I made $200K and PayPal locked my account • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by cunac » Sat, Feb 09, 2013, 5:03 AM UTC

tedunangst wrote: post #85

punkbit wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He didn't started a company anyway. Selling old clothes and old toys in ebay doesn't make us a company, does it ?! What if we sold $200k worth in old toys ?! Paypal would take our money anyway...

No, PayPal would ask for your ssn to make sure you're paying the taxes on the 200k you just made. Yes, if you sell 200k in old toys on eBay, you owe the IRS a pile of money.

why ? I thought you pay tax by residence in most cases. I know when I worked in US I elected to pay taxes in Canada because I wasn't moving to states (there is tax treaty)

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

#152

Post by cunac » Sat, Feb 09, 2013, 5:06 AM UTC

jholman wrote: post #86

packetslave wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL (which is why the OP should definitely talk to one). If the work that generated the income was done while he was physically in the US, then the immigration folks will definitely have an opinion on if it was legal under his visa terms. This may or may not have an impact on any potential legal remedies that are available wrt Paypal.

IANAL, and the OP should talk to one. I'm working legally in the US (TN-1), but my wife is here without permission to work (TD-1) (and is not working). When I discussed her options with my immigration lawyer, like maybe should could remote-work for a company back home, my lawyer said (informally) that any work or any income, while in the US, was subject to immigration law. In fact, I was told US immigration's opinion…

AFAIK you can't work for US employer or perform services for US employer. Not sure that this covers outside of country services/work. This is meant to protect US jobs which you didn't take and that is a bottom line.

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

#153

Post by tedunangst » Sat, Feb 09, 2013, 5:08 AM UTC

cunac wrote: post #151

tedunangst wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, PayPal would ask for your ssn to make sure you're paying the taxes on the 200k you just made. Yes, if you sell 200k in old toys on eBay, you owe the IRS a pile of money.

why ? I thought you pay tax by residence in most cases. I know when I worked in US I elected to pay taxes in Canada because I wasn't moving to states (there is tax treaty)

I'm assuming you're selling the toys in the US. If you're selling them in somewhereelseistan, then you probably don't have a US paypal account and none of this matters. Unless you are using a US paypal account, in which case, whoopsie, should have sorted that out ahead of time. Don't funnel money through a country if you're not doing business in that country.

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

#154

Post by downandout » Sat, Feb 09, 2013, 5:12 AM UTC

gojomo wrote: post #46

Concur with javajosh's recommendation to find a California/USA-based lawyer for help. Advice from semi-anonymous strangers in internet forums is worth what you pay for it. Generally, in the search for a lawyer, you get to talk to many (without charge) for 15-45 minutes each. You may be surprised how widely their estimations of the issues vary -- the law is the law, right? -- but you'll learn something from each conve…

Unfortunately, while a lawyer can certainly make a request to PayPal, their user agreements are loud and clear on the issue of freezing accounts. Essentially, you agree that they can close your account and hold your funds for any reason or no reason at all. The freeze can last for up to 180 days from the date of your last chargeback, or from the date they froze the account, whichever is later. As you can see, they apply this policy liberally and always to their benefit.

TBH, you have already played your best card by getting this to the front page of Hacker News. You may well get your money released relatively soon because someone at PP has or will soon see this. It's sad that this is what it takes just to make them be honest, but that is what you get when you deal with PayPal.

Good luck, and never use Paypal again. Use Bitcoins or Stripe.

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

#155

Post by eof » Sat, Feb 09, 2013, 5:13 AM UTC

Find an american friend with a SSN? I am not sure this would really work, but it's definitely worth a shot. Of course your friend will have to count it as income; but honestly this will probably be a lot cheaper than hiring a lawyer if it works. I don't really see a downside to trying this method; since you can't really lose the money that's already gone.

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

#156

Post by blasten » Sat, Feb 09, 2013, 5:14 AM UTC

darkhorn wrote: post #84

Why you didn't pull your money from PayPal once every week?

Good question.

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

#157

Post by InclinedPlane » Sat, Feb 09, 2013, 5:17 AM UTC

Wow, the sheer quantity of unhelpful advice in this thread is simply mind boggling. Hey, let's all hate paypal because they "steal" people's money. Ignoring the seriously thorny legal bramble that the OP has run headlong into with nary a concern. There is a bounteous variety of comments of the form "Paypal sux! {Use X instead!}" Where X may be stripe, or wepay, or whatever. Ignoring the fact that stripe wouldn't help in this case (it's US only), if you go read the terms of service of stripe or wepay you'll find exactly the same things there as are at issue here. You'll need an SSN or EID or tax ID with stripe too, just as you would with a WePay business account. There's a reason for that, and it has to do with the law.

There are maybe only half a dozen reasonable, substantially helpful, and actionable replies in this whole thread (which would put it at maybe a 4% SNR), almost all the rest is useless. If this is what HN is going to be, I don't want it.

As for my advice, it's simple. Go talk to a lawyer as soon as possible, you have a lot of issues that need sorting and a good lawyer is absolutely necessary to get through those issues, and they'll help to put you on the right footing to deal with paypal. It sucks that you have been acting in good faith and doing good work and have gotten tangled in the mess that is the many layers of laws, regulations, and corporate policies that make up our modern immigration, taxation, and financial systems. You have my sympathies for that and I wish you the best of luck, hopefully you'll be able to keep the proceeds of your excellent work without any serious negative repercussions.

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

#158

Post by InclinedPlane » Sat, Feb 09, 2013, 5:23 AM UTC

eof wrote: post #155

Find an american friend with a SSN? I am not sure this would really work, but it's definitely worth a shot. Of course your friend will have to count it as income; but honestly this will probably be a lot cheaper than hiring a lawyer if it works. I don't really see a downside to trying this method; since you can't really lose the money that's already gone.

The downside is that it then starts to look even more like fraud or money laundering and possible legal action, in addition to the freezing of the account, happens.

This is the worst advice in this entire thread. The money isn't gone, it's just frozen. It can get unfrozen quite easily provided that Emmanuel is smart and makes sure to get a good lawyer who can walk him through all of the necessary steps to get his business set up correctly.

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

#159

Post by ComputerGuru » Sat, Feb 09, 2013, 5:28 AM UTC

preinheimer wrote: post #123

revelation wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have to use PayPal: regularly transfer any money to an actual bank with actual responsibilities, not some fake holding bank registered in Ireland or whatever PayPal is using today to evade tax and consumer laws. You are not getting interest by letting that money sit with PayPal.

PayPal allows itself to pull money out of a bank account associated with the account as required.

Yes. The real solution is to have two separate, linked bank accounts, only link one of them to PayPal. Set PayPal to sweep into bank account A daily, and then have your bank set up an automatic sweep from account A to B either daily or as it reaches a threshold.

However, even if you don't do this, PayPal transactions are via ACH (actually, this isn't a PayPal-only thing - technically anyone with your ACH account info (the stuff at the bottom of your checks!!) can push/pull money into/from your account, it's the nature of the beast) and that has many failsafes and undos available, though it is a real PITA.

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

#160

Post by edouard1234567 » Sat, Feb 09, 2013, 5:31 AM UTC

donohoe wrote: post #28

Get a taxpayer ID and give them that? http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpayers/Taxpa...

That's not a good advice. If you care about your present and future ability to legally stay and work in the US, you should first consult with an emigration lawyer since it appears that you're breaking emigration laws and only then try to get your money back.