My wife has a shopify store, does about $1k per month and less than half of that goes through paypal. Out of nowhere today they disabled her account for 'violating user agreement'. She didn't do anything out of the ordinary or suspicious, just getting paid for some shopify orders. Doesn't have any complains or issues or chargebacks or anything I can see that looks suspicious. There doesn't seem to be any way to contact support, dispute the problem, etc. Super frustrating. Is there anything she can do, or is she just literally not able to use Paypal anymore without any explaination?
Ask HN: What to do when PayPal disables your account for no reason?
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Re: Ask HN: What to do when PayPal disables your account for no reason?
#2I ditched PayPal after they put my funds 'on hold', and after researching this, Googling around, it seems it happens to everyone at some stage. They flag accounts when transactions amounts are 'higher than normal'.
But my income from my store is volatile anyway, so large amounts out of nowhere is normal for me. PayPal doesn't understand this though, so I ditched them. Never got my funds back, and I'm still fighting to get my funds back a year later.
Support is an actual joke. You get forwarded to different support staff, and when you reach a human, they can't help and are woefully unprepared to sort out your situation.
Re: Ask HN: What to do when PayPal disables your account for no reason?
#3Honestly if you are in business, you just let things like this go and move on.
Then you can gather information at your leisure and address the problem slowly and thoughtfully.
Maybe raising prices is a profitable first step. Even if there’s little correlation.
Good luck.
Re: Ask HN: What to do when PayPal disables your account for no reason?
#4Close your Paypal account. While you're at it close your Venmo account.
Re: Ask HN: What to do when PayPal disables your account for no reason?
#5Lawyer.
Re: Ask HN: What to do when PayPal disables your account for no reason?
#6I've fought with PayPal for a very long time for these same reasons, and I finally won last year, and received a settlement payout (basically the money that was in my account, worth $6k). The condition was to never use their products / services again (including venmo, every time someone asks if I have it, I have to tell this story ;)), but totally worth it.
I used a service called FairShake - https://fairshake.com/ which is an arbitration service, and you can use this to get their attention.
Re: Ask HN: What to do when PayPal disables your account for no reason?
#7Use Paypal for payments only, and keep your balance at zero, by connecting your account to a credit card.
If you keep any funds in Paypal, they will steal them sooner or later. There is no recourse.
Re: Ask HN: What to do when PayPal disables your account for no reason?
#8It's too late for your wife (and I don't have any suggestions here) but for the others who still rely on PayPal: leave as soon as possible. It's a matter of time until the same happens to you.
Re: Ask HN: What to do when PayPal disables your account for no reason?
#9Sign up for a different payment service? Sounds like she's already got something that was used for the other half of payments, but it's good to have two options, so she'll need another one.
Send a written demand for the balance, possibly with help from a lawyer. Don't expect them to resume servicing her account, but I guess you could ask for that too. Transfer money out ASAP, always.
Re: Ask HN: What to do when PayPal disables your account for no reason?
#10Use Paypal for payments only, and keep your balance at zero, by connecting your account to a credit card. If you keep any funds in Paypal, they will steal them sooner or later. There is no recourse.
Exactly. Paypal should be regulated as a bank. They're a de facto monopoly for auction payments, but they are covered by fewer banking rules than money transfer businesses.
They have no obligation to be fair and there is no real appeal path for any decision they make whether it's obviously wrong or not.