with Uaru and Coonr, but this is one of them. This opens the door for all kinds of problems besides Kiting. You may find yourself involved with bank fraud as well.
posted on September 19, 2002 06:52:16 AM new
i dont see anything illegal with this scheme,but i am not sure if it is monkeymaking or money losing ??
first if you use your credit card to fund your paypal account,i assume your credit card issuer think this is a purchase,not a cash advance and you will get a yearend rebate back?
after 30 days or less,you get a credit card statement showing you owe 1000 dollars and if you do not pay up before the grace period,interest charges will be accrued from the date of purchase.
if you transfer the paypal balance to a c2it or stored value card,how does paypal treat this transaction??
that 1.5% rebate only comes when you use your paypal debit card as a credit card so paypal can earn that discount fee from your purchase and pass on 1 1/2% to you and keep the rest.
so now your 1000 is with c2it or stored value card,now what??
do you send this 1000 back to your credit card issuer so you dont have to pay interest on it??
there is another thread which ask if you can fund your paypal account with your credit card??
i have never tried this,if you have tried it,can you map out the details step by step??
have you completed a cycle of this ingenious scheme and figure if this really make money for you??
i know all these yearend rebate and paypal rebate are just that -REBATE ,they make money earning the discount fee collected from the merchant and pass on a portion to you,if they dont earn that discount fee,what can they pass on??
posted on September 19, 2002 04:20:18 PM new
Maybe I over complicated the description of the whole idea. I discovered it by accident when I funded C2IT with my Paypal debit card and received a cashback bonus. What I meant when I said I had never tried it is that I have never tried to make money at it and never used an actual credit card with a cashback bonus to try to add to my money. I don't blame anyone for trying to take advantage and awards type program to come out ahead. It is no different than accruing interest through other means plus Paypal and Mastercard should be gaining something from all the money traffic or else they wouldn't be offerring cash back in the first place.
If they aren't then shame on them for they make the rules. I have used Western Union to send myself money when I made a stupid mistake transferring money to a stored value card and forgot the credit limit was $100 a day. It cost me $30.00 to send myself the money so I won't be doing that again. Most people just don't know how liquid they can make their credit and their money in general.
posted on September 19, 2002 04:42:32 PM new
Stopwhining
I just noticed your post. I'm not sure how a cashback bonus works from a financial company's perspective. I imagine the a percentage of it has to deal with fractions of cents that are earned related to the volume of transactions but I don't know. Paypal's 1.5% is earned at the end of the month if I remember correctly. A Discover card's bonus is earned at the end of the year if I'm not mistaken. The simplest way to demonstrate a cycle with little risk would be to do the following.
1. Fund Paypal with your credit card or debit card. The way you do this is that you send the money to yourself under another email address that is not registered with Paypal. The transaction will appear as pending. Open the transaction and cancel it.
You will avoid any fees this way and the money will be now available in your Paypal account.
2. Next use your Paypal debit card to fund C2IT or a stored value card. Make sure you select that your card is a credit card not a debit card. This way the transaction can not be looked at as a cash advance.
3. You should see a cashback bonus pop up in your Paypal history.
4. If you used a credit card to fund Paypal initially then just link that card to the C2IT account and transfer the money back to your credit card. Otherwise you can request a check. This sucks and takes 3-4 days. If you choose to use a stored value card rather than C2IT the money will be instantly available and you can then just link it back to Paypal and dump the money back it and do it again until you reach the transfer limits on your stored value card.
posted on September 19, 2002 05:51:37 PM new
i am more confused than before,you said,
. Fund Paypal with your credit card or debit card. The way you do this is that you send the money to yourself under another email address that is not registered with Paypal. The transaction will appear as pending. Open the transaction and cancel it.
//////////////////////////////////
Cancel it?? what happens to the incoming payment when you cancel it??
i think if it works,it is because of a flaw in paypal system,that 1000 dollars coming from your credit card will cause paypal to pay your credit card issuer a discount fee.
then when you use that 1000 to fund c2it or stored value card,paypal pays you a rebate becaue it is expecting to be paid by the other party,but IS C2IT OR STORED VALUE CARD going to pay paypal a discount fee??
1 1/2 % rebate from paypal for 1000 dolars come to 15 dollars and yearend rebate from your card issuer could be another what 10-15 dollars,not shabby for a total of 25-30 dollars if your timing is good.
do this once a week,and you can get 1560 dollars??am i correct?/
posted on September 19, 2002 08:20:23 PM newfnewbroughFund Paypal with your credit card or debit card. The way you do this is that you send the money to yourself under another email address that is not registered with Paypal. The transaction will appear as pending. Open the transaction and cancel it.
Negative, that won't fly. Anyone want to try it? I just did to confirm what I already knew.
I just did a test with my personal account. I sent $10 from a credit card to a unregistered email address. $3 was already in my balance, $7 was funded from my credit card. I sent the payment to the unregistered email address and my balance dropped to $0.00. I then 'canceled' the unclaimed transaction, my balance returned to $3 not $10.00. The $7.00 went back to my credit card.
You can take the test to the limit if you like, send a payment funded from credit card to an unregistered email address and just let it sit there unclaimed, in 30 days it automatically goes back to your credit card not your PayPal balance.
posted on September 19, 2002 08:29:46 PM newfnewbroughPaypal's 1.5% is earned at the end of the month if I remember correctly.
Wrong. If I go to the post office and pay for shipping with my PayPal debit card the 1.5% has been credited to my account before I can get back home. It is instant.
You seem to be ignoring you don't get that 1.5% without some requirements, SELLING ON EBAY, is one of those requirements. You can't simply fund your PayPal account from other sources and instantly get 1.5% interest. Think about it!
posted on September 19, 2002 08:59:38 PM new
you have to agree to advertise paypal as the only payment method on your ebay item page to enjoy the 1.5% rebate when you use the debit card as a credit card to buy merchandise or services.
a few months ago i transferred 5000 dollars to my paypal account from my bank to buy things for my house and fix my car,and i get that 1.5% rebate instantly.
take note of what i just said,YOU HAVE TO USE THAT PAYPAL CARD AS A CREDIT CARD,only when you use it as a credit card will paypal earn a discount fee from the merchant and pass on the rebate to you.
if your scheme works,then it is a flaw in the system.
posted on September 20, 2002 03:25:19 PM new
uaru,
All I know is that it worked when I used my debit card as a credit card and sent it to another email address of mine which wasn't registered. I then went into the pending transaction and canceled it and the money was funded into my Paypal account not my credit card. It may not still work like that. The primary reason I used to do this was to quickly transfer money from my bank account into Paypal to take advantage of Paypal to pay bills and get $1.5 cash back.
I no longer use Paypal so I don't know what changes have been made since then. As for the requirements I am familier with them I was a Premier Business Account Holder and the truth is that even when I wasn't selling anything on ebay I was getting the cash back. I was selling an increasing number of items on ebay until Paypal screwed me. I got only one negative because of them. My username on ebay was PriceYourTech if you would like to check my reputation. www.priceyourtech.com
posted on September 20, 2002 03:38:02 PM new
Since I'm not currently selling anything. If you want a good drop shipping source www.googlegear.com is great. You have to fax your id and send it to them to route orders but they do a great job of processing RMAs and everything. I created a few templates using my scanner and Microsoft Word and would just send my authorization through as .pdfs. www.newegg.com is good too.
posted on September 20, 2002 04:00:08 PM new
fred said,
All I know is that it worked when I used my debit card as a credit card and sent it to another email address of mine which wasn't registered. I then went into the pending transaction and canceled it and the money was funded into my Paypal account not my credit card. It may not still work like that. The primary reason I /////////////////////////////////////
more confusing-so you are using your paypal debit card as a credit card to send your other email addr money,and that addr is not registerd with paypal?
where does the money in your paypal debit account come from??your bank,your ebay sales proceed or your credit card??
can one fund paypal debit card with a credit card??
Most people just don't know how liquid they can make their credit and their money in general.