VoidITSolutions
BANNED
- Apr 5, 2013
- 162
- 44
You read all of these stories about people using Paypal having their account frozen for some retarded reason and usually it's because they did something stupid.
I am a programmer more so than a marketer and most of my money comes from freelancing.
My account's always been in good standing.
Last night I'm doing a little shopping on Ebay and as I always do, I checked my Paypal account after and what do I see?
The typical "Your account is limited" blah blah blah as well as they'd reversed a withdrawal for about 2500 to my debit card.
So I called them up to try to see what the problem was and initially they told me nothing more than "Our systems have identified your account as linked to another."
They insisted they couldn't tell me anything more except that maybe I shared a computer with someone else.
A few pointless phone calls later and a lot of cursing and one of the reps finally broke down and told me that apparently my card had been used on another account that has a negative balance.
He proceeded to give me the name of the person. Someone whom I've never met.
He said the account was in the negative and unless I talked to that person whom I've never met to get it resolved, I would not be able to touch my money.
Apparently they have a strict policy (so helpful) in these cases where they cannot tell you the dollar amount unless you can estimate it for them.
So, we proceeded to play the guessing game. I swear this guy was getting kicks from this. Eventually he told me 300 was too high so I started backwards in ten dollar increments until we hit 280.
At that point he told me I was correct and the amount was 282. I asked him if he was being so difficult because we were being recorded and he said yes. So I can understand - to an extent - but still WTF.
By now I'm trying not to contain myself but man these guys ... Anyway, I asked him essentially "So you're telling me that even though your system does not allow a card to be used on more than one account, someone else used my card, has a negative balance of 282, and you've frozen thousands because of this ?? And if your bank did this to you?" Of course he gave the normal Paypal BS about how he'd be happy to have his bank account frozen if a stranger had a negative balance and how he'd help the bank figure out the problem, then told me they're not a bank however and finally said I pretty much had to deal with it.
Long-story-short, to resolve this, I had to authorize them to deduct 282 from my account to be transferred to cover the balance of the negative account.
Here's the kicker, this is not instant. He said that if I were to use a debit card (I had all of my money in Paypal) that it would be instant and my account would be unlocked.
However, using my Paypal balance/their system, it will take one to two days because it has to be approved by upper management. Just another senseless policy.
So, I still have no clue what happened except now I'm out about 300 bucks. Maybe a site I bought something on got hacked and someone attempted to add my debit card to their shitty account? Fuck if I know.
This is a bitch cuz Paypal has been so convenient for accepting payments from people but now it looks like it's time to change it up.
There's nothing that can help my situation here. I just have to wait for them to take my money. In the end what can I do? Hire an attorney? Mine charges that much for a couple phone calls.
I could have refused the payment but then my money would have been "froze for 6 months" ... I just have to suck it up.
This is the short version believe it or not. There were other things like they were not going to allow me to pay because I didn't know the other account's email address.
All-in-all I spent about three hours with them last night.
The point of this post is to hopefully help someone else realize that like I did, assuming just because everything you do on Paypal is legit and you won't get fucked is a fallacy. Use someone else for payment processing. I know after this, I will be.
I am a programmer more so than a marketer and most of my money comes from freelancing.
My account's always been in good standing.
Last night I'm doing a little shopping on Ebay and as I always do, I checked my Paypal account after and what do I see?
The typical "Your account is limited" blah blah blah as well as they'd reversed a withdrawal for about 2500 to my debit card.
So I called them up to try to see what the problem was and initially they told me nothing more than "Our systems have identified your account as linked to another."
They insisted they couldn't tell me anything more except that maybe I shared a computer with someone else.
A few pointless phone calls later and a lot of cursing and one of the reps finally broke down and told me that apparently my card had been used on another account that has a negative balance.
He proceeded to give me the name of the person. Someone whom I've never met.
He said the account was in the negative and unless I talked to that person whom I've never met to get it resolved, I would not be able to touch my money.
Apparently they have a strict policy (so helpful) in these cases where they cannot tell you the dollar amount unless you can estimate it for them.
So, we proceeded to play the guessing game. I swear this guy was getting kicks from this. Eventually he told me 300 was too high so I started backwards in ten dollar increments until we hit 280.
At that point he told me I was correct and the amount was 282. I asked him if he was being so difficult because we were being recorded and he said yes. So I can understand - to an extent - but still WTF.
By now I'm trying not to contain myself but man these guys ... Anyway, I asked him essentially "So you're telling me that even though your system does not allow a card to be used on more than one account, someone else used my card, has a negative balance of 282, and you've frozen thousands because of this ?? And if your bank did this to you?" Of course he gave the normal Paypal BS about how he'd be happy to have his bank account frozen if a stranger had a negative balance and how he'd help the bank figure out the problem, then told me they're not a bank however and finally said I pretty much had to deal with it.
Long-story-short, to resolve this, I had to authorize them to deduct 282 from my account to be transferred to cover the balance of the negative account.
Here's the kicker, this is not instant. He said that if I were to use a debit card (I had all of my money in Paypal) that it would be instant and my account would be unlocked.
However, using my Paypal balance/their system, it will take one to two days because it has to be approved by upper management. Just another senseless policy.
So, I still have no clue what happened except now I'm out about 300 bucks. Maybe a site I bought something on got hacked and someone attempted to add my debit card to their shitty account? Fuck if I know.
This is a bitch cuz Paypal has been so convenient for accepting payments from people but now it looks like it's time to change it up.
There's nothing that can help my situation here. I just have to wait for them to take my money. In the end what can I do? Hire an attorney? Mine charges that much for a couple phone calls.
I could have refused the payment but then my money would have been "froze for 6 months" ... I just have to suck it up.
This is the short version believe it or not. There were other things like they were not going to allow me to pay because I didn't know the other account's email address.
All-in-all I spent about three hours with them last night.
The point of this post is to hopefully help someone else realize that like I did, assuming just because everything you do on Paypal is legit and you won't get fucked is a fallacy. Use someone else for payment processing. I know after this, I will be.
