Do you have a PayPal account? Probably, because it is the most popular payment platform in the world, one that brought innovation to Internet purchases, but with the rise of online banking and services, it has lost a bit of the pull it had in its day.
Well, if you have a PayPal account and you also have it updated, that is, you have it linked to your bank or you have funds in it, be careful, because the company has just announced the implementation in Spain of a measure that was already coming applying in other countries: the «inactivity fee“…and it’s exactly what it sounds like.
Specific, If you don’t use your PayPal account in more than a year, they will charge you 10 euros… or the available balance, “depending on which is lower”. In other words, if they can collect the 10 euros, they will collect it, and if they can only scratch the crumbs you have, they will do the same.
With a subsection: “Accounts with zero balance will not be affected and this charge will not cause any negative balance”. This is, as we say, the new fee for inactivity that PayPal has just launched in Spain, as detailed on this help page. But there are more nuances.
For example, if a customer was charged the inactivity fee for a year and continues to not use the account, but still has a balance, they will be charged 75% of the stipulated price. But then what happens if you simply leave your PayPal account balance at zero? They have also thought about that and the solution is final.
According to the linked help page, “if an account no longer has a positive balance after this fee has been charged and remains inactive for another 60 days, it may be closed after those 60 days have elapsed.” Or what is the same, If two months go by and they haven’t charged, they can delete your account.
How to avoid it? The same page tells you how to do it and you can already imagine that using the PayPal account is not the same as logging in: you have to move money. These are the official instructions:
- Sign in to your account
- Shop wherever PayPal is accepted
- Send money to friends and family or providers of products and services
- Withdraw money from your account
- Donate to a charity with your account
The curious thing about the matter is that this new policy and the fee for inactivity began to be applied in Spain on September 30 and gave inactive clients a margin of action until October 28… But it was not until this past week when the The media have begun to echo the change.
Ergo… check your PayPal account, if you have one.
