I refused to disclose my annual income to PAYPAL and they froze my funds !

reply to post by tauristercus


Can't say that I blame you for not wanting to disclose your annual income, I'd have probably done the same thing.

Sorry, to hear of your problem and I hope that you can get it resolved. I myself have never used e-bay or pay pal and now seeing the hassle that you've gone through with pay pal will never use it, if it can possibly be avoided. I wish I knew what to tell you in the way of advice.

Have you tried going up past the so-called customer service and supervisor like to the next level. I'd probably take my complaint all the way to the top president or CEO of the company and if I got no result there is there a media outlet that could help you, they do have there uses, sometimes someone in the media will give a report about misleading practices and it'll get the big wigs attention, it gets straighened out thanks to the bad publicity they definately don't want bad publicity.
Good luck in your fight, hope you get your money from them. Hope these ideas will help you in some way.

reply to post by Kangaruex4Ewe
As written, the law is precisely as JPZ describes it; as implemented, at least among those less privileged than some, the law works quite differently than written. I remember many learning situations I encountered as a youth, experiences that have indeed colored my views of the justice system.

I have stood in front of judges on both sides of issues, as the defendant and as a plantiff. I have had great experiences with professional law enforcement officers, and horrendous experiences with unprofessional ones. I have had my nose into politics and law (the latter out of necessity) and seen first-hand what remains after it is withdrawn.

I have no doubt that JPZ truly believes his position, nor that he experienced the world he describes up to this time. Life is a funny thing: some are born to ease while others are born to struggle and fight. The former seem to have this Midas touch, and I admire their ability to be in the right place at the right time or say the right thing to the right person. The latter, myself included, seem to be beset with the ability to experience the worst life has to offer.

I am well versed in many subjects: Newtonian physics, chemistry, mathematics, electronic theory, nuclear physics, agriculture, computer science, and construction to name a few. I even like to dabble in quantum mechanics on occasion. But this singular aspect of reality escapes my understanding.

No matter; it is what it is, and these musings are drifting off topic. In any case, I must agree with other posters that an attorney is definitely warranted if finances allow, and I do hope the OP gets his money back.

TheRedneck

you guys must of missed the part were the paypal email say it has to do with Anti-Money Laundering and
Counter-Terrorism Financing Act .


from paypal website

As a global financial institution, PayPal is committed to full compliance with all applicable laws and regulations regarding Anti- Money Laundering (“AML”). PayPal’s policy is to prevent people engaged in money laundering, fraud, and other financial crimes, including terrorist financing, from using PayPal’s services. PayPal has robust policies and procedures to detect, prevent and report suspicious activity. To comply with OFAC (Office of Foreign Asset Control) requirements, and global sanctions, we screen our customer accounts against government watch lists. In addition, we may request that you provide us with documentation to help prove your identity or for business verification purposes. We report suspicious transactions to the financial intelligence unit in the respective country. How does this impact me? As part of our AML procedures, we collect information from you to satisfy our Know Your Customer requirements. This means that we may request information from you due to a specific identification requirement or as a result of our watch list screening process. We may ask you to provide documentation to help confirm your identity or provide additional information regarding your business. We may also request that you seek pre-approval for utilizing the PayPal service if your account falls within a high risk compliance category, as listed in our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). The Acceptable Use Policy can be found here: www.paypal.com.../gen/ua/use/index_frame When is this information requested? We may ask for this information during account opening or as part of our account review process which we periodically conduct on our existing customers.

Originally posted by Kr0nZ
reply to post by ChaoticOrder

 

and like any other currency is based completely on trust

Yeah, but unlike most fiat currencies at least we can't create an infinite amount of it. Furthermore, it's not easy to create, and it does use up a lot of electricity to create them. So if anything else they are supported by the electricity it took to create them, even though they can't be converted back into electricity.

reply to post by woogleuk


I am by no means a fan of PayPal, but there are regulations businesses have to comply by to prevent money laundering. This is not new and PayPal found themselves subject to investigations previously because they were not gathering the information they needed.

Like I said though, I am no fan of theirs. There is little anyone can do if PayPal decides one day that they want your money. Who does a person go to if PayPal simply steals it? There is no one to deal with it, especially for those in countries other than where PayPal is registered.

As for people saying "just don't use them", I don't see those same people offering any alternatives. For people like me who run my business on the internet, and sell services to other businesses all over the world, can you suggest an alternative that all of my customers will be happy with? No, didn't think so.

Here's a tip for you - if you have a PayPal account, do what you need to do to link it to your bank account, and every time you get a payment transfer the cash out of there. Don't let it build up, and don't sell anything of high value like that until you have a history with them and have jumped through all their hoops already.

I also have used EBay/PayPal since 2000-20001 and have had a positive experience with them.
The few "hiccups" that I have had with EBay/Paypal were resolved fairly quickly.
I originally started with a "personal" account, upgraded to "business" when I started an S-Corp.
A few years later downgraded to "personal" when I set up a pure "Business" account for the Corporation.
Recently, the only time either account has hiccups is when $7,000 USD enters PayPal, then they hold the monies for a few months, before I can transfer it.

Now, as has been said by various posters, The OP DID create a PayPal account fraudulently, enough so to freeze the account. Fraud is Fraud and against the law in most countries.

The OP sold "silver buttons", melted down silver.
Not sure what Ozland laws are on melting down and exporting silver, maybe, that was why his account was frozen. Maybe Down Under has some sort of Gresham's law.

One thing that I have not seen posted "What info did the OP put in his Ebay auction?"

Did the OP say he was melting down coins?
Did the OP use terms such as "Coin Silver? (90% silver)

Maybe the OP committed fraud in his EBay auction by saying, for example, that it was "coin silver", yet was only 89% silver.

Maybe the OP was not wholly honest with his postmaster on what he was shipping.

Only the Shadow knows. ;-)

Remember that when you link them to your bank account, you give them full permission to take funds out at will. There's been many incidents where they've pulled out money and sent peoples checking accounts into the negatives

Also years back they suspended funds on a large number of accounts with large amounts of money for six months, turns out they were holding it for their quarterly earnings report or something, once it came out and their stock increased, the executives cashed out


www.paypalsucks.com...

reply to post by boncho

Well if you live in Louisiana, you will go to JAIL for having a yard sale and accepting cash.
Yup.

reply to post by RkAngel

Now, as has been said by various posters, The OP DID create a PayPal account fraudulently, enough so to freeze the account. Fraud is Fraud and against the law in most countries.

Ummm... how exactly do you think the OP created the PayPal account fraudulently hmmmm?

And if eBay allowed the auction to take place without terminating it, PayPal has no freaking say in that. It's up to eBay to cancel any auction they feel is illegitimate.

reply to post by ChaoticOrder


He provided false information, henceforth, fraud.

paypal are the biggest scam going basically

i worked out a way to scam them back though!!

if you setup bank transfer as payment method (requires verification on 2 random deposits paypal makes into your bank account) you can scam paypal... just buy an item on ebay (make sure there is enough money in your bank account) then withdraw the money from your bank and cancel the direct debit agreements with paypal. you get an item for free courtesy of paypal they'll put -xxx on your paypal balance in big red letters and ask for money, but if you dont give it to them like i have they don't do anything time for revenge

Originally posted by RkAngel
reply to post by ChaoticOrder

 

He provide false information, henceforth, fraud.

No, he provided false information on the documents which were requested from him after he had already set up the account. And it wasn't false anyway, because he explained why he didn't want to provide that information (privacy) and why it shouldn't be required from him. He didn't lie, he withheld information which he felt they weren't entitled to.

of course if you do that your paypal account is useless .... but i just setup another bank account and opened a new paypal account and resumed !! idiots havent realised yet ! i am not in any way condoning stealing from people just using a loop hole in paypals money management software to your advantage

I sympathize with you, OP. I managed to get off the PayPal/eBay teat about 2 years ago, and I can only tell you that time will heal the wounds but you'll carry the scar forever. If anyone feels the need for some masochistic lividity, I suggest reading over the PayPal "User Agreement" line by line. See how many appalling items you can find; I'm up to 36

Seriously though, PayPal is a horrible company that frequently holds its customers hostage, while taking their fee AND exploiting customer data for additional profits. I suggest a re-loadable Visa. Easy to use and easy to sell or trade.

reply to post by ChaoticOrder


or you could say he was deliberately deceptive.

Besides, we do not have the whole story, for even with that little tidbit of,


apocryphal, beguiling, bogus, casuistic, concocted, contrary to fact, cooked-up, counterfactual, deceitful, deceiving, delusive, dishonest, distorted, erroneous, ersatz*, fake, fallacious, fanciful, faulty, fictitious, fishy, fraudulent, illusive, imaginary, improper, inaccurate, incorrect, inexact, invalid, lying, mendacious, misleading, misrepresentative, mistaken, off the mark, phony, sham, sophistical, specious, spurious, trumped up, unfounded, unreal, unsound, untrue, untruthful

Information, something else is more than likely the problem.

craigslist my friend....craiglist...

A quick internet search will show you that this has happened to A LOT of people. Paypal is running a game. This happened to my sister a few months ago, even though she's been dealing with paypal for years. She got a payment of $500 for something she sold and paypal held it, froze her account, and it a lawyer and six months to get her money.

I will never deal with paypal myself. They are scandalous.

Update to my PayPal saga

After creating this thread, I contacted PayPal once again and requested an appeal of their earlier decision to terminate my PayPal account and freeze/withhold funds that by all rights is LEGALLY mine.

I've just received their email response where they have once again refused to release my funds or reinstate my account.

Earlier, they had cited, but would not disclose, "legal reasons" for their actions.
Now, they're claiming their actions were justified because of "security issues" regarding my account ... again, they refuse to provide any information to support their ban.

How the hell can having a PayPal account constitute a "security threat" to either PayPal themselves or to anyone else ??
I just don't get it.

Here's the email ...

reply to post by tauristercus


I say you have a lawsuit to recover your funds man..

Jean Paul Zodeaux DROPPIN LAWYER KNOWLEDGE ON Y'ALL
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Paypal is a shady corporation. It's amazing that they can freeze accounts for that many months, that's crazy.