201–210 of 298 posts
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…
Maybe they have issue with the fact that you are from Venezuela? I've sen multiple venezuelan PayPal accounts being blocked because they know sometimes they are used for getting around CADIVI (currency exchange restrictions). Maybe your nationality and the fact that you made that much money triggered some flags. From a fellow venezuelan, hope you get your money back. And congratulations on your success even in this u…
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 ap…
Every lawyer I have ever talked to formally or informally have said such things may be challengeable in court. That's why you want to talk to a lawyer.
> 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.
Again quite true. If it is only 180 days though, that's one thing, but only to the point they are reasonable (again talk to a lawyer). If they hold onto it indefinitely that is theft.
> Good luck, and never use Paypal again. Use Bitcoins or Stripe.
Yep. Use anything else.
Apply for a TIN - taxpayer identification number. PayPal can use it in lieu of an SSN. This will take you six weeks. In the alternative, consult a local lawyer and have them nastygram Paypal for you.
If he's an international student, he's only allowed to work on campus. If he gets a US tax ID and files income under that, his library sales will count as off-campus income (I think?). So I'm not sure if this is an option. Of course, IANAL.
I have founded businesses with people from other countries and I have never had trouble with immigration laws provided that people weren't doing billable labor for customers in countries where they weren't supposed to.
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 ap…
OP specifically reports that PayPal froze the account because he couldn't provide a necessary tax-reporting number. Getting the necessary number, and passing it to PayPal, may be all that is required. Talking to lawyers will just help the OP understand the situation... the lawyer may never need to communicate with PayPal at all.
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…
PayPal is the one at fault here. Don't let someone use your service without adequate ID. Tell them and require it before you can use the service.
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…
I'm no lawyer, but I bet the issue is that the US will want him to pay taxes on that income and has no way to do so at present. http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpayers/Taxpa... Perhaps the obvious answer is to find a way to convince the government to let him pay the $50,600 in taxes he would owe on that $200k of income if he were a citizen with a SSN...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 ap…
> 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. Every lawyer I have ever talked to formally or informally have said such things may be challengeable in court. That's why you want to talk to a lawyer. > The fr…
> Every lawyer I have ever talked to formally or informally have said such things may be challengeable in court. That's why you want to talk to a lawyer.
It's because it's what's called an unenforceable contract [1], because if they close the account for any reason, that reason could be because you are selling some goods, but PayPal doesn't like it. A court shouldn't uphold that, and I'd love to see PayPal be brought to task by someone with enough money, time and anger that they pursue a lawsuit to it's logical conclusion.