Account Limitations: What You Need to Know

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PayPal Employee
PayPal Employee

 

Keeping your business and customers safer

To ensure PayPal remains a safer place for enabling payments, we regularly review all accounts. Sometimes, limitations may be placed on your PayPal account, which could restrict you from completing certain actions: such as withdrawing, spending, or receiving money. Limitations are in place to help protect all our customers, and in some cases to meet our regulatory obligations. Protecting your account and money is important to us.

 

Account Limitations: What might cause it, and how to help avoid it?

If your PayPal account is limited, you may be unable to withdraw, send or receive money. There are a number of reasons why your account could be limited:

 

Suspicious & unusual activity

  • We suspect someone could be using your account without your knowledge.
  • Your bank alerts us that someone has used your credit/debit card linked to your account without your permission.
  • There are unexpected changes to your selling activities such as a sudden increase in your typical sales volume.

In such cases, we do what it takes to protect you from potential fraud prompted by the unusual activity– through limiting your account, and investigating.

 

You can safeguard your personal information and help protect yourself against fraud through some simple measures.  For example, don’t enter your personal or financial details when describing items for sale or in response to emails, and log out of sites you’ve entered your personal information into.

 

Regulatory reasons or business is not compliant

Your account could be limited for regulatory reasons. For example, India PayPal sellers need to include additional information to be able to accept payments in their account. Also, reaching a certain transaction value in your account may trigger a limit, which can also be removed by providing information required to PayPal.

 

There are also restrictions on what a PayPal account can be used to accept (and make) payments for. For example, PayPal doesn't allow the sale of counterfeit goods or banned items. So, ensure that your business is compliant with PayPal’s Acceptable Use Policy .


Increased buyer issues

An increase of complaints, claims and chargebacks from buyers can lead to account limitations.

 

Following some simple guidelines can help you improve your performance and reduce the likelihood of limitations. Overall, communication is key. You should:

  • Provide detailed product descriptions and photos.
  • Be upfront about policies such as shipping and returns.
  • Ship orders promptly and track shipments.
  • Respond quickly to any messages from buyers.
  • Work to amicably resolve any problems.
  • Ship to the address provided in the transaction details page.
  • Use quality shipping materials to prevent damage.

 

Removing limitations

 If your PayPal account is limited, here’s what happens:

  1. We’ll email you to let you know –  we’ll ask you to log in to your PayPal account and go to the Resolution Centre for details on how to resolve the issue quickly, usually by providing information.
  2. Once you’ve submitted the information required, we’ll review and reply via email.
  3. We’ll remove the limitations once we have verified your account. At times, limitations can be removed by simply changing your security questions and password.

Here are the types of information and documents we may need from you:

- Supplier’s invoice with contact information

This helps us determine the inventory source and validate that you have the items that you’re selling in stock.

 

- Payment information

When an invoice is unavailable, we’ll review the following information about your payments:

  • The item or service that was sold
  • The buyer’s name and shipping address
  • Proof of shipment to verify that an order was delivered

- Shipping or Tracking information

This helps us to verify that customer orders are being fulfilled.

 

- Proof of business
This provides evidence of a valid business registration and business ownership.

 

- Information for India sellers
This is to comply with our India regulatory obligations. Provide a valid PAN, a local bank account and the purpose code in your PayPal account task board.

 

- Proof of address such as bank statement or utility bill, Proof of identity such as passport or driver’s license
This helps us verify your identity when there is unusual account activity or to comply with regulations.

 

Once you’ve submitted your information, look out for any more emails from us as we may need additional details. We’ll do our best to confirm your information and remove the limitation within 2 business days, but sometimes it can take a little longer.

 

Quick Tip: If your PayPal account is limited, don’t open a new account. It could be traced back to the limited account.  It’s always best to resolve the limitation. We will guide you through it and restore full access to your PayPal account as quickly as possible.

 

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1,050 REPLIES 1,050

Roserenay
Contributor
Contributor

very true, I waited an hour just to see that the line was hung up before a rep answered.

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mwaimoffat
Contributor
Contributor

I tend to be of the stand that Paypal needs a complete overhaul in their customer services and experience management.I personally have experienced a long and rude reply from the paypal customer service persons, and if that is not enough they even send you robotic answers that are nowhere close to your queries. Their customer experience and service department is shambolic!!!

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Thisisstupid42
Contributor
Contributor
I gave them all the information and pictures they asked for them they still permanently limit my account 3 days later with my money on it and refuse to give it until 180 day? Wtf
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StarrVeronica42
Contributor
Contributor
I'm still waiting over 180 days now my 2400 is 945 cause they helped them SELFS with 1400 without authorization I just don't get to PayPal I have suffered with this PayPal nobody's giving me any answers it's just a run-around man over and over waiting for back office waiting for back office nobody is helping me at night they won't release my money
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ginav
Contributor
Contributor

Fiki_Hafana
Contributor
Contributor

My account still in limitation although has been upload document, has been contact paypal support and they are too long to response. How to get fastest support?

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PayPal_Donna
Moderator
Moderator

Hello Fiki_Hafana,

 

Welcome to the PayPal community and thank you for your post.

 

As your question is very account specific, I would advise you to contact our customer care department who can help you further. You can do this by clicking on the Help and Contact link at the bottom of every PayPal page to check what your contact options are. You can also contact us via our Facebook Page or Twitter @askPayPal.

 

-Donna

 

 

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robissett
Contributor
Contributor

All due respect Donna this is **bleep** PayPal couldn't organize a **bleep** up in a brewery, all these suspended accounts for no reason I have been using PayPal for 10years never changed what I do now my account is limited PayPal needs to sort there **bleep** out and real fast. 100's of 1000's of users cant be wrong. Sort it out.

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Mattlofland
Contributor
Contributor
Alot of us have done just that to no avail. We are told the decision is final or just blatently ignored. Paypal is holding peoples money with little or no explanation. During this time with the difficulties Covid has caused you would think paypal would be more careful and considerate. And realize we all are contacting our govt agencies for help
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PayPal_Donna
Moderator
Moderator

I understand. However if you contact our Customer Care team through our Facebook Page or Twitter @askPayPal, we will be able to help you further. 

 

-Donna

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