Please Help?

[Zahira09]

Hi,

Please help me?

I live in Cape Town, South Africa. I've only ever used PayPal twice to pay for purchases online, however, recently I worked as a tour guide for an American man who wanted to pay for my services on PayPal since it would be cheaper for him than doing an EFT to my South African bank account. I requested the payment on the 26th of May in his presence before he left the country and he accepted it and paid. I had never used PayPal in this way and so I made the mistake of not going straight to my email to confirm and accept. I have been receiving emails from PayPal so I thought that the email would one of my inboxes, but it didn't. I stupidly assumed that the payment just needed a few days to reflect and left it. Tonight I searched for the email from PayPal in my spam and found it. It said that I had to accept the payment before the 5th of June. I accepted the payment and was redirected to my account but nothing happened so I went back to my email and accepted in the email again and was redirected to my account. This second time round it said that the payment had been canceled. I then contacted the person but they haven't yet read or received the message. When I went back into my account there was a notice that said the following:

"You can't use PayPal anymore

At PayPal, we value a safe community for our customers to do business. We noticed activity in your account that’s inconsistent with our User Agreement and we no longer offer you PayPal services.

Based on this decision, if applicable, you are no longer eligible for PayPal Seller Protection as per our User Agreement. This will apply to all existing and future cases you receive.

Any bank or credit card information linked to your PayPal account cannot be removed nor can it be used to create a new account. You can still log in and see your account information but you can’t send or receive money. Any money in your balance will be held for 180 days, after which we’ll send you an email with instructions about transferring your money."

I do not understand why this has happened? I haven't done anything wrong or against the user agreement. When I looked at the details it says that my account is a business account but I only signed up for a personal account. 

I am very confused and very upset because this was the best method for me to receive payment for the job I did. I even opened up an account with FNB so that I could transfer straight from PayPal to my bank account. 

I really do not understand what went wrong. I understand that I may have taken too long to accept the funds (5 days) and that apparently my email was not confirmed (yet I was receiving emails from PayPal and have been for years), but how is this enough reason to permanently limit my account?

Does anyone know how I can undo this? I have tried following the steps laid out in the help centre but the it says that once in the Resolution Centre, that I should go to "Steps to Remove Limitation" but this is not available when I go to the Resolution Centre, all that I can see is the notice which I posted above. 

Please help?

Thank you.