Good morning everyone. A friend of mine sent me an email that his PayPal account was frozen (I didn’t ask why, but I believe it was related to loading PayPal My Cash Cards to his PayPal account). To add insult to injury, he had $200 in eBay Bucks that were set to expire next week. If you are unfamiliar with how to redeem eBay Bucks, you must log into your PayPal account to confirm payment, even if your eBay Bucks balance covers the full purchase price. Long story short, since his PayPal account was frozen, he could not redeem his $200 in eBay Bucks that were expiring next week.
He reached out to me and we brainstormed possible solutions for ways to spend his eBay Bucks. I had an idea that I could log into his eBay account and use his eBay Bucks by logging into my (unfrozen) PayPal account. We then brainstormed things to buy on eBay to redeem his eBay Bucks. His first thought was to buy eBay gift cards, but I told him that in order to redeem eBay gift cards, you need to log into your PayPal account. That would put him back in the same situation he is in now. I thought about buying Amazon gift cards and he agreed with my plan.
After I logged into his eBay account, I found a few Amazon gift cards that added up close to $200. Side note: Amazon gift cards are the only gift cards on eBay that often sell for more than face value (around 8-15% above face value). The sellers know that people willingly pay more than face value for Amazon gift cards, so they can charge higher prices.
I decided to purchase each Amazon gift card separately and entered his eBay Bucks code on the checkout screen (the eBay Bucks code can be found by going to your eBay Bucks page and looking on the right hand side). When I clicked the Log in to PayPal button, it redirected me to PayPal and I could only sign into his frozen PayPal account. He tried that before and it didn’t work, so I went back to the previous screen and there was a small link near the top of the page that said “Unlink or log in to PayPal.”
When I clicked that link, I had 3 options:
- Unlink your eBay account from PayPal (permanent change)
- Pay with another PayPal account (temporary change)
- Keep your eBay and PayPal accounts linked (no change)
I went with option 2 every time and clicked the Log in to PayPal button. I then logged into my PayPal account. On the preview page, it showed that his eBay Bucks balance covered the full item price and his mailing address was going to be used (not mine). I clicked the Submit Payment button and the transaction went through successfully.
I then went back to his eBay Bucks page and the eBay Bucks redemption had gone through successfully. There is a 2-3 minute lag between redeeming eBay Bucks and when the eBay Bucks balance is refreshed. He also earned a few eBay Bucks from his purchase. I repeated the above steps until I had redeemed almost all of his original eBay Bucks balance (with every purchase, your eBay Bucks balance decreases by the purchase amount, but increases slightly since you earn eBay Bucks with every purchase).
Since I used my PayPal account, I received all the confirmation emails from PayPal and forwarded them to his email address. The Amazon gift card orders are now on their way to his address. Hopefully your PayPal account never gets frozen, but if it does, this post should help you redeem your eBay Bucks.
If you have any questions, please leave a comment below. Have a great day everyone!
I purchased an item with Ebay Bucks earlier this month that appears to have been lost in the mail — tracking number on the shipment, it was definitely shipped and made some progress, but hasn’t been updated from its last location in 10 days. I’m currently going through the process of contacting the seller, USPS, and likely eventually Ebay for a refund. I’m confident I’ll be made whole one way or another, but the process won’t be complete until the Ebay Bucks redemption period ends at the end of Oct. Think I’ll still be able to use the Bucks? Will Ebay roll them into the next redemption period in Jan?
Hmm, that is an interesting question. I’m not sure what happens when an item purchased with eBay Bucks is returned. I would call or chat with eBay and ask them what will happen. Please let me know what you find out.
You made a mistake by logging into your account and using that to pay through his eBay.
Not only did you get them linked, but since his account is frozen, your account will be hit soon.
Although not many people really think about it, but if you really need your PayPal account, that is going to be a blow.
Hi Tim, we will see if that is the case soon enough. I hope you are wrong that my PayPal account get’s frozen.
Grant, anything happened to your pp account in the last year or so? I want to see how safe this approach is because my pp was permanently limited and I still had $200+ ebay gc tied.
Any update will be appreciated! Thank you!
My primary PayPal is still limited so I haven’t been able to check.
Great post! Will be useful indeed.
I also saw that Target gift cards sell higher than their face value (sometimes even before shipping cost).
Ya, I guess that makes sense. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Walmart GCs sell for higher too
Pingback: Using Iberia Avios, Cancelling Travel Credit Cards, Chase Reconsideration via Secure Message & More! - The Frequent Miler
(with every purchase, your eBay Bucks balance decreases by the purchase amount, but increases slightly since you earn eBay Bucks with every purchase)
This is misleading. You make it sound like you actually have a greater balance of eBay Bucks in a single “bucket”. As you know, eBay Bucks are accumulated in a separate “bucket” for each calendar quarter. The Buck you got for the purchase aren’t available for another 2-3 months so aren’t really added to the current balance. You should have made this clear to readers who aren’t familiar with how eBay Bucks works,
Good strategy otherwise.
You are absolutely correct. The eBay Bucks you earn from current transactions are not available until next quarter. I’m sorry that was not clearer in the post. Happy shopping!
This seems to be to be incredibly risky and poor advice to people. If doing this “for a pal” causes your account to be frozen as well and you *use your account*, then you have punished yourself quite severely for helping someone else out that obviously did something dumb to cause their own account to be frozen. IMO, this is very bad advice.
Not to mention that a LOT of gift cards sell for more than face value on eBay and that is very easy to find out so I wonder at the amount of *real* research that went into this article.
I’ve sold on eBay for well over 15 years and by reading the rules, reading research and being careful have never been punished or shut down by eBay or PayPal.
I appreciate the feedback, Carl. Do you have a better idea on how to redeem eBay Bucks from your account if you have a frozen PayPal account? I did not do any research on alternative methods, I just shared what I did in this situation. Happy Halloween!
No, Grant, sadly I do not know a better solution, other than to attempt by your friend to get the PayPal account UN frozen or have PayPal/eBay refund/extend the bucks. But even though I have no answer to the problem, I think the method you used is very risky for *your* account’s stability. PayPal and eBay are VERY well known to freeze, close or limit accounts on the damnedest of reasons or even without any provocation at all. This is easily found by any Google search.
I guess what I am saying is that it is good to “help a pal” until you are risking more than it is worth. I think risking getting your own account (or a reader doing this same thing) is more potentially damaging to themself than the benefit of redeeming a few dollars (or even couple hundred dollars) in a “fictional” currency for someone else.
I always view eBay and PayPal as ticking time bombs and always handle with kid gloves.
I totally agree, PayPal/eBay are trigger happy and they can do whatever they want, whenever they want. I’ve been an eBay seller for 10+ years and a PayPal user for just as long. I thought that would protect me from getting my main Biz PayPal account shut down, but it did not. My eBay account is fine, but now I use my personal PayPal account. I’m not in love with PayPal as much as I was last year, but I hope they do not mess with my personal PayPal account. We shall see.
Does your Pal have a 2nd PayPal account? I believe we are allowed to have 1x personal and 1x premier/business.
I had a personal and business PayPal account for a very long time. I don’t think he had/has another PayPal account.
I don’t get the same options you have, I get a Pay with PayPal Credit or Pay with Paypal option. Maybe because I have a Paypal credit line?? Do you have a PP credit line on your linked ebay account?
I had a PayPal Extras MasterCard liked to my frozen business PayPal account. I used my personal account to pay and didn’t have any problems.