Paypal keeping my money

brightonbelle62

Hi, I run a business on ebay and use paypal (begrudgingly) - it seems most buyers prefer it! Anyway, I was declared bankrupt last month - I owe no money to paypal and there are no problems with my business at all. The official receiver instructed paypal to release my money to me and said I could carry on trading. Paypal then wrote to the OR stating they have frozen my account and I can have no access at all for 180 days. The OR says he can't do anything if paypal refuse to release my funds even though this is the only money I have to live on. I have disputes open that I can't sort out (disputes I've opened not disputes against me) What do I do now? Can anyone help? I don't see why paypal should keep my £600 for 6 months................ can they??

zenseeker

I suppose that they could be freezing the funds in case anyone opens a dispute against you, it is the only way that they can be sure that they can recover funds from you and refund a buyer, that's just a guess mind.

If the OR can't do anything then I doubt that anyone can.

cyril82

i realise this thread is a little out of date but for those who read this and have similar problems, all you need to do is launch a county court claim online at moneyclaim.gov.uk it costs £25 but that is charged back to paypal, unless paypal can prove grounds for holding your money, i.e reasonable cause to suspect you of fraud or similar then no court will agree to them holding your money for six months.

Paypal know this and don't challenge the claim, it can take upto 28 days to get the money out of paypal but if it's a choice between 28 and 180 day's it's a no brainer.

don't waste time arguing your case to them they freeze accounts routinely and if they say they are holding your money for 6 months thats what they will do, no matter what argument you give or how much you are in the right they don't care. Take action a.s.a.p.

soolin

No they do not freeze accounts routinely, there was more to the original story than was apparent and probably a bit more info might have got some further responses that might have helped the OP.

I doubt now though after 4 months that anyone is particularly interested in keeping this thread open.

cyril82

soolin wrote: »

No they do not freeze accounts routinely, there was more to the original story than was apparent and probably a bit more info might have got some further responses that might have helped the OP.

I doubt now though after 4 months that anyone is particularly interested in keeping this thread open.

What do you mean soolin "no they don't?" YES THEY DO!! sell £1,700 worth of goods you'll be frozen under E.U Anti money laundering legislation, but guess what? those of us who have read this legislation know that there is NO SUCH REQUIREMENT, So why do it? they are lieng about why they do it which is very suspicious.

They also like to ask people who are selling their own goods to produce "proof of inventory" i.e purchase order from supplier and refuse to release funds for 6 months when they can't.

Anyone who uses paypal for business purposes will have experienced these account freezes and if you visit sites such as paypalsucks.com and powersellersunite you'll read these stories over and over and over again, different people, same reason given, sounds routine to me.

as for there being more to this case than stated in orgional post, well, i can only go off what's written.

If your going to advise people on ebay and paypal you should be more impartial and not always defend ebay and paypal, they are two very badly run companies and while some people who post here may be in the wrong ebay and paypal do alot wrong too, i have taken paypal to the small claims court three times, they have never contested the case, because they know what they are doing is wrong. they were refused full membership when they applied to the F.S.A, THEY have been the subject of investigation by the bbc's watchdog program ....the list goes on but my point is what's to defend??

cyberbob

cyril82 wrote: »

If your going to advise people on ebay and paypal you should be more impartial and not always defend ebay and paypal,

Maybe you need to be a bit more impartial. Ebay and Paypal are not all bad there is a huge amount of users who are quite happy with the service provided by both. Far more than the vocal few who are unhappy

Why go round reserecting old threads just so you can get your point of view across?!

cyril82

cyberbob wrote: »

Maybe you need to be a bit more impartial. Ebay and Paypal are not all bad there is a huge amount of users who are quite happy with the service provided by both. Far more than the vocal few who are unhappy

ever had to take paypal to court to release £3,000 of your money because they froze it under Eu Anti money laundering legislation that doesn't exist because despite providing every document they asked for they still wouldnt release your money after 3 months?

Then had to do it again two more time??

If you had i doubt you'd reccomend them to anyone. Yet while i wouldn't reccomend them i do give impartial advise, if you look at my first post it's pretty impartial except that it points out that paypal have no power to hold your money against your wishes except for claiming you agreed to it in their t's&c's which doesn't stand up in court as it's clearly an unfair contractual term, why would anyone on here disagree or object to someone highlighting the fact that paypal can not hold your money against your will and if you want your money you can get it back easily using the county court system?

These are consumer help forums, i like to help the consumers, paypal can help themselves and they do...to other peoples money without good reason so why support this action?

vangirl_2

cyril82 wrote: »

ever had to take paypal to court to release £3,000 of your money because they froze it under Eu Anti money laundering legislation ?

There must have been a reason? This is not common practice

TurkishDelight

cyril82 wrote: »

sell £1,700 worth of goods you'll be frozen under E.U Anti money laundering legislation,

Have you tried verifying and confirming your account? :rolleyes:

I do find it slightly hard to believe that. Actually VERY hard to believe as we have sold more than that, and I expect most powersellers go through that amount very quickly.

I'm no paypal defender, some of the stuff they do is ridiculous and a customer service team who understand... well anything really... would be nice. But they have millions of users and a lot of high volume sellers so there's more to your problem than meets the eye or at least paypal think so.

cyril82

vangirl wrote: »

There must have been a reason? This is not common practice

I used to be a pro seller on ebay making profits of over £60,000 per annum i operated on ebay for a couple of years before walking away, i no longer make my main income from online retailing as the weaker pound has killed my import business, i keep a part time interest on amazon, ebid, and occasionally ebay (begrudgingly).

I assure you there was no reason, they sent me emails stating they did not suspect me of any wrong doing and were not accusing me of any wrong doing when i complained.

When they froze my funds they stated the Eu Anti Money laundering requirement, they asked for photo i.d, proof of inventory and proof of postage for my last five sales, i supplied the info within hours, 3 weeks later still frozen, 6 weeks still frozen, then they start giving me excuse after excuse untill i eventually contacted CAB, since i was operating my business as a ltd company they put me in touch with a legal charity for small businesses who helped me get the account unfrozen, i now only allow ebay 14 days from docs being submitted before i commence legal action to remove limitations.

What worries me about them is through research i know i am not an exception, thats why i advise others not to accept their account freezes, unless people take action they will continue doing it. No one deserves to have their funds frozen for 6 months except fraudsters obviously, but paypal dont just freeze fraudsters money and thats a fact.....

cyril82

TurkishDelight wrote: »

Have you tried verifying and confirming your account? :rolleyes:

I do find it slightly hard to believe that. Actually VERY hard to believe as we have sold more than that, and I expect most powersellers go through that amount very quickly.

I'm no paypal defender, some of the stuff they do is ridiculous and a customer service team who understand... well anything really... would be nice. But they have millions of users and a lot of high volume sellers so there's more to your problem than meets the eye or at least paypal think so.

thanks but as a profesional seller i was fully verified as a business account holder.
Perhaps there was more to it than meets the eye.....but if there was they were not telling me what it was and they were in no mood to explain to a court why they were doing it.......funny that!!