Payment on hold for "government regulations"

robotbacon
Contributor
Contributor

In all of my years with PayPal, I've never seen this message on a payment :

"We've temporarily put this payment on hold while we verify that it complies with regulatory requirements. We'll contact you about this within 24-72 hours. To learn more, see PayPal goods or services regulations." (The link is dead in both this message and the email.)
A different message was in the payment email:

"To comply with government regulations, PayPal is required to review certain transactions. This payment is currently being reviewed and we will complete this process within 72 hours. This review only involves this transaction and does not affect the use of your PayPal account for other transactions."

The payment is for $10 worth of common action figures; I don't have any disputes with anyone and I file my taxes. Buyer is one state away from me, and we're bot verified. I've been on PayPal for many years and even have a PP debit card. Has anyone else ever seen this message? Is it about ME, or is it about the person who paid me? Very confused right now.

If anyone else has faced this, can you tell me what it's all about?

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77 REPLIES 77

joea64
Contributor
Contributor

This just happened to me. I bought some board games (wargames) via the Board Game Geek market, put the titles in the message so the seller would know which ones I was ordering, and got the "your payment is pending per review as required by government regulations" message. From what's been said in this thread, I suspect a word in at least one of the game titles triggered this - possibly "battle", "battles", or "revolt", or maybe even "Armageddon". It's quite annoying and I've advised the seller. Hopefully it gets released, if not I'll just have to re-submit it without the offending words, whatever it/they were.

 

EDIT/UPDATE 3/21: After reading through this thread and a couple of others, I suspect it's the word "Armageddon", which appears in the title of one of the games I bought. That, or "revolt", which appears in another game's title.

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llewellyn1
New Community Member

I sent an invoice to a customer yesterday and my description included "nigerian" as I was describing a specific type of garnet (spessartite) gemstone from an African locale, There were no other location related keywords that would have flagged the system.

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Hounded
Contributor
Contributor

I ordered a collectible coin from a rare coin dealer in New Jersey. The coin is from the reign of the last Shah of Iran, so the coin description mentioned Iran. That must have triggered the "government hold". This is really idiotic.

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Turjake99
Contributor
Contributor

Just got hit with this BS myself. Tried to buy a batch of miniature paints. I'm guessing it's the one called gory red that tripped the filter.

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Rebeccalaurenxx
Contributor
Contributor
I know this post is old but I wanted to add: my payment was straight up declined when I tried to buy something from a Etsy seller based in Russia. It was just a silicone mold used for making resin jewelry. A craft item. I tried twice, it didn’t work until I went onto my computer, logged out of my Etsy and checked out as a guest on PayPal and my ally entered my card information. I was able to make the purchase but I don’t really understand why PayPal is restricting its users this way.
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acadiel
Contributor
Contributor

I've been on Paypal for 20 years, and eBay for 19.  I really dislike that eBay still uses Paypal to process credit cards... I got bit by this today by buying a Western Electric telephone with the title "Western Eletric Trimeline Rotery Dial Phone AS IS PARTS ONLY !!!!!"  Misspelled, yes.  But to cause me to have a pending payment to "protect" someone?  Hardly.  This is really, really, stupid, eBay and Paypal.

 

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unicorngirl
Contributor
Contributor
I just got this too. All I ordered was about $20 of wax melts, the kind that go in a scent warmer, from an established artisanal candle and wax melt shop. Really hope it's not going to be cancelled. Am contacting the seller to make sure.
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BlackCat322
Contributor
Contributor

Just had this happen to me today. Bought 2 items "Smokey Blue Resin Pendant Alcohol Ink Epoxy Resin Jewelry" and "Lime Green Alcohol Ink Resin Crystal Pendant Petri Art Crystal Resin Pendant". Got a message from paypal to wait 72 hours. I called them and they could not say much other than "the system randomly checks transactions". There should be absolutely no reason that after 15 years of hassle-free transactions as buyer AND seller that I have to be put through this nonsense. What world are we living in that everything is deemed "suspicious"?

 

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froggy25
Contributor
Contributor

I paid for a Pokémon card. Persian is not some kind of terrorist term, it's just a Pokémon card that does not require the government to check I am not doing anything remotely in relation with terrorism.

 

Please remove this stupid check, my money is on hold for several days because of this **bleep**, and I paid the seller via direct money transfer as a result of this BS. Now I have spent twice the money while waiting for the money to be released so I can be reimbursed of my first payment.

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I got hit with this making a payment that I have made before. I even went though the exact same process and now they are holding my payment unless I send them government id and proof of address... Something pp has NEVER asked me for before. Has there been anyone who has gotten an answer or resolution on this?
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