I would like to summarize for the list the responses that I have
received to my email regarding problems that we have encountered trying
to use PayPal for the purchase of library materials. First, though, an
update that further complicates the problem. In the time between my
original posting and now PayPal has reduced the spending limit for an
unverified account from $10,000 to $2,000. Our plan to create a new
account and begin to spend down on a new $10,000 has hence been greatly
curtailed. In light of this development we have renewed our effort with
the University's financial officials to find a way to create a verified
account. Thus far nothing positive to report, but the clock is ticking
to the time when we will be shut out of PayPal if a solution is not
found.
There have been 7 public responses to my posting. Private responses
were limited to people who wanted to know the results of the survey.
Everyone that responded said that they were experiencing similar
problems. No one, save one, had managed to reach the promised land of a
verified PayPal account. This one exception is a public library that
managed to extract from the CFO a dormant account to use for
verification purposes. All others indicated they have encountered
extreme reluctance on the part of their financial officers to turn over
a bank account number for verification. Several indicated that they
used a university purchasing card, as does Brown, but these being
unverified are subject to the spending limits described above. There
was a widespread concern expressed that a failure to settle this problem
will lead to the inability to procure some materials wanted by faculty
and students. Many hope that this would spur action and result in a
solution.
In short, the problem is widespread and efforts to resolve the issue are
being carried out institution by institution with little success.
PayPal itself has been no help and, in fact, by reducing their
unverified spending limit has only exacerbated the problem. Thank you
all for your contributions. If there are further developments to report
from my end, I will do a follow-up posting. Steve
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There is an increasing need to use electronic funds transfer via PayPal
to obtain library materials from small independent publishers here and
abroad. Use of Ebay has also increased which depends heavily on PayPal
for payment. Setting up a PayPal account is easy, but a non-verified
PayPal account has a spending limit which when exhausted requires
verification. There are a number of ways to become a verified PayPal
user, but at the university level these options are less than
attractive as they seem to involve giving PayPal a bank account number.
I am interested in knowing if libraries have managed to obtain verified
PayPal accounts and if so how they have managed to do so.
Steven E. Thompson
Co-Leader Technical Services
Brown University Library
voice: (401) 863-2976
Fax: (401) 863-1272
email: steven_thompson_at_brown.edu
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Received on Wed Mar 18 2009 - 10:14:13 EDT