Holding the money hostage for half a year on a 20 year old account? Not surprising. Paypal and their other entities like Ebay are pretty shit when it comes to nuance and their impact on others.
Had a 15 year old Paypal business account (parent started it and I took it over ~7 years ago) and last year they shut it down because I, as the new owner, was not 18 when the account was created. Nothing from the support but "computer said you bad, nothing we can do".
In Ebays case I sold an item, got the regular email from Ebay (DMARK/SPF/IP verified) that they had received payment and was holding it until the item had been delivered. Then a week later I got another email from them saying they had blocked the buyer for abuse (i.e. a fraudulent transaction to them) and that I shouldn't ship the item they told me to ship a week ago. After 2 months of trying to get through to the support they just claimed that someone spoofed their DMARK, SPF, and servers IP. After explaining how impossible that would be their 'proof' that it was 'spoofed' was that there should be a copy of the message in the Ebay inbox where, after the reply, all messages about the auction ever existing were suddenly gone.
I am the treasurer of a small European non-profit organisation. We got our PayPal account restricted (no money could be withdrawn) for no reason, only because we suddenly had more donations than usual.
It took three months to resolve the issue. I'm not saying that we had to _wait_ three months: we discussed almost every day with the support, for three months.
The process was a mix of infuriating exchanges, bugs on the PayPal site preventing to send documents (so serious that even the support was aware), and at the end we were wondering if this was on purpose or because of a total lack of intelligence/skills and process from PayPal.
Each day we would have a different support people on the chat, with the dialog summarized:
- Paypal Human Bot: How can we help you ?
- Me: Our account is restricted and we don't really understand why. Would you mind telling us how to solve the issue ?
( Skip long re-explaining everything from the beginning; PayPal has no history of previous exchanges apparently)
- Paypal Human Bot: You are not registered as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, can you send us the papers ?
- Me: Indeed, we are outside the US, we can't do that. However we can send you the official papers from Europe
- Paypal Human Bot: Okay, so you need to be registered as a commercial entity, please send us your commercial ID
- Me: We are not a commercial entity, we are a small non-profit organisations, and we don't have such ID
- Paypal Human Bot: Okay, so please send us the papers that prove you are a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization
- ...
We probably sent dozen of various official papers, etc. in the meantime. We had to guess what were the probable causes, as (once again) the PayPal site is riddled with bugs that may (or not) display warnings, ask for fields but that are read-only, etc.
If this was a bank, they would have been sanctioned by banking regulations.
And I am still unsure if this wasn't some kind of twisted social experiment made by some psychopath.
I did get my PayPal account back by doing this, after I sent out an eBay order so fast they decided I was a scammer because the tracking info already said it arrived when I added it to the invoice.
Ironically, the CFPB exerts the regulatory pressure that causes payment processors to close accounts. I'm not sure who you're reporting to who at the link above.
Essentially, banks find CFPB claims so annoying that they will usually fix the issue just to make you go away. Btw, I just did this a few months ago so the system shouldn't have fallen apart since then.
This is what caused me to let me eBay seller account die - they demanded Social Security Number (SSN) to continue selling. Call me crazy but giving my SSN to a company where the C-suite thugs sent live cockroaches to bloggers for negative articles seems like a bad idea.
The cost to seller is mostly the same. eBay is now taking the cuts (the cut they have always taken plus the cut that used to be taken by PayPal) themselves instead.
A while ago I used paypal for transactions and I left some in the account so there was 100 grand. Six months later I tried to take some of it out and they froze the account despite no other recent activity. They said they'd keep it six months. Eight months or so after that, I asked about it, and they said they needed to freeze it for another six months. So soon we'll be at basically 18 months after the funds were earned.
The whole thing is dumb though, so I honestly don't even attribute malice. It's a ~17 year old account and I've processed millions(?) of dollars through it. The killing they earned on the transaction fees dwarfs the interest they earn on the float over the period of time they are holding it. The only way this wouldn't be the case is if a lot of people just give up and never get their money out, which, frankly, sounds possible. So either they do this intentionally because people give up, or they think I'll never sell stuff online again (I sell stuff online, right now), or they're just kindof dumb and have an overactive suppression team.
$100k frozen for six months? It must be strange for that to be the kind of money you can leave lost behind the sofa and not do anything to pursue. I think I'd have been at legal action after a month.
I know that's mean of them but is it possible the account still had your parent's identity attached to it? You certainly shouldn't be access an account as if you're someone else. For example, did you provided Paypal with all the identification documentation to prove you're your real self and not still your parent?
I registered my PayPal account myself at 17, no sharing. Had it permanently blocked and prohibited from ever opening a new one 10 years later. Completely out of the blue and registering as underage was the stated reason.
I sold a gun on Gunbroker, they have a PayPal button as an option for some inexplicable reason. I wasn’t thinking about terms of service and clicked it. Buyer clicks it on his end, but there was an issue with his dealer and I refunded him, sale fell through. PayPal bans me three months later without saying why.
I explain it was an accident to click the PayPal button and it didn’t go through.
Banned for life :D PayPal can join the rest of the former tech giants anytime.
I work in "online payments for guns" and it's amazing how many innocent people get banned by PayPal over guns. I talk to at least one per week. In almost every case, these people simply weren't aware that PayPal prohibits firearm transactions. Although PayPal doesn't provide much warning, it is actually following an industry-wide practice. All the payment platforms prohibit guns [1].
Had a 15 year old Paypal business account (parent started it and I took it over ~7 years ago) and last year they shut it down because I, as the new owner, was not 18 when the account was created. Nothing from the support but "computer said you bad, nothing we can do".
In Ebays case I sold an item, got the regular email from Ebay (DMARK/SPF/IP verified) that they had received payment and was holding it until the item had been delivered. Then a week later I got another email from them saying they had blocked the buyer for abuse (i.e. a fraudulent transaction to them) and that I shouldn't ship the item they told me to ship a week ago. After 2 months of trying to get through to the support they just claimed that someone spoofed their DMARK, SPF, and servers IP. After explaining how impossible that would be their 'proof' that it was 'spoofed' was that there should be a copy of the message in the Ebay inbox where, after the reply, all messages about the auction ever existing were suddenly gone.