Paypal 'Limited Access account' - Frozen my £700 for 180 days

ceminem

I had the same thing happen to me, took them 6 months until I was unfrozen and could access my account to withdraw .

RFW

richto wrote: »

You dont post to that address. You serve a small claims court summons on them. And they pay up. It would cost them £500 minimum just to represent themselves and deny liability.

You forgot to mention that if they do defend it will cost the person serving it more money on top. It isn't quite as simple as you make out to serve a summons, serving one doesn't mean the receiving company will pay up as the costs to defend are too high.

janb5

Hi,

i was very interested in this thread as on Friday this week someone has used my details on Paypal to spend £340 at John David Group . My account is now frozen pending investigation which adds to my difficulties as my son(23) has had all his money withdrawn from his Nationwide a/c this week- nothing to do with Paypal but I have been lending him money to tide him over.

I have stopped my card but am unable to get through to Special Investigations despite numerous phone calls. Once this is over I am cancelling Paypal and will pay by cheque instead. I am really spooked by the fact that paypal demand all these sensitive information about my account when my personal information has already been compromised.

I did speak to Paypal who say the money will be restored in 3 - 10 days but I remain sceptical about that. I logged onto saynoto 0870.com and use the 0800 number on there. The girl originally informing of the theft refused to give me her surname(!) and also said 0870 was a free number! Yeah right!

Love to hear advice from anyone who has had a similar experience. I used to think I was quite savvy about account safety but not any more!

Nationwide have also disappointed me by not providing a hotline to record these problems ...only for credit card users- that seems to be worrying!

so2006

Hi,

janb5, If paypal are asking for you passport ect, just give it, i did, and my account was back to normal in 2 days, also they do refund you, if they are 100% sure it was fraudlent (diffrent i.p used, diffrent address ect)

donald64

Hi Guys just came across this thread and i need help desperately.
Basically i sold 5 items on ebay which all ended at once:
Bass guitar
guitar effects pedal x 2
mobile phone
Pro tools Mbox music interface

basically around 860 went into my paypal account all at once. This was to pay for my mortgage which is due next week. Pay pal limited my account, and asked for all of the pre - mentioned information for me to supply - passport, proof of address, reasons for sale, tracking numbers for all five items etc.

so i gave it all to them the same day and they said they cannot escalate it further because one of my items was still in transit (bass guitar) how intrusive is that!.

The next day I get a payment through to the same limited account from a website I run. This is for £30. The next thing I know i get a message saying the £30 sale is in violation of there user policy agreement and they lock down the entire amount of £892 for 180 days which I needed for my mortgage next week.

To be honest i have violated their user agreement with the last £30 item I sold from the website but did they or do they have any right to hold onto my items that were limited from ebay because they got flagged up probably due to the large payment influx on my account all at once ? I am stuck for what to do. Any help would be greatly appreciated and if anyone has anymore information on using the small claims court i would greatly appreciate that too.

Please help me if anyone knows anything I dont want to default my mortgage let alone wait 6 months for £900 which is a lot of money to me as my trading is very small time.

thanks for reading, Donald.

cyril82

Your case depends on how exactly you have breached the user agreement, if it is in a way that either breaks the law or potentially exposes paypal to chargeback’s or loss then they may have grounds to keep hold of your money.

If it was a minor breach that does not affect paypal negatively you may be able to pursue the release of your money.

Usually, where no paypal policy breach occurred you just need to progress through a standard process of,

• comply with demands
• ask nicely for your money to be released
• demand the release of your money
• formally demand the release of your money via a pre legal warning
• issue county court claim.

Most people get to the second to last before paypal release the money, how long you leave between each stage is up to you, just be reasonable, however, in your case I’d consider how likely it is that paypal would defend the claim given your policy breach.

I'm not aware of any case where paypal have defended any of the standard account freezes normally associated with ebay/paypal but i don't know the details of your policy breach so how you proceed is up to you.

cyberbob

donald64 wrote: »

To be honest i have violated their user agreement with the last £30 item I sold from the website

As you said you have violated the user agreement. Just keep phoning and hassleing them people who do this seem to have success

cyberbob

Also Jan5 surely paypal locking your account is a good thing as they stopped any more unauthorised usage. You need to speek to them and supply what they need

cyril82

cyberbob wrote: »

Also Jan5 surely paypal locking your account is a good thing as they stopped any more unauthorised usage. You need to speek to them and supply what they need

Jan5's post is over a year old, i think it might be sorted by now.

peter_the_piper

Do paypal work that fast?