In the last 2 days I've been battling with Paypal since they froze my account after receiving payment for a truck I sold.
Their excuse is "to investigate any suspicious activity"

I want to warn everybody that uses this gateway payment to be aware of their illegal policies.

As a result of this activity I had to provide to them proof of purchase of this vehicle, another vehicle, other parts I sold, personal information non pertinent with this business, and more. This is not legal, they cannot ask where somebody purchase their items, they have no authority for doing this.

Paypal is a gateway payment, not the Police, there is law enforcement to resolve any illegal issue.
Their statement was "mine is a random check" which I argued since I've been using Paypal for over 7 years, have over 7,000 transactions, and definitely a crook will not "hang around" this long.

I just want to warn people they can loose all their money until some proof of possession is shown to Paypal. To make it short, the reel you bought at the Swap last weekend and paid cash could freeze all your funds indefinitely since you cannot provide proof of purchase.

DO NOT leave any funds on your account, remove all your banking info or just add a 0 balance bank account and cancel your credit card information, or you will end up in a mess like mine.

I am looking into another way to accept CC payments, and I am dumping Paypal for good.
I know there might be people that will not believe or argue this but trust me, it will get to you very soon.

I am involving MN General Attorney to look into this procedure, I am also going to try to involve the media into an investigation.

I had to vent it out, sorry but BE VERY AWARE.

 

I never leave any balance in my paypal account. As soon as the money comes in, I withdraw it to my bank account immediately.

 

yeah Ive heard of this happening before. I try to keep a low balance in there. I always assumed it took a law enforcement agency with a court order or the IRS at their own discretion w/o a court order to freeze funds. I think the problem with paypal is that there is little to no regulations on these gateway or transfer stations.

 

isn't paypal owned by E-bay?

 

Paypal (vacuums) and once you agree to their policies, you are done.
I learned -thankfully- ahead of time that if you sell guns or parts, they will take your money due to 'supporting terrorist activities' and same thing, freeze your account.

not to be rude- but obviously- you know that this is actually paypal?
I would CRR a letter to them in San Jose.
I had a lawyer there file a petition in California supreme court (scary sounding but it only costs 75 bucks) to get my 550 bucks back that they
debited me with WHEN I HAD NO ACCOUNT. an Ebay guy decided to file a claim two months later on a winch. like any claim exists? try arguing that with paypal.

if you only use it a little bit. close the account each time. NEVER leave your bank info 'on file' as you will be asked. NEVER. I opened a special account that only is for paypal, ebay etc. it has a limit that I call to authorize each time, so nothing can be claimed against the account.
zero balance.

with all your transactions and business stuff, you might be better off making a site of your own through smallbusiness.com (works with visa)...
don't know any more about that though.... best of luck to you, leave the gun home.

 

Not just paypal. Ever deal with western union? ha!

 

I setup a seperate bank account just for Paypal. As was said already, as soon as money hits the account I move it! I keep a few bucks in there just to keep the bank from closing the account.....

 

NEVER give out your bank info to them...

I've been using it for 6 years with no problems

Good luck guy!

 

What they said, when I signed up for PP they wanted me to "verify" my information. Not likely!!!

 

local guy here was using it as "his bank account"

they locked ~$850 for a few months.

i think i will go in there and delete some of my banking stuff, even though it is a "paypal only" account.

 

The thing is though if they(paypal) are found to be acting in illegal conduct, it doesnt matter what you've signed. It doesnt matter what contract or policy that you agree to, if its illegal or found to be illegal any contract with illegal wording in it is illegal and therefore invalid.

 

I bought something on ebay a couple years ago and I used paypal,
about a week later I bid on something else and won, tried using paypal
again and they said I was over my limit, thier limit, not my CC.
Something about being a new user and unverified.
Luckily the seller had different payment options, so we closed the deal to everyones satisfaction. Now my first question on ebay to sellers is if they
take any other sort of payment besides paypal. If not, I don't bid.

 

Many years of trouble free paypal usage here.

I kick low feedback's out of my auctions though.. if they have a good ebay account they understand the value of a good rep, a smooth running account, and dont try to do anyone over.. only stick with established ebay accounts and avoid buying and selling from new people.

 

have zero problems with paypal... what triggered the audit?

of course I'm proactive in all my paypal sales. no way anything reaches level of paypal complaint. it gets resolved one way or another. simply too much garbage any other way...

 

PayPal does have my bank account info, but if the money is in your REAL (FDIC) account, they can't take it back out - or at least shouldn't be able to. I would not accept PayPal for anything more than a few hundred dollars. I have a PayPal debit card that I use ONLY to withdraw money. One way to operate is don't send any items until you have cash in your hand. For a $1 fee you can go to a bank and withdraw the cash (up to 4 or 500$). I usually do not sell anything worth much so end up taking a risk and doing the electronic transfer. But agreed, DO NOT LEAVE MONEY IN PAYPAL. Some people praise PayPal and use it as their bank accounts What do you get out of that - an extra 0.5% cash back over a regular CC.... not worth it.