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I made $200K and PayPal locked my account

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Re: I made $200K and PayPal locked my account

#21

Post by punkbit »

Why do people keep using Paypal ? Paypal is always taking money from people. Always! It's interesting what's going to happen here. If he can't get his money, is Paypal going to have it ? Why is there the assumption this guy is in the US ? Even if this guy was not legally in the US, this is still his money.

If you are young and don't have a national insurance number yet, ask them to change your account holder to one of your parents and give them the NI.

I'd basically create a website reporting this issue to the general public and attach all emails and information you can get from them. Also, I'd change the payment method in your website to something else LIKE RIGHT NOW! You should never, ever trust Paypal! Like NEVER!

You should also report this to the media, they will love it! $200K is a lot hell of money!

Re: I made $200K and PayPal locked my account

#23

Post by nlh »

Sorry to hear about the troubles :(

If this wasn't the umpteenth time I've heard this story, I wouldn't say this so pesteringly:

To everyone: Stop stop stop stop stop using PayPal. This happens over and over again. For once, thankfully, there are viable alternatives out there -- Stripe & WePay to name two (both of which I've had excellent experiences with).

Not saying they're panaceas or that there won't be security/freezing issues from the new guys, but PayPal has a documented, extensive, and repeated history of freezing accounts with large amounts of money in them over short(ish) periods of time.

Re: I made $200K and PayPal locked my account

#25

Post by graeme »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #18

First, before you do anything else, find a reputable payment provider and switch your payment mechanisms over to that, so you don't keep getting money sent into a locked account. And with your new payment provider, make sure you sweep all money you receive out of any account they have access to as soon as possible, up to whatever limits they have on how much you have to leave around for chargebacks and similar. I'd g…

I believe this is correct. I got a similar notice, even though I'm Canadian and charge mainly for services rendered in Canada.

OP, it takes a little while to get a TIN, but it's pretty straightforward to do so. You can get this as a foreigner, even if you're not in the US.

I recommend contacting the IRS to see how to do this. They have a competent international division. A phone call to paypal to see what they require probably couldn't hurt, but you can never be sure with them.

Re: I made $200K and PayPal locked my account

#26

Post by electic »

I think there is a problem here. If you are saying you do not how how you made it then there might be truly something wrong with your account. It is rare for any open source project that is a js widget essentially to pull in 200k in six months. I think there is a bit more information at work here and you are leaving it out. I think what Paypal did was justified while they investigate what is going on.
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