[nradov]

There's nothing dumb about it. This is common practice when linking accounts throughout the financial services industry. Like my stockbroker did it when I linked my bank checking account. By verifying the amounts on two small payments you give them reasonable assurance that you actually control the account. This protects against both fraud and accidental account number data entry errors.

[Scoundreller]

It was the clawback of the hilariously low amount that I found dumb, not the verification technique.

In my experience, it’s 2x double digit amounts, not two single digit amounts. I guess if they’re clawing it back, maybe my low sums are out of randomness, or maybe they’ve really lowered the cap on the test deposits (less float/fraud loss but less security?).

[mthoms]

I suspect it’s because they want to verify they can withdraw from the account, not just deposit. Maybe they have deposit-only account links but IIRC the default is two-way. That’s because, for example, you can subscribe to various services using PayPal (if you have no funds in your PP account they will withdraw it from your bank account).

[Scoundreller]

This makes a lot of sense. Lots of advice in the early days of PayPal to have a separate account for them and keep nothing in it.

[davchana]

Capital one, when confirmed my credit union account by same method, didn't fetched the money back. Data point