PayPal is NOT your Pal!
For those who use PayPal and carry any measure of balance, you may want to carefully check and compare your November and December statements.
WARNING! You may be in for a very NASTY surprise.
Not to whine about my own particular situation, I nevertheless want to provide you with a first hand example of what to expect when dealing with this despicable money-grab exercise that PayPal is pulling on its customers.
First of all, it is never a bright or good idea to carry any balance on any credit-card, but in these difficult times, sometimes there simply is no other way to deal with paying the bills.
In my case,
This year I had unavoidable, but high medical expenses (Yeah, that grift called 'deductable' and medical professionals who habitually do their billing with a fork.) and on top of that I had to keep my car going which also set me back a couple of notches.
I found myself with no other option than to pull out the plastic and charge it to my PayPal account. Again: Not a good thing, but no choice in the matter.
I make sure to remain current on payments and pay at least twice the minimum due amounts, I never take out cash-advances and I have an excellent credit-rating, so I thought that I was okay. Right?
WRONG!
In October I received a revision of the way PayPal charges their fees and interest rates, so I already braced myself for that, but I never expected what I saw on my December statement.
I found that Paypal jacked up my interest rates to an extortionate 30%.
As I always do in such cases, I immediately called their customer-service and kicked it up the supervisor chain, but where other credit-cards have been relatively forthcoming in making interest and fee adjustments to more reasonable levels, PayPal absolutely refuses to change anything.
They are actively using the new credit-card regulations that are to take effect in 2010 as a way to rob their customers blind.
I am taking my business somewhere else and will from now on do no more business using PayPal and I strongly suggest that all who find themselves in the same situation to take that into consideration as well.