PayPal description advisory

Will York

Will York

Joined
Jan 21, 2000
Messages
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Just thought I'd pass along a PayPal experience that may be of interest. In paying for a knife from a well-known and highly reputable maker in this country yesterday, I put the words "Damascus Fighter" in the description. I promptly received the following email from PayPal:

"To comply with government regulations, PayPal is required to review certain transactions. The payment you sent is currently being reviewed and we will complete this process within 72 hours. This review only involves this transaction and does not affect the use of your PayPal account."

I don't know that those words triggered the review, but you can be sure I will not use either "damascus " or "fighter" in a PayPal description again. Fortunately the hold was lifted after a few hours and payment went through.
 
I had 2 transactions on Monday with the same email, they cleared yesterday. Paypal is just making sure that illegal items or activities are not being paid for with their services.

As a maker I have specific wording that I ask clients to put into the tile and or message box to avoid any red flags.
 
Lorien said:
Big Brother is watchin.
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Indeed.

I never put a description when sending funds to an individual. In every case the maker knows who I am and why I'm sending them $$. Any details are worked out through email or PM beforehand.
 
evanPGH said:
Indeed.

I never put a description when sending funds to an individual. In every case the maker knows who I am and why I'm sending them $$. Any details are worked out through email or PM beforehand.
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In view of the above posts that sounds like a very good idea.
 
Will York said:
In view of the above posts that sounds like a very good idea.
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Yeah, just the way I've always done it. I can see how some guys might not like that though as a description could make sorting out their funds a little easier.

Expanding on Lorien's comment, I figure that neither PayPal, nor anybody else who has access to their records needs to know what I'm buying. All they need to know is that I'm sending "Joe Schmo" "X" amount of dollars.
 
I think a post in the other thread has touched on the problem. Big brother is indeed watching. The thing they are watching for doesn't necessarily have anything to do with you. The Government, especially now, surely has a keen interest in anything pertaining to "fighters" in "Damascus". As you have mentioned it probably is a good idea just to stay away from descriptive words that could be misinterpreted or leave out descriptions altogether. I might use words like "tools, sporting goods, collectibles, cutlery, etc."
 
i4Marc said:
I think a post in the other thread has touched on the problem. Big brother is indeed watching. The thing they are watching for doesn't necessarily have anything to do with you. The Government, especially now, surely has a keen interest in anything pertaining to "fighters" in "Damascus". As you have mentioned it probably is a good idea just to stay away from descriptive words that could be misinterpreted or leave out descriptions altogether. I might use words like "tools, sporting goods, collectibles, cutlery, etc."
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Yep, those two words together can draw attention. It's not so much as 'big brother' watching here, but they do have paypal watching for key words...
 
Same thing happened to a buyer of a Chris reeve knife I sold. They asked me to hold until payment cleared. Took an extra 48 hours but all was fine. Subject line only said Chris Reeve Knife.
 
Such as France, the transactions made on the knives are banned, so do not use the word knife or some things that look like
By cons I bought a knife on ebay US and I 've had no problems
 
I always use an identifier which a knife maker or collector would easily understand but the Paypal software would probably never alert to.

In this case I would have said something like...... "Payment for the 7" Dama"

If I am buying from another collector I often just use the knife maker to identify it. So it might be...."Payment for the Jason Knight with Black Micarta"

Since many knife makers have model numbers or names these are also handy. Something like a Les Voorhies flipper becomes....."Payment for the 13L with CF" Now we all know what that means but to Paypal it is meaningless.

Soon the word "Ivory" will attract the same attention (if not already)

I hope that this helps........Steven:)
 
I didn't use any description when I sent payment to Devon Thomas but I did mark the box"send money to Friend or family" and my payment was suspended for 72 hours with the same paypal message.??
 
there's no need to add a description I never do it and they don't require it. But sometimes you get flagged for no apparent reason and the funds get put on hold that happens sometimes.
 
i4Marc said:
I think a post in the other thread has touched on the problem. Big brother is indeed watching. The thing they are watching for doesn't necessarily have anything to do with you. The Government, especially now, surely has a keen interest in anything pertaining to "fighters" in "Damascus". As you have mentioned it probably is a good idea just to stay away from descriptive words that could be misinterpreted or leave out descriptions altogether. I might use words like "tools, sporting goods, collectibles, cutlery, etc."
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If I were a terrorist trying to send money, do you think I'd write anything in the description box? And even if I did, would I write something about fighters in damascus or anything that could possibly trigger suspicion? I'm just pointing out that they're not gonna catch any criminals or terrorists or anything; just normal people going about their normal business.

On the other hand if they're purely random searches then maybe they'll catch someone, but that's a whole 'nother can of worms...
 
Betcha if I put "armageddon death ray" in the description it would sail right through. :rolleyes:

It certainly helps me to have the knife description included, because if I need to dig up a record of the sale months or years down the road, my task is that much easier.

Clearly not worth the aggravation at present, though.
 
RogerP said:
Betcha if I put "armageddon death ray" in the description it would sail right through. :rolleyes:

It certainly helps me to have the knife description included, because if I need to dig up a record of the sale months or years down the road, my task is that much easier.

Clearly not worth the aggravation at present, though.
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That's the way it looks to me. I know some makers who use the description line similarly to help organize their records, but if it makes life easier to omit references there, at least you have the date tag, amount and payor/payee info for correlation.
 
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