So Disappointed Right Now I Could Cry

Sorry to hear that, Sheryl. Did they give a reason?

If not, there must be something you can do about the cash they've kept?

I've heard of people having this happening. It's disappointing bu remember they have a HUGE number of customers, it should get sorted out. Just provide them what they ask for and try to stay as polite as possible. Don't give up though, I think they're definitely in the wrong, that's just silly.

Remind them they are a reputable company and you are sure they take care of their users, and that you would like them to uphold that persona with you.

The power of argument in the correct way can do wonders sometimes.

Keep us updated on what happens.

Hello,
I have had many issues with paypal over the years and I have resolved all of them by talking to them on the phone, they have gotten better over the years.
There have been many posts about paypal on this forum saying bad things when things go wrong but never good things when things go right.

Tell them that it was for a charity, and phone them up and tell them. Also tell them you work as a reporter and I bet they do a 180 so fast it will boggle the mind.

The last thing they need is public stories about how they refused to hand over charity money. Seriously push this one and you will win. They cannot steal, as that is illegal regardless of who they are. Just think of how a few well placed press releases could cripple them, well they have already considered it.

Sheryl are you authorised to raise money for charity? Usually you need to be. Maybe that's got something to do with it.



Andrew

Sheryl I am so sorry to hear that.

Send them all the info etc and then contact them. I hope you get your account back.

Did they inform you how long it will take?

Any problems with paypal you should be calling them, there can be a long wait sometimes but you can get it sorted there and then!

There's your problem. They have very strict rules about raising money for a charity, such as filing non-profit paperwork and so forth with them. For legal liability reasons, they can't allow the kind of activity your were doing, even if it was for a good cause.

As many people have mentioned, you need to talk to them on the phone. By email you get a group of semi-trained chimpanzees, but on the phone they seem intelligent and helpful.

Phone them and I bet they fix it for you, and if not then make a fuss on here and I bet you get lots of people that can make an impact and cause them problems until they do, me included.

Damn, that sucks. I've had my account limited more than once, but they are usually very co-operative when you get them on the phone.

I don't know about complete ban though... one of my friends had it, and even after trying multiple times on the phone and e-mail, he couldn't get it back. Just a cookie cutter response about Paypal's policy etc.

I don't think it could've been from a high volume of sales. At $3, I'm guessing you made roughly 80 sales (+/-), which, after fees, would probably equal around $200ish.

80 sales, especially totaling under $200, shouldn't have raised any red flags.

That said, I don't know much about Paypal, so I could be totally wrong. Do you have a business or premier account? Maybe it's related to the type of account you have and the limits/restrictions imposed on them. Just throwing ideas out there

I got an email today telling me that they are holding money from sales for 21 days, that too is a pita, most of the info was discussing information about eBay which I hardly ever use.

I agree Paypal is a pain, but they are the monopoly for online payment, I would keep trying to work with them and stay patient.

I'm sorry to hear that. Hopefully Paypal will straighten it out for you on the phone rather than via email.

Thanks guys, I'll give them a call and see how I go. Although I'm thinking I might wait until later this afternoon, the way I'm feeling at the moment I'm likely to say something I shouldn't, so I will wait until I am feeling a little more relaxed.

Sorry to hear that, I had my account restricted last week and got it lifted the same day by calling them...give them a call!

Wish ya luck!

Best

I movement relatively high amounts of money with Paypal (CPA networks pay me through Paypal, all of them!) and I have never had problems with them. However, today I was talking to another Warrior by email about a campaign that I'm setting up to promote an offer for one of his clients and I asked him to pay me through Paypal instead of wire transfer. He said that it's very risky because Paypal have been deleting many accounts recently without decent reasons.

For security reasons, I have more than one Paypal account (I use the name of my parents) and always cash out the money when my balance exceeds $1K. It protects me not only from hackers, but also from Paypal!


William

sorry to hear that sheryl, i hope you can resolve it soon.

Just an update after speaking to Paypal on the phone - basically they can't help because it is with the resolution centre and apparently the resolution centre doesn't have phones or do not accept phone calls.

After asking to speak to a Supervisor, he was at least able to take the hold on funds down from 180 days to 45 days and so will release the funds to me after 45 days, which is good as that is before the Relay to Life date for our fundraising event.

As far as having the limitation removed on my account, he said the same thing, that it is dealt with through the resolution centre and they don't take phone calls.

Grrrrr - still angry, upset, but at least I can get hold of the funds in 45 days - better than nothing!

Sheryl, I recently had $1000 of funds frozen for two months on my business PayPal account. I tried redressing it through their Support system and got nowhere. It was only when I was able to talk to a human bean on the phone that the problem was solved. The help desk is run by drones in India - all graduates of The School of No Idea. I bet a phone call will sort it out sharpish.

High risk activity ~ $200 ?

c'mon....

*rolls eyes*

ridiculous.

They should be ashamed of themselves to hold up a fundraiser like that.

Have you looked at eBay/PayPal's balance sheet?
They're rich.

There's no point in acting like a jerk over $200.

I'm sure there are plenty of other auctions they should be looking more closely at... instead of what you're doing.

Hope you got this sorted out.

At the risk of being a spoiltsport I will say that most countries have fairly strict rules regarding collecting charity money. I used to work at the UK's regulator of charities and got to hear of some pretty bad scams, so the regulations are there for a reason.

I worked for an info product company last year that use clickbank and paypal to accept payments.

Our paypal account (the company;s) got shut down really quickly after buying a high-volume sales website from flippa. The account was doing a lot of money, and one or two disputes didn't get picked up, and the account got locked. I don't want to get into the specifics too much as it is private, but I will go into what we had to do to try and resolve the situation.

I phoned them and got through to some absolute special-cases who really didn't want to help me out, despite my polite and humbled tone. I even went to the lengths of calling their UK HQ. I got through one gatekeeper or two to get through to yet more gate keepers who were pretty shy about giving me their names. It was a pointless exercise.

My boss found a personal home address of the UK Director of paypal and found a business address to reach him at after searching several forums online for several hours. He sent a letter and a copy of it to his home address highlighting how much business he had done with paypal, and how gutted he was that he was getting brick-walled, and his funds held for 180 days.

Paypal eventually wrote back to us, and we had a contact directly with some one in the resolution centre. We had their name and personal email address. We communicated with them for almost a year. I am not sure to this day the situation was properly resolved (even though they promised to re-instate the account next month, and then next month and then next month). I left the company before it all got resolved.

It was a frustrating problem, but paypal can afford to treat people like us this way, because 1) we signed up to their terms and conditions and agreed to play by their rules 2) they are covering themselves, and Lord knows, there are a lot of questionable operators out there who have given this kind of business a bad name 3) they have millions of users/customers, and losing a few hundred or even thousand of us will not too dramatically affect their bottom line.

They are a huge company, and there are info marketers complaining everywhere about them on forums. Paypal doesn't even blink at that kind of stuff because it doesn't really have any profound affect on their business.

I think this is a horrible situation that you are in, and I wish you all the best. It is excellent they are only holding your funds for 45 days, and that is a better outcome than my ex-employer got! I truly wish you all he best with it. I agree the phone is the best way to handle it, but expect to be given the run around. I really feel for you, especially since it was for charity.

To those using paypal, my message to you would be; diversify! Paypal is excellent, and I do like their product, but operating in the finance industry, they are a little over zealous with their policies, and they can afford to be. They don't care if they lose your business, or the business of your friends or customers.

Hi. This was so nice and generous of you Sheryl and you are right to rant about Paypal the way you have.
This happened with me as well some time ago and I searched and searched and ranted on and on till I found a way out.
I have helped many people sort out their Paypal issues since then. Would you be kind enough to drop me a PM with your email id and I can share my story and further details with you .
Basically, when Paypal was 'torturing' me, I had over $2000 in my account. I had to get it out, any whichever way. I was frantic and desperate for a solution.
Luckily, I found many people to help me and offer advice and I tried many different things but I thing worked for me. I now have a huge list of paypal email id's - from their customer care to their executive office and practically everyone on their staff. I sent my documents and my entire history of transactions and within 2 days my account was restored. I can share the list with you and more details on how to solve this.
Let me know if you need my help and I am just a PM away
Hope this brings a smile to you face, Sheryl.

- Jo

I don't get it! They say the funds will be held for 180 days but after 1 year the issue is not resolved? This is not the first time I am hearing it, but never asked before.

So the idea behind it is to come up with a new slang after 6 months and give the customer a run around until they get tired and give up so paypal can keep their money? I sure hope that is not the case.

@Sheryl
sorry to hear your situation. I am sure you will sort it out soon. All the best.

Tanvir

I am very sorry to hear that.
Hope you can get it soon

First, from their point of view, you are using a personal account to sell stuff with the claim that the money goes to charity. That probably violates all kinds of rules. They don't know you, don't know that you are sincere and so assume the worst.

Still, to seize your funds without warning and close the account without due process is the kind of arrogant action only a quasi-monopoly with deep pockets and a staff of lawyers would do.

But all is not lost...
I had a similar thing happen to me a few years ago. I had an account closed and funds put on hold not because of anything I did but because a number of the people who had paid me had done so fraudulently (with stolen accounts). They figured that made ME high risk, so they took my money and basically put me out of business.

After getting nowhere with email and phone reps, I went to a conference where a Paypal exec was giving a presentation trying to sell businesses on their merchant account product. After his talk, I went up to him and explained my situation. He promised to look into it, and within days my account was reactivated and the funds released.

The lesson is that you need to escalate until you get someone who will help you. In your case, I would let the charity know that Paypal is holding their money and have one of THEIR execs contact Paypal.

If all else fails and no one is paying attention to you, you might consider issuing a news release, "Paypal seizes funds from volunteer raising money for Cancer", tell your story, and distribute it widely. That will get their attention. Just make sure you get the facts right. You don't want to open yourself to a lawsuit for libel.

Good luck, and don't lose faith. You'll most likely get the money and the account back, although it may take some effort.

You should inform paypal regarding the up-coming sales event / product launch before that to avoid been banned by paypal.

Sheryl, if you don't mind me asking, what type of account do you have? They have 3 different classifications of accounts with different sets of rules for each.

Sheryl, this is not big issue. Trust me, you want to call them everyday for next one week.

They will definitely restore your account.

Trust me this is not big issue, justcall them and tell them, i want to talk to your manager or something.

This sums up PayPal fully, unfortunately. I know some people claim they are trying to change etc, but the truth is that they still act in this (in my opinion) almost illegal way on a daily basis.

Am very sorry to hear about this

As mentioned above, try ringing them at least once per day and hopefully you'll have some joy.

As I know, when you are using Paypal in charity payment or charity fund raising, you need to inform them before you applying that Paypal account.

They have a special account type for you. So most likely you need to apply a new account for only charity purpose & paypal will request you to give some proof. (if you already own & registered a charity organization, the registration proof itself could be sufficient)

Anyway, normal paypal account could not be used to do charity. I think Paypal has this to protect scammer from raising so called "charity" money for their personal use.

This is a sad situation..but an eye opener to others. Hope everything will goes well soon.

It's so disappointing that is so sudden that you can be shut down without due diligence by this multicorp. So ironic that you're on the mercy of them even tough they are earning from your source/money...

I do hope you can get this resolved Sheryl. Please, please try not to let it get you down. I'm sure you'll get it resolved.

The problems often arise from the activities of the automatons who deal with such issues. The personal account status is most likely the cause though.

Someone once said "No good deed goes unpunished. Life is so unfair that one is more likely to get into some sort of trouble than be rewarded if one attempts to do a good deed."

Best wishes and my hopes it's resolved soon.

Ray

This is the problem with paypal.. they can be some heartless b*st*ds some times. So sorry to hear about this....

When we raise money for charity we have to send in all our non profit information etc so I imagine you may have been black banned for this.

Also did you have a premium account as doing all this through a personal account is why most get this type of action as it should not be used for business.

Anyhow I am sorry to hear your problems and hope it gets resolved soon.

Quentin

A press release about how Paypal stole $200 from a charitable organization... Well, try to be more 'political correct than I am.

Just wanted to thank everybody for the advice on this thread.

I'm relatively new to paypal so should anything arise I will call them by phone to sort it out.

Ryan Biddulph

They deleted your account probably because it looked very similar to a lot of fraud that goes on. Having a bunch of low priced amounts (like $1 to $3) is one of the first signs of stolen credit cards and paypal accounts. If you don't have an account with a lot of prior activity, it makes it look even worse.

So stay away from only having super low charges with nothing else, newer accounts, and (one that I learned myself) multiple products at the same price point in your upsell chain.

Brian

Thank you everyone for your kind words. I do realize the mistakes I made here in not using a business account and not going through the correct channels of Paypal for a charity fundraiser.

I am over my initial disappointment and will wait the 45 days. We are fundraising up until the 20th November for this (that is the day of the actual Relay for Life event) so as long as I can get hold of the money before that date is the main thing.

Hi Sheryl

Can you direct me to some more information about your "site flipping product for just $3".

Thanks
Ric