Since I'm new here, I would first like to mention I'm Dutch, so English isn't my native language. So I might have difficulties getting my point across from time to time. Ok, back to the problem at hand. Allow me to explain what lead to this problem. Or if you want to save some time, you can simply scroll down to the "The Problem" paragraph below. I use my PayPal account for selling on eBay and for receiving donations. When I opened my PayPal account (over 10 years ago), it wasn't possible to link a Dutch address or a Dutch bank account to a PayPal account. But since my sister lives in the States, and we have a joint US bank account, I used her address and our joint bank account instead. This has never been a problem. Then about a year ago, I was starting to get these warning messages every time I logged into PayPal. That I needed to supply my Tax ID number. I gave PayPal a call and explained the situation. That I'm Dutch and live in the Netherlands and that therefore I don't have a US Tax ID number. They ensured me I was okay, that I didn't have to do anything since I was not a US citizen. I actually called them again a few months later because I was still a bit uneasy about it. My PayPal account is too important for me to get limited. But again the lady on the phone said I had nothing to worry about. But you guessed it, a month ago my account got limited. I was no longer able to receive payments. Whenever I logged in, I was greeted with this message: "We've asked you several times to provide your tax ID number due to new IRS rules, but we haven't heard from you. Until you provide your tax ID number, you can't receive money or close your account." So I called PayPal. I was transferred to the limitations department and they said this was probably a mistake and they would look into it. I'll spare you the details of a few phone calls and emails, but eventually they told me they needed a copy of a government issued photo ID (like a passport) and a completed W8-BEN form. I uploaded scans of those documents while I was on the phone with someone from the limitations department, and she removed the limitation right there and then. I thought that would be te end of it. I was very wrong. The next day, the limitation had returned. Again I was unable to receive payments. I gave them another call and again I was transferred to the limitations department. Now they said they also needed a copy of a utility bill or anything else with my name and address on it. I did and again they removed the limitation - only to return the next day. To make a (very) long story short: I called them several times and each time they removed the limitation only for it to return somewhat later. Sometimes the limitation would return within a few hours, sometimes it took a few days. Since the limitation first appeared, I called 15 times about this problem. PayPal said they had no idea why the limitation kept returning. Then about a week ago, someone from the limitations department said I needed an ITIN number (which is some kind of Tax ID number I guess). I explained I didn't understand why since in my opinion, they already had all they needed. Anyway, a few phone calls later, I spoke with someone from PayPal who said it would not be possible for me to get the limitation removed at all since I'm not a US Citizen. And that all previous times the limitation was removed, it was actually a mistake to do so. The only solution was to create a new PayPal account, link my Dutch address and bank account to it, and transfer all associated email addresses over to the new PayPal account. Since by now it was almost a months since I was able to receive payments (hurting my eBay sales badly), I just wanted to get it over with. So I created a new account. The Problem I opened a new PayPal account and now I wanted to transfer all email addresses (I receive payments on) from the old PayPal account to the new. According to someone from PayPal I spoke with on the phone, this would simply be a matter of removing the email addresses from the old account, and add them to the new account. I removed (disassociated) all emails from my old account and added them to the new. No problem there. But when I wanted to confirm them (by having PayPal send me a verification email to the email address), this failed for two email addresses. Unfortunately, one of the two is the email address I receive payments on from eBay sales. Whenever I click on the "Confirm" button, the page says PayPal has sent a confirmation email to the email address. But the email never arrives. I know what you are thinking. "Check your spam filter", "check with your provider", "check your firewall/anti-virus". But this isn't that simple. I run my own mailservers and I can actually see PayPal never even sends the email. All the other email addresses I use (and which were successfully confirmed) are in fact email aliases for one and the same mailbox - just like the problem email address is. I called PayPal about this and they tried to send me the email while we were on the phone, and that one never arrived either. So what else could cause this problem? First I thought the problem could be because it's an email address that's actively used on eBay. But then, there are actually two email addresses with the same problem, and the other one has only been used once many years ago. The only "visible" difference between the email addresses that can be successfully confirmed and the two that fail, is that the "good" email addresses all end in .nl and the two that fail end in .com.
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