I recently bought a caravan on ebay using Paypal as the seller was agreeable. All was going well and I had arranged to collect the caravan a few days later.

Then it all went wrong as neither the seller or myself knew that it would take 8 - 11 days for the funds to transfer. I contacted Paypal to cancel the debit so I could pay cash as the money was in my current account, but the "helpline" said this was not possible as it was an Echeque the transfer would have to continue. If I gave them my debit card details this would avoid delays in future.

Fortunately the seller found out by chance that he could cancel the Paypal credit before it reached his account (the helpline did not mention this to me). To cut a long story short I paid cash on collection, Paypal cancelled the transfer to the seller BUT STILL DEBITED MY BANK ACCOUNT!

Luckily I have an internet current account and saw the Paypal deduction and had to fund my current account as it would have been overdrawn. Now I have to wait to transfer the money back from Paypal who is sitting on my money and not paying interest.

I am not keen on passing to much information that allows people to tap into my funds so remain unverified, and will just have to pay cash for any larger transaction in future.