How to change "we'll use your balance first" for payments

[karenevanspics]

I do not want PayPal using my balance first. I have automatic payment accounts set up to charge my credit card, but I see that even though it says in the specific account that payments will come from my credit card, underneath where it says that, it says "we'll use your balance first." It says that on all my automatic accounts even though I have credit card payment selected. How do I stop PayPal from using my balance first? I want all charges to be paid only by credit card, not my PayPal balance. Any ideas? Thanks!

[JoyinMI]

This “solution” does not work for me. All of my automatic payments continue to use funds in my PP cash account first, and then my preferred funding source if additional money is needed to cover the transaction, even though they are all set-up to use my credit card. This is extremely frustrating and confusing. Has anyone come up with a workable solution other than withdrawing the money from the cash account or setting up a second PP account? Neither of these are really solutions, just work-arounds, poor ones at that.

[Vlox08]

I agree. The solution does not work. It’s frustrating that they have yet to come up with a solution after so many years.

[Ponosunrider]

I know right. If family sends me money and asks me to use it to buy something, I better hope my auto payment for Netflix, Crunchyroll, or Funimation doesn’t go through and use the balance they sent me... half the time I end up having to cancel using my PayPal card and use a credit card instead. This “balance” problem defeats the purpose of having family send me money.

[JoyinMI]

Exactly! When I am letting money from my household decluttering efforts accumulate in my cash account, earmarked for a specific purpose, it is maddening when my automatic payment to Netflix comes due and dips into those funds. Sure, I can cancel the automatic payment and go directly to Netflix to pay (using PayPal to pull from my credit card), but I don’t want that hassle every month... that is why it is setup on automatic payment, so I don’t have to deal with it. It’s just idiotic that PayPal lets you set up a preferred funding source for these transactions, but then does not actually use that directive!

[cellardoor_ncx]

Not only the accepted solution is wrong (it doesn't solve a problem) but also people here seem to miss the bigger picture.

This change is a well-thought out from PayPal. Imagine this scenario: you have balances in multiple currencies. Let's say GBP and EUR, with EUR being your primary one and a default one to your country. Let's say you have your EUR card chosen as a primary funding source. Your balance is 0 EUR and 100 GBP.  What happens if you buy sth online and you are charged in EUR?

What it used to be: you have no balance in the currency you are being charged with and therefore the whole payment is funded by your EUR card.
What it is now: As you have 0 EUR balance, the payment is covered by balance in another currency. Yes. You guessed it. Using PayPal currency conversion rate.

That's not all. You have no other option but to always make sure you have non zero balance in the currency you are being charged with. You can't see it while paying. All your Automatic Payments are going to do this. I almost forgot. What happens if you decide to sent the item you bought back? As your refund reaches your PayPal account, it's going to get converted back into the currency originally used to fund the payment. GBP in that case. So you hit currency conversion twice.

Also, don't let anyone tell you this is a "convenience feature". No. If that was a feature, it'd be configurable in your profile (after all there are already bells and whistles to choose your funding source!).

And after hours of digging through the user agreement I wasn't able to find all that. 

[gl0903]

you are absolutely right. Paypal is disgusting in this regard.

[Temp20230905a]

And also PayPal does not need to pay credit card fees when using the balance first...

[doriawilliam]

Balance

[Tert75]

Thank you so much. by the time I noticed they changed it I was already out a couple hundred, you saved me a lot of trouble down the road. 

[HonorBound · Accepted solution]

I found something that may be helpful.  Complete the following:

From the home page, go to your settings  (click the gear icon next to "Log Out")-->  Payments --> Manage Automatic Payments link --> click the icon/link that corresponds to your auto payment (e.g. hulu, netflix, etc)--> under Payment Method, click the edit icon next to your payment info (its a pen and paper icon--> under "Choose the way you pay" you will see a blue, slider button that says "Use balance first". Click that button then scroll to the bottom of the page and click the "Save" button.  You should receive an immediate email saying "This email confirms that your preferred funding source for use with your Billing Agreement with Hulu has been changed."  

Then you should be good to go. 

Unfortunately, you will have to do this for every automatic payment you have setup. I haven't found a way to make the "Use balance first" option turn off by default for all accounts.