Paypal and Vaping/eCig Store

So, I may have made a big mistake.

I've had money problems recently and gone into debt. On top of that, I lost my main revenue stream. Enough whining, I've been working on something new, but I've recently run into a problem that has stopped me in my tracks.

For the past month, I've been using every spare minute to build an eCom website dropshipping vaping products. But I've just discovered that I can't use Paypal as a payment processor because they don't work with vaping stores.

I don't like to say too much about myself, so I'll explain like this. My Paypal account is based in country U, but I live in country T, and my wife is from country P and has a Paypal account there. Vaping is popular in country P, I've seen several stores (shipping locally) accepting Paypal, so I don't know if it is only certain Paypal country accounts that have restrictions. My site will be selling to customers globally, so this may not apply. I absolutely don't want to get started directing traffic to the site only to have my/my wife's Paypal account get shut down.

I know there are payment processors that accept high-risk industries, but that requires having a merchant account, which isn't an option in my current situation. I'm planning on pushing traffic to this site through Instagram using the mother/child method. It takes a lot to get started doing that, and frankly I'm running out of money. I'm not sure if I should try to run it on my wife's Paypal account, or scrap it and start over. Or maybe rework it as an affiliate site, which will only pay about 7%, hardly worth the effort. Or sell it for almost nothing.

Any suggestions?

Just make a new Paypal for your mother in law. Verify it and use it. Good luck.

Botoshima said:

Just make a new Paypal for your mother in law. Verify it and use it. Good luck.

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Can't do that, but I see what you mean. Problem is, the money in the account is gone if Paypal decides to keep it. And using an account from that country means I can't withdraw to my bank account, or any account I can get the money from without transferring to my own Paypal account and that's going to catch on after awhile. I still use my account for legit projects and I need to keep it in good shape.

I know there are services here on BHW that sell shadow Paypal accounts with documents and all. I don't mind doing some botting or other black hat stuff, but I don't want to go full on money laundering.

shifubill said:

Can't do that, but I see what you mean. Problem is, the money in the account is gone if Paypal decides to keep it. And using an account from that country means I can't withdraw to my bank account, or any account I can get the money from without transferring to my own Paypal account and that's going to catch on after awhile. I still use my account for legit projects and I need to keep it in good shape..

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You can just spend the money without transferring or withdrawing.

shifubill said:

I know there are services here on BHW that sell shadow Paypal accounts with documents and all. I don't mind doing some botting or other black hat stuff, but I don't want to go full on money laundering

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There is not much of a choice here, you either risk it for the biscuit or not.

shifubill said:

I don't want to go full on money laundering.

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It’s not money laundering. Money laundering would be you pushing illegal funds through a series of legal fronts to sort of “clean” the money. If you’re being legitimate and not doing anything illegal, you’ll be fine. The worst that could happen is the stealth account gets limited.

TheBizCat said:

It’s not money laundering. Money laundering would be you pushing illegal funds through a series of legal fronts to sort of “clean” the money. If you’re being legitimate and not doing anything illegal, you’ll be fine. The worst that could happen is the stealth account gets limited.

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Ok, maybe money laundering is the wrong word, but it would be passing around money under false names. I think the worst thing is that Paypal closes the account and you don't get the money. That's not a big problem when you're selling a digital product, but it is when you're dropshipping. If I charge the order on a credit card, and the payment in the Paypal account is gone, I'm out of pocket.

Stripe?

ches32 said:

You can just spend the money without transferring or withdrawing.

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That would be the easiest solution, but the dropshipper doesn't accept Paypal.

onlywin said:

Stripe?

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No, same issue. I know there are payment processors that accept high-risk industries, but that requires having a merchant account, which isn't an option in my current situation.

shifubill said:

That would be the easiest solution, but the dropshipper doesn't accept Paypal.



No, same issue. I know there are payment processors that accept high-risk industries, but that requires having a merchant account, which isn't an option in my current situation.

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Gotta be creative man, most obvious example: You got 1k$ on PP, buy a iphone, sell for cash.

ches32 said:

Gotta be creative man, most obvious example: You got 1k$ on PP, buy a iphone, sell for cash.

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That is creative, but I'd rather do something more hands off. And you're going to lose money on the resell. At that point, it's not worth it. Anyway, I appreciate the creativity, but I need something more or less legitimate. This isn't going to make enough money to start hustling around town.

shifubill said:

Can't do that, but I see what you mean. Problem is, the money in the account is gone if Paypal decides to keep it. And using an account from that country means I can't withdraw to my bank account, or any account I can get the money from without transferring to my own Paypal account and that's going to catch on after awhile. I still use my account for legit projects and I need to keep it in good shape.

I know there are services here on BHW that sell shadow Paypal accounts with documents and all. I don't mind doing some botting or other black hat stuff, but I don't want to go full on money laundering.

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its not money laundering if you pay you taxes. People use stealth accounts all of the time. Stay under the limit and you probably will never get asked for docts.

ilovetobun69 said:

People use stealth accounts all of the time. Stay under the limit and you probably will never get asked for d

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My worry is what to do if a PayPal account gets closed and you can't get the money out. And I have to withdraw it to some bank account so I can actually use it.

shifubill said:

My worry is what to do if a PayPal account gets closed and you can't get the money out. And I have to withdraw it to some bank account so I can actually use it.

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They legally have to give it after 6 months and sometimes the rep on the phone is nice and will allow u after 3 months . It depends on if you sell branded stuff or not branded.

You can probably open a bank account easy or there is services that will do that for you for like 40-50% . You most likely will get banned when you only have 20-50$ on there.

In my experience they usually warn you if they catch you early too.


Keep the phone number or else they might ask for docts before u can withdraw tho.


We need to know your country atlease . I can't really say how the banking system is there

ilovetobun69 said:

They legally have to give it after 6 months and sometimes the rep on the phone is nice and will allow u after 3 months . It depends on if you sell branded stuff or not branded.

You can probably open a bank account easy or there is services that will do that for you for like 40-50% . You most likely will get banned when you only have 20-50$ on there.

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50%? That's more than my profit. And a shadow account is under a fake name right?

shifubill said:

50%? That's more than my profit. And a shadow account is under a fake name right?

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I understand but that should be last resort if you can't get a bank account for some reason.

And yes unless you get it off a shady seller. Make sure to confirm before buying otherwise you risk getting stolen docts. I don't understand why they do that since they can't really verify the docts anyways.

If your worried create a llc. A legitimate business will look less risky

Is it $50 or 50%? I don't know why the seller need half my income.

ilovetobun69 said:

If your worried create a llc. A legitimate business will look less risky

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I'm not in a country with LLCs, and I can't start a business with my current residence status.

shifubill said:

Is it $50 or 50%? I don't know why the seller need half my income.



I'm not in a country with LLCs, and I can't start a business with my current residence status.

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Damn that sucks..if you can get banks or even online banks/prepaid cards with banks ,that would work too.

Not taking paypal will loose a lot of sales .So it's best to figure this out.

I honestly don't know why people pay 30-50% to cash out limited PayPal's. I think it would be better just to figure it out. You might be able to get a cheap virual office and send checks there? If your not doing something shady , I don't see a big deal cashing the checks in person with a I'd/your bank.

I think your choices are fairly defined:

1. Sell products using any Paypal account and just pray everyday they don't ban you and hold your funds.
2. Convert the site into an affiliate site and grow the traffic and commissions without risk.
3. Sell the site on Flippa and start again.

ilovetobun69 said:

Damn that sucks..if you can get banks or even online banks/prepaid cards with banks ,that would work too.

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Yeah, I've looked onto that, but I don't think there's a legit way to do that now, not one that works with payment processors.

ilovetobun69 said:

Not taking paypal will loose a lot of sales .So it's best to figure this out.

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I don't mind accepting credit cards only, but that requires a merchant account paying into a business bank account. Unless there's another option I don't know. Paypal was the simplest payment processor. There are others like Skrill, but hardly anyone uses it.

ilovetobun69 said:

I honestly don't know why people pay 30-50% to cash out limited PayPal's.

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Neither do I. There are Russian sites where you can do one thing to another, like PP to bitcoin and vice versa, Skrill to Paypal vv, even Paypall to Western Union. You can even use localbitcoins to go Paypal to bitcoin, then meetup for cash. But that's a lot of hustling.

ilovetobun69 said:

I think it would be better just to figure it out. You might be able to get a cheap virual office and send checks there? If your not doing something shady , I don't see a big deal cashing the checks in person with a I'd/your bank.

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Yes, that would be easy here, but I have to have an account that pays in checks first. Also, cashing lots of checks could cause tax problems here because I'm not supposed to work outside my job.

At this point, I think I have to set it aside for now and focus on something that will take more time but make less trouble, like shoes or flower pots. Paypal surely hasn't banned flower pots yet.

KevinRB said:

1. Sell products using any Paypal account and just pray everyday they don't ban you and hold your funds.
2. Convert the site into an affiliate site and grow the traffic and commissions without risk.
3. Sell the site on Flippa and start again.

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That's about what I said in the first post. I guess I defined it so well I didn't need to post it. I was kind of hoping someone passing by might have experience selling what Paypal considers to be high-risk products in countries outside the US and EU. Vaping products aren't actually banned. But from what US vaping stores say, they have what amounts to a soft-ban. Stores that sell with other countries are using it without issue (I assume), but a store based in that country that sells to US customers is a different issue. Maybe.