Banned By Paypal?

Offering SEO or IM services and suddenly wake up to find an email from Paypal advising you that you are no longer allowed an account and they're holding your funds for 180 days and you have no idea why?

It's happened to a few SEO guys I know this past 12 months, myself included. I think too that @Stan Fox might have been caught out by them too?
In my case it was an email notifying me they had closed my fully verified business account and locked £30k+ away for 180 days. They also locked and closed my 2004 personal account and locked my funds in there away too.

Seems these bans are not related to what you are selling, more often it's related to WHO you are selling to. Seems to deal with clients who are selling SMM services which PP considers illegal, which means that they consider you to be breaching their T&Cs too.

So basically, you are responsible for your client's activities... So be careful... If you deal with a lot of peoples over Paypal... This thing could also happen to you... Even if you have no idea what your payers are doing.

Where does this stupidity end? You have a client who sells firearms, someone buys a gun and shoots someone... PP going to blame you too?

Their lack of transparency matches their arrogance = fucking overwhelming. They have still to give me a valid reason why they closed the account. They have yet to release any funds back to me, looks like it'll all come on the 181st day.

They almost screwed up our event business years back when they locked the account with £120k in there, preventing us from paying the hotel and conference centre etc. I hated them ever since for doing that, thus we only went with them again because market research showed buyers like using their platform.


If you are using these cowboys, remove your balance daily and don't be stunned if they fuck you over too without good reason or warning.

I have been saying this loud move to btc, if btc is not a option go for transferwise or payoneer it’s really sad that this happened with you and others.

That's absolutely crazy, how can you have any control over incoming payments?

Who do Paypal think they are... a bank wouldn't close your account for it.

MisterF said:

Offering SEO or IM services and suddenly wake up to find an email from Paypal advising you that you are no longer allowed an account and they're holding your funds for 180 days and you have no idea why?

It's happened to a few SEO guys I know this past 12 months, myself included. I think too that @Stan Fox might have been caught out by them too?
In my case it was an email notifying me they had closed my fully verified business account and locked £30k+ away for 180 days. They also locked and closed my 2004 personal account and locked my funds in there away too.

Seems these bans are not related to what you are selling, more often it's related to WHO you are selling to. Seems to deal with clients who are selling SMM services which PP considers illegal, which means that they consider you to be breaching their T&Cs too.

So basically, you are responsible for your client's activities... So be careful... If you deal with a lot of peoples over Paypal... This thing could also happen to you... Even if you have no idea what your payers are doing.

Where does this stupidity end? You have a client who sells firearms, someone buys a gun and shoots someone... PP going to blame you too?

Their lack of transparency matches their arrogance = fucking overwhelming. They have still to give me a valid reason why they closed the account. They have yet to release any funds back to me, looks like it'll all come on the 181st day.

They almost screwed up our event business years back when they locked the account with £120k in there, preventing us from paying the hotel and conference centre etc. I hated them ever since for doing that, thus we only went with them again because market research showed buyers like using their platform.


If you are using these cowboys, remove your balance daily and don't be stunned if they fuck you over too without good reason or warning.

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So you cant do business with paypal again? I'm sure yo dont want to... What is the way forward?

MisterF said:

So basically, you are responsible for your client's activities... So be careful... If you deal with a lot of peoples over Paypal... This thing could also happen to you... Even if you have no idea what your payers are doing.

Click to expand...

There is Simply no way to know that.

I always say "PP is s**t".

They screw your money and let you crawl for your own money whether it's legit or illegal money. One day will come when people will unite to boycott these cheese dips and rely on stable and safe gateways.

Been there to, nowadays (last 10 years) I just use PayPal for payments when I pay for goods and services, will never use it as taking payments again.

Hope you get your hard earned money back, without more trouble.

I don't use PayPal. So I don't care if my customers won't buy anything from me. Skrill, Neteller, Payeer, Cryptocurrencies, Payoneer, Credit / debit card payment. I offer many different payment methods.

It happened to me as well.
Long story short. This is what happened to me. I used PayPal to recieve payments from Freelancer.com. I never received payments from any Individual accounts or Clients. It was primarily used to recieve payments from Freelancer.com.

And one day, As soon as freelancer deposited money into my account, I was locked out. I think it was around 2 Grands. I don't remember. It was 2~3 years ago.

Fortunately, for me, GayPal deposited my balance after 180 days.
Now I only use them to pay for some services with a Stealth account.

There are many good payment processors, I wonder why many people here still use PayPal to accept payments, specifically when they know that they are going to lock them out of their account.

For anyone having a problem with paypal limitations, you might want to take a look here
http://www.screw-paypal.com/index.html

MisterF said:

If you are using these cowboys, remove your balance daily and don't be stunned if they fuck you over too without good reason or warning.

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This.
PayPal is not a bank account, so don't keep your hard-achieved money inside it.
For example, a lot of pp accounts are closed nowdays because the owner had not turned 18 when he opened their account (and this is against pp tos). So, even if you don't scam people or buy guns or whatever else is illegal, your account may be closed quickly just because of this minor aspect.

MisterF said:

Seems these bans are not related to what you are selling, more often it's related to WHO you are selling to. Seems to deal with clients who are selling SMM services which PP considers illegal, which means that they consider you to be breaching their T&Cs too.

Click to expand...

What a shitshow. It's like they want you to do a proper KYC for anyone you make business with.

Paypal sucks. better avoid to use Gaypal. Banned some of my accounts , stole my money after keeping it on hold for 180 days.

So what are your options we have? - It's almost impossible to be in SEO business and not take PayPal from clients.
I know PayPal sucks, but every client insists on paypal payments only.

Brijendra Sial said:

Paypal nah.. move to crypto currency

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It’s not always that easy though as most customers won’t own nor want to use crypto currency.

I hope you get it all resolved buddy. Threaten legal action if they attempt to withhold it after the end date.

When companies become big, this is how they behave. No Personal touch on the service that they provide.

ripmyfriend said:

There are many good payment processors

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care to list 2-3 of those good payment options? And I'm not being sarcastic, I literally want to look into alternatives. But the problem is that paypal is way too popular worldwide, and carries a certain trust factor among the common citizens (those who are not in the IM / SEO businesses, for example).

Even if the 2-3 alternatives that I asked you about are better / safer than paypal I doubt that many people will trust them enough to use them.

Im sure half of Gaypals income is from doing this. Karma will take care of this company for sure in the future

tazarbm said:

care to list 2-3 of those good payment options? And I'm not being sarcastic, I literally want to look into alternatives. But the problem is that paypal is way too popular worldwide, and carries a certain trust factor among the common citizens (those who are not in the IM / SEO businesses, for example).

Even if the 2-3 alternatives that I asked you about are better / safer than paypal I doubt that many people will trust them enough to use them.

Click to expand...

Stripe
2Checkout
WorldPay
Payoneer.


Crypto is another option but it's up and down like a whores drawers at the moment, so what you think you're getting for $500 could be worth $750 or $250 overnight.

HI there everyone.

For reference, I do not work for Paypal now, but did work for them a short while. I am not handing you top secret information here either, but a general dose of common sense.

Paypal like any company, is trying to minimize 'fraudulent' transactions. Let that sink in for one moment. They do not keep tabs on what you sell or who you sell to. What happens is that they will periodically check you are a legitimate person and request your identification like Passport, which they have done recently to myself as well. That is one way to check who you are. Other ways they do actually keep tabs on fraudulent activities are through how much money you obtain in any 30 day period. If like most people, you happily go along with a normal Paypal account and all of a sudden decide to be an affiliate and make tons of money or expect a fair amount to go through your account in the days that follow, you may want to pick up the phone and talk to Paypal support to explain your circumstances and how you plan to run a business. That right there is common sense. Alert them to what will happen and they will keep an eye on your account, and may even still require authentication on your part if they feel something is not right. There are countries that are considered higher risk than others, so think like a business whose primary concern is the safety of their customers and transactions. They only want to ensure everything is fair.

Paypal, will also suspend accounts linked to eBay if you sell items, and not adhere to their terms of service in relation to refunds or items you sell, example: Items as not described where the person opens a dispute. After a few disputes, you will get into trouble.

This is all common sense and tons of high-end companies that even host contests these days, will sometimes say in their terms and conditions that they do not deal with some countries, due to the influx of fraudulent activities that take place.

Heck, when I worked for another game company (actual game, not gambling) as tech support, they had a round number of $5000 which would trigger account suspension and investigation. So, at what point do you think a company like Paypal may not have the same thing in place? Think about that.

People need to think about what they do and not just assume it is their right to have their money. People try dodgy things all the time, so companies like Paypal will look after themselves and their customer base first and foremost.

You wonder why I quit Paypal... company was great... I just do not have a head for complicated search systems to obtain information. It is the one thing that has me quitting a company faster than anything else. If the UI and system is not designed for ease of use, then I walk. I hate having to muddle my way through systems just to find out how to help a customer within the allotted time frame they offered. I think over the years, Google has somewhat spoiled me with its beautiful search. In that way I love Google so much, and get really disappointed when I work for a company who do not tag customer support articles properly with keywords. It slows down the workplace, people get frustrated as they can't find the right solutions and then customers get angry when you ask them to 'hold the line' for at least 7 minutes or more, looking for this information. My ultimate goal one day, is to create a super friendly user system a company can use. Which is why I ended up doing a foundation degree in graphic design, digital design (UX/UI) and advertising. Now I am doing my Honours degree at University. Either way, just know I am motivated to make a change, and absolutely dislike badly designed information portals.

MisterF said:

Stripe
2Checkout
WorldPay
Payoneer.


Crypto is another option but it's up and down like a whores drawers at the moment, so what you think you're getting for $500 could be worth $750 or $250 overnight.

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Ok, I did hear about all of them, but that's because I'm in a business that uses them often. But in my circle of friends no one has any clue what those are. Also, I'm not sure that WorldPay... or Payoneer are better than Paypal

tazarbm said:

Ok, I did hear about all of them, but that's because I'm in a business that uses them often. But in my circle of friends no one has any clue what those are. Also, I'm not sure that WorldPay... or Payoneer are better than Paypal

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I've never had an issue with any of the other processors.

Worldpay we have an account manager who we can meet face to face.

Stripe we use for events and conference bookings.