PayPal/E-Bay Are With Withholding My Money Unfairly

MrsTinks

I've moved your thread over for you

cyril82

Fear not, i have been in the exact situation several times before when i was a professional seller on ebay.

Firstly let me tell you that there is no requirement under EU Anti money laundering legislation for paypal to freeze accounts, that is a rule they invented so they are lying to you for a start.

I challenged account freezes several times, 3 times via the small claims court and paypal never tried to defend, because they have no grounds or real legal right to hold the money.

In this instance paypal will probably try to hold the money for six months, but there is no need to let them.

First thing to do is email them a pre-legal notice and post it also to their uk offices at:
PAYPAL (EUROPE) LTD
WHITTAKER HOUSE
WHITTAKER AVENUE
RICHMOND
SURREY
TW9 1EH

Send the letter recorded, given the time elapsed allow only 7 days for them to release the money (sorry there is no overnight solution unless they give in to the pre-legal email)

The basis of your letter and email should read:

PRE-LEGAL NOTIFICATION

Account Name:
Email address:

Despite my compliance with your request to supply extra proof of identity and other documentation i am disappointed that you have failed to remove the account limitation and i remain unable to access my funds.

Furthermore i am alarmed that you claim that you have to freeze money due to EU Anti money laundering regulations as this is not my understanding of the law. Could you therefore provide documented evidence from a respected legal source that highlights the requirement for you to freeze my account funds in order to comply with EU Anti money laundering legislation.

I require my funds to be released within 7 days or a valid legal reason that prevents you from doing so be presented to me in writing.

If you ignore this notice or reply in any other way than to comply with the above i will commence legal proceedings without further notice, at which time court costs, legal expenses and interest will be added to the amount being held in my account by you against my will.


Yours sincerely
YOUR NAME

if they do not release your money after seven days, or they reply asking for extra i.d. or in any other way try to stall you then issue the court claim online via www.moneyclaim.gov.uk , it costs £25 but that is charged back to paypal, they will not defend unless you committed some kind of fraud which i presume you did not.

A few times when i did this paypal backed down without me having to claim via the court but three times i had to claim but still they never disputed the claim they just released my money plus costs.

Going through the court is better than waiting six months which is how long paypal can, and often do, hold money according to their T&C'S.

However if that sounds too long to wait then do as i say but ring them every day and demand to speak to a senior manager when you ring stating this is a pre legal warning, then pester them and make it clear you are going to take them to court if they do not release your money within the time frame you set, no excuses will be accepted, if you stand firm they may give in within a few days but failing that you will have started the process to get your money back if they won't play ball.

Good luck and if you need any advice just ask.

cyril82

in this case they are quoting EU Anti money laundering legislation that does not exist.

I had my account frozen under this imaginary legislation 3 times and i know from reading forums such as paypal sucks and powersellers unite that paypal use this reason alot and strangely seem to always refuse the info you upload and request you fax it, then still dont lift the limitation?

Same reasons, same stalling process just different people...Very suspect.

reech

I had funds frozen in paypal about 6 months ago (not as much as the OP) and also went through the 'money-laundering' and 'id-that-wasn't-good-enough' rigmarole.

Sending a similar pre-legal notice resulted in my funds being unfreezed within a couple of days of them receiving the letter. I received no official communication, just a notification by email that the monies had been 'released into my account', not even citing my letter.

I did do a follow up asking them cheekily if they could pay me some compensation for the inconvenience, but they never bothered to respond. However, I've had no further problems.

Strapped

Same problem here, some good advice, thanks. Tried "speaking to a real person" (even one who spoke English!) but got me nowhere so far.

cyril82

i'm about to go to bed now but i'll do some digging tomorrow when i have a minute and see if if i can get the phone number for the paypal office in surrey, they rang me from there once when i issued court proceedings to negotiate ending the claim without them getting a ccj, basically asking would i accept them entering a defence on the grounds of having paid if they settle up with me before hand.

It was a different experience and i also got a few other issues moped up too while i was on the phone to them.

Basically that is where the legal team is so if i could get that number you could cut out the monkeys and go straight to the organ grinder.

TurkishDelight

Ask for another letter.
They'll say they can't, but get through to a real person and they'll get you one.
Happened to us not that long ago, just pester them in one way or another and it'll get sorted.

discoinferno

Thank You so much - The Support on here is incredibile - I appreciate it so much. I have to go to work now but I will read in depth this afternoon and start the letter writing procedure. I have tried so many times to speak to a 'real' person, unfortunately they are like robots and sound like they are just reading from a script, it makes it even more frustrating. Thanks again everyone.

cyberbob

cyril82 wrote: »

First thing to do is email them a pre-legal notice and post it also to their uk offices at:

You could always phone them first and see if it can be sorted out on the phone. Others have. Just a though.

cyril82

cyberbob wrote: »

You could always phone them first and see if it can be sorted out on the phone. Others have. Just a though.

She could, but it's been 4 weeks already, she had complied with everything they asked her to do, i.e. submit docs online, not good enough, fax the docs, not good enough, if she rings them or email's them again they will request the docs again, and guess what...it won't be good enough.

Further more there is no legal requirement to freeze the account under Eu Anti Money Laundering Legislation as paypal say, so why accept it?

She has complied, she has waited 4 weeks, it's now time to step it up, the aim of what i advise is to pressure paypal into removing the limitation by starting formal collection proceedings, hopefully if she pesters them a little after giving the pre-legal warning they will give in and release the money.

I used to sell in one of ebay's high risk categories at one time and during that time i was blighted with paypal account freezes, the so called fraud prevention ones are bad enough but this one that is based on lying about legislation that does not exist is one of the worst, they know the legislation does not exist, they know that having it in their T&C'S won't make a blind bit of difference in the claims court and that a judge would simply tell them it's not your money give it back.

Therefore hopefully they will buckle in a few days but if not claiming and getting the money back in 3 to 4 weeks is better than waiting potentially 4-5 more months.