Hi, there. My businesses have been offered over $500,000 in credit over the past ten years. Allow me to speak to this in handy list format.

1) Paypal cannot perform any credit checks. Not on sellers, not on buyers. They can verify you have a bank account. That's it.

2) Paypal cannot defray any risk through any method other than their existing fees. Which are the same for everyone, regardless of risk (perceived or real).

3) $20k is chump change for a real travel business. The (in-state) conferences my wife used to put together had hundred thousand dollar budgets, and that includes zero food, lodging and travel for all attendees.

4) A loan includes a loan agreement ("We're lending you this money and if you don't pay it back we get these assets") as well as a credit check. At least. For my wife's business I needed to get life insurance, which meant I needed to get a physical, which means in practical terms that securing my wife's loan involved literally giving a blood sample.

5) A loan includes additional fees that help defray the risk of loaning money. That's why variable interest rates exist, why credit ratings exist, why credit reporting agencies exist, why loan officers exist, why collections agencies exist. In short, applying for a loan exposes you to the very mechanisms you, as a paypal vendor, are eschewing.

6) Which save you money, by the way. My wife takes checks, Paypal and Square. There are more expensive ways to get money than Paypal, but not many. If you're reliant on Paypal... there's no nice way to put this. You're shady. $275 a week for "a desk" and lunch once a week?

7) And even then, Paypal didn't keep their money, Paypal held it for four months after warning them they might hold it for six.

I'm not a fan of Paypal. It cost me about a thousand dollars, between eBay and Paypal, to sell a six thousand dollar piece of equipment. The equipment I'm replacing it with would cost me about $250 to buy via Paypal. So I didn't buy it that way. I got a cashier's check from my bank. Took 10 minutes and ten bucks.

And you know what? If I'd planned my business so poorly that I ended up with $20k locked up in Paypal, I'd probably go to the bank and get a gap loan from someone other than Paypal. And I'll bet they'd subject me to the exact same scrutiny that Paypal wants to, because in the end, holding onto your money for four months isn't all that different than hitting you with nine percent interest, minus the indignant, self-righteous Medium article.