Sending my partner my share of the rent over PayPal with Amex

[JDB]

As @Froggee says, thank you for telling us of your success but nobody should take that as a guide to anything. There is no absolute prohibition or magic figure that is safe – PayPal F&F payments remain a form of cash advance and are loss making for Amex, but they tolerate such payments until they don’t. Amex acquiescence will depend on their overall ongoing assessment of your accounts with them, spending patterns, % of F&F etc. I don’t know how PayPal considers these transactions beyond numerous reports of account closures.

While the OP reports that these payments have been given the nod by chat agents at both companies, that counts for nothing and nor will the Ombudsman help. He has many powers, but he cannot order the reinstatement of a closed account as long as he is satisfied the account was closed for good reasons which will be given to him confidentially.

[jjjason]

knight123 wrote:

It’s been a year since I made this post so I just thought I’d check in with an update 😀

I’ve continued to send my partner £600 over PayPal, using my Amex, every month and had no issues whatsoever.

As I’ve mentioned before – it’s a PayPal account I’ve had a long time, and use for other things, and my partner never sends me anything over PayPal so it doesn’t look like manufactured spend. I’ve also got messages from both Amex and PayPal customer support confirming there’s nothing wrong with doing this (I know that isn’t 100% watertight, but would be enough to challenge any issue, or speak to the financial ombudsman about).

Appreciate a lot of you will still be a bit cautious about it, but I really don’t think there’s cause to worry.

Do you need to pay any handling fee? As when I trying to send a money out, PayPal said it is likely that there will be a handling fee.

[knight123]

Nope @jjjason . It’s sent via PayPal’s ‘pay friends and family’ feature – no fees at all, either from PayPal or Amex

[Nachmon9]

Is it okay if i do large amounts through ‘for goods and services’ ?

[vzzbuckz]

This sounds great. I could set up all my Direct Debits (mortgage, power, council tax etc) to my wife’s current account, then send her a large AMEX funded Paypal payment every month (let’s say £3K?). She can withdraw the payment from PayPal to her current account and everyone is happy.

I wonder why nobody is doing this?

[strickers]

I wonder why?

Goods & Services, PayPal make money, you have buyer protection (not as good as credit card) and everyone is happy.

Friends & Family, PayPal lose money, PayPal get unhappy, if you overdo it they close your account!

[polly]

@strickers Exactly that. All our genuine gifts etc to kids, friends etc go by PP F&F. But would not risk MS this way. Just too valuable at times.

[Lady London]

And if Paypal is ever unhappy with you then you could have to deal with Paypal’s call centre in the Philippines.

Dealing with them was the worst most nonsensical experience I have ever had with any call centre in any country. Only neared by another experience with a different outfit also with a call centre in the Philippines.

Just don’t put yourself in the way of that.

[dshunter]

Last time I tried friends and family via Amex I appeared not to get the MR points for the transaction. Obviously not going to chase. Best to check…