Interesting, I got zapped with this on the same day KV_Zeiyx did, then found this thread today via a Google search. This is infuriating, and in retrospect, I'm having regrets. While I have appreciated the convenience PayPal once held, asking for this amount of information (copies, no less!) is absurd and feels like a shakedown. I cannot express enough my displeasure.
I can understand requiring a tax ID or SSN to be entered into a secure form to avoid shenanigans (Amazon payments requires this, as I found out when supporting a Kickstarter project) and assist in reporting to the IRS--presumably, such information is automatically handled and never touched by a person--but to actually request copies of all the respective documents is ridiculous. It's just asking for trouble. Worse, PayPal only gives the guarantee that uploaded information is "protected" by their privacy policy. Note that there's nothing to be said in the resolution center that uploaded copies are protected by the rule of law--that's discouraging at best. A privacy policy is little more than a promise that a company won't do something stupid with your data, and I'm not sure that a promise is good enough. Not this day and age.
Humorously, PayPal's requests for information have inane limits! For instance, the proof of ID can be no older than about 6 months, proof of address no older than about 30 days, and proof of SSN can be no older than about the same period of time as the proof of ID. Really? So I have to go renew my license just to continue using PayPal? Hah! Wonder what I'd do about that pesky SSN card since I'll never be 18 again...
Another point along those lines that comes to mind: I live in a rural area, so a proof of address is ENTIRELY useless since the post office does absolutely no home delivery of mail, which means that my billing and shipping addresses are usually different. PayPal has my home address (this is the same thing the IRS has on their records), but I don't receive bills here. Even if I did, I'm not going to part with that information. That's asking for too much. Want to pay for my health insurance or electric? I'd be more than happy to fork it over. Until then, forget it.
Ordinarily, this wouldn't bother me. I'd use the money that remains in my account or transfer it out, and not touch PayPal again, but apparently those of us who were flagged (I prefer the term "digitally molested") can't even close our accounts until we verify that we are who we claim to be. I can think of a few colorful adjectives to describe the astronomical stupidity of this, but one of the more appropriate ones that comes to mind is "entrapment." A business practice wherein a company holds customer information hostage in exchange for giving us the "privilege" of closing out our accounts seems to me to be asking for litigation. That's the part that infuriates me more than anything. Who's to say PayPal doesn't start levying a fee against those of us who can't close our accounts, and then sends us to a collection agency when they finally run our account dry? Seems far fetched, doesn't it? Then again, I never thought I'd be asked to provide copies of 3 private pieces of information to be sent for special "review" by another human I can't see or interact with.
Another thing that puzzles me: PayPal is asking for copies of government issued IDs and a few other odds and ends. None of this is provided in person. How can this possibly help prevent fraud? If someone has already committed ID theft and has such details on a person, they might just be able to access and supply that information fraudulently to continue using the account. I'm sure PayPal does some basic checks, but there's no face-to-face confirmation that could be used to at least partially verify photo IDs. There's something awfully fishy about asking for this information when none of it is supplied in person and therefore (again, with a photo ID) cannot be independently confirmed by the person at the window as it can be with a bank. And how can we be guaranteed that this information is safely handled once it is uploaded? What are the data retention policies? Is PayPal forced to destroy this information? I know my bank is. In fact, I remember getting a letter many years ago from them in which they explained their data retention policies at the behest of new legislation that forced them to destroy certain documents after holding them for a certain time period. Yeah, I get it: PayPal's privacy policy protects us. That doesn't make me comfortable when it would seem that PayPal isn't regulated as strictly as banks are, and therefore--as others have pointed out--is more "self-regulated" than not.
A law that requires online money handling institutions to extract this information from its customers while providing no guarantees of protection that information and then allows the firm to hold the accounts in question hostage, preventing them from being closed, is a pretty one-sided, anti-consumer law is it not? Or is it just PayPal's draconian interpretation of the law? I thought the PayPal horror stories from tech startups over the last 6 months were overblown and exceptionally rare occurrences. Not anymore! If I get this sorted out (unlikely, unless I go through the hassle of calling support since I am NOT providing reproducible copies of my information), I may consider closing my account. There are too many things about this that make me uncomfortable, much of which has been repeated over and over again in this thread.
At least I know I'm not the only one. So, if nothing else, I take solace in that fact.
