Paypal/ebay

easytiger_blue

I have been an eBay member using pay pal with my same Bank account for the last six years mostly on small sales up to £30 or so.
Due to the financial climate I recently sold 4 rare items on eBay over a 10 day period.
I was so pleased, 3 of the items went for a total of around £600, the 4th shocked me beyond belief, it sold for £2300.
Although I would have preferred to retain these items I really needed the money to survive.

Several hours after the 4th sale I received an e-mail from Pay Pal (see below)

“We are sending you this notice because you have received more than 1,700.00 GBP in total payments to your Pay Pal account. European Union anti-money laundering regulations and "know-your-customer" regulations require us to collect additional information when customers receive more than the mentioned amount in total payments.”

I then received an e-mail asking for ID information, which I forwarded.
I then received an e-mail saying over the next seven working days they would pay into my account 2 separate dominations between a penny and 99p, which is what they did when I first setup the account with them 6 years ago.
On day 5 they placed the 2 amounts into my account, I informed them immediately, they still did not release my money so I phoned their premium line number, and after 5 minutes I spoke to a human voice, who asked for a copy of a bank statement too be scanned and emailed to them, each time they were unhappy with the scan. After the 3rd time I didn’t hear back from them so I would assume they were happy.

Although I have had no response from them at the time of writing this e-mail,
It appears should they decided I am not a money launderer and before they can release my account, my situation has to be forwarded to they accounts department for a final decision.

Today I have read that eBay bought pay pal for I.5 Billion, and also many horror stories from people on chat rooms on the net who are in a similar situation to myself, and had their money frozen for six months or more.

I have spent money on registering the 3 items and over £100. Couriering the most expensive item.
At this moment I am devastated and also out of pocket and no longer own the treasured items I owned for the last 40 years, I am too frighten to send a hash e-mail to pay pal incase they freeze my account indefinitely.
:mad::mad:

Tixy

Hi and welcome

You might want to ask this on the ebay board here http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.html?f=40. I expect others may have had similar problems and can help with a solution (or help speed ebay up). They do have to adhere to the ML regulations but they certainly shouldn't be taking months to do this sort of verification.

Hope you get it sorted soon.

niccatw

Hi Easytiger

I'm afraid I can't actually help as I've never sold anything on ebay. Just noticed no-one had responded to you - perhaps post this in the "ebay, car boot and auctions" forum too as there may be more folk there that can help.

Don't know if the Citizen's Advice could maybe give you advice on your rights and what Paypal can and can't do? Worth a try anyway.

Sorry I can't give you more useful advice.

Good luck - I hope you get it sorted sooner rather than later - it must be frustrating for you to say the least!

Tixy

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1697053
This thread deals with the same topic so might be worth a read