Paypal Took all my money under the note: PayPal's damages caused by Acceptable Use Policy violation

[Hafidox]

Hi,

Hope you guys are doing great.

to give a little background of what happened, I was selling on eBay since March 2018, and using my personal PayPal account, I had this Paypal account way before I started selling on eBay.

Fast forward this year 2020 in April, where my Paypal had a somewhat consistent cash flow over these 2 years each month (500$ - 2000$). It all started when an item I was selling at ~300$ was trending because of the pandemic and people staying home, so my Paypal was receiving somewhat unusual sums of money which caused it to be limited for verification.

I sent them the documents they asked for ( proof of address ) and proof of fulfillment which I did within the 1st week the account got limited. But even though I submitted these documents my Paypal was still limited and I contacted them several times with no response. 

less than a week passed and boom, my account was permanently limited, and all the money is held for 180 days. Naturally, I contacted them again and again to know why, but with no definite answer. And I gave up and decided to wait the 180 days.

On the 22nd September ( 2 months left for the 180 days ), Paypal just transferred all the money as you can see on the image below leaving 0.00$ and no way to have it back.

After I checked that note, I found this policy will be applied by the 16th of June, and as I told you my Paypal was permanently limited before that, so how could I avoid it if I wanted to. And what gives them the right to just take all my hard-earned money in one transfer.

Sorry for this long message but I had to give you the background of the whole problem, any advice to have my money back will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[Hafidox]

After 2 weeks of emails and calls, I haven't been able to resolve this and my money is still missing. I received a call to my personal phone (which is rare) just so they can tell me that the matter is unappealable and I have to stop contacting them.

Also was hoping that some online complaint service or consumer protection would help me, but they don't support almost all of Africa's countries. If I was in Europe or in the USA, I don't think this would happen and Paypal would take me seriously.

[ridinglife]

Flipping thieves!!! This is unbelievable!!! 

Did you post on social medias? 

I'm also based in Africa. We should perhaps try to find Elon Musk (born in South Africa and PP shareholder I think) Twitter account and post this!

[Hafidox]

I actually contacted them on Twitter and waited around 48 hours before they sent me a canned response saying I agreed to their Policy which grants them rights to fine me 2500$ or more if I breached the Acceptable Use Policy Agreement.

I heard almost the same reply from them in emails and calls. 

How about you? What kind of replies did you get?

[ridinglife]

I've only found out yesterday that they took all my money. I've sent them an email yesterday but haven't heard anything back and by the sound of it, probably never will.

Interesting that they took money out all on the same Sept 22nd!! 

 

[Hafidox]

I'm sorry for your lost, I assume you had the same experience as others (180 days limit and the money was taken before it 180 days), right?

If so, what do you think caused your account to be limited if I may ask?

[ridinglife]

I was told back in April that my account had been blocked and after 180 days I would have been able to withdraw my account’s balance. On Sept 22 (a month prior to the 6 months waiting period), they’ve wiped clean my account. No emails from them, nothing. 

I have a website that sells 'smoking paraphernalia' and we use to accept Paypal as payment method. In April they've told me that we couldn't use PP any longer because what we were selling was going against their user's agreement. Immediately we remove Paypal from the website and after that they've told us we had to wait 6 months before drawing our remaining funds....but they've helped themselves first 😞

[Hafidox]

That's what bugs me, they let sell as you like until a good balance is established then they hit you with a 180 days limit and let you think you'd have your money after 180 days to withdraw.

And just when you think your money is safe with them, they wipe it clean and leave you nothing. What is really shady about this is why don't they take the money earlier in the 180 days, why waiting for 5 or 6 months, I wouldn't possibly have breached the agreement during this limit because I can't even use the account.

I did give Paypal the benefit of doubt and assumed it was just me who probably did something wrong and didn't know it, but after seeing other people this is not the case. Paypal is straight-up stealing money and without a concrete reason as to why they do.

[ridinglife]

I will put one of my employees on this case and ask her to ruffs some feathers. Will let you know if there's any development.  

[pfbrown]

Any answers or resolve or is Pay Pal just getting away with stealing peoples money?

[pfbrown]

I'm in the US and they did the same to me. I don't even know what or how I violated, or how to find out. They should have given me details. Did they for you?