Account Limitations: What You Need to Know

[PayPal_Mark]

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.

[Wabknobby80]

I **bleep**ing hate PayPal. Ok everybody I'm in the process of putting up a website as well as a Facebook page just for all of you that **bleep**ing hate PayPal my goal My ultimate goal is to cost them money to cost them business and to ultimately preferably destroy PayPal so I will post that link as soon as it's up and running

[Anonymous_User]

Please do send the link. I am with you. Those thieves stole $3300 USD from my limited account! 

Already sent complaints to regulating financial institutions in Europe and to Luxembourg police (where their EU office is).

[rarainks]

I need help with my account!! Im a small digital artist and i just started taking commissions. i upgraded to a business account to keep track of my transactions as ive done before a long time ago with an old business account, and I just got limited after my most recent transaction. i cant take any money out. its asking me to provide things i cannot (asking for a supplier receipt when i dont have a supplier due to being a digital artist and proof of delivering even though i just received the payments, and i don’t deliver things physically). it is also asking for a photo ID and im absolutely not comfortable with that. I dont know what to do and how to dispute this. Im thinking the issue is ive received payments too close together or because my most recent payment was $100. anyways, im scared and anxious over this because i need this money for bills. please help.

[iTesla]

Hi, it would be good to send the photo ID, this will increase trust of your account.
I m also in some way artist selling digital services for technicians, try contact them and explain in detail what are your services, if needed provide proof of your sold art, if you have a website it's even better, send them link to your website.

[maksimemelian]

hey, did you solve your limitation problem? I have the same problem, because I do video post production

[Thissiteisstupi]

My account has been permanently limited since I opened it. I never got any emails as to why. I never used the account. I decline their new policy changes but an still unable to close the account. And I still do not know why it was permanently limited as soon as I created the account. It makes no sense to me at all.

[Temp20210619f]

Does anyone know is the 1.5% rule of acceptable business account transaction disagreements calculated by number of disputes, claims or chargebacks?

For example: If a customer files a DISPUTE just because the tracking number has been filtered to his webmails spam folder, and I send him the tracking number again as a solution and he closes the open dispute case as a acceptable solution, does this count as in those 1.5% disputed transactions that could get business account limited/banned in the future?

Or does the 1.5% rule only apply for the times when the acceptable solution is not found with the customer (tracking, refund ect.) and when the open dispute case escalates into a CLAIM. And/or when the customer does CHARGEBACK directly with his/hers bank.

Just kind of curious and confused about this, because I cannot find direct and clear information about this anywhere.

And even thou I have a couple of dispute cases, that I have refunded or send tracking information as acceptable solution (out of thousands of orders),

still the resolution centers dispute information box says that my dispute rate/percentage is and has been 0%:

"Dispute Fee and tier info Current tier:

Standard Dispute Fee 1 May 2021 - 31 May 2021 Current dispute rate: 0%"

[Temp20210619f]

I actually found a possible answer to my own question, but it would be awesome that someone would still confirm this.

It seems that the acceptable 1,5% Dispute rate that will affect your Paypal Business Account, is actually calculated by your total number of Claims+Chargebacks/total number of sales. The naming just is super confusing, because usually Disputes are the first step that can escalate to Claims when the mutually acceptable solution is not found, and Chargebacks are when the customer reverses the payment directly from their bank.

From Paypal:

"Dispute Rate (%) is your Claims(!) to Sales Ratio For The Past 3 Months."

"What is the Dispute Fee?

PayPal will charge a Dispute Fee to sellers for facilitating the online dispute resolution process for transactions that are processed either through a buyer’s PayPal account or through a PayPal guest checkout.

How is the Dispute Fee applied?

The Dispute Fee applies when the buyer pursues a claim directly with PayPal, a chargeback with their card issuer or a reversal with their bank. The Dispute Fee will be charged at either the Standard Dispute Fee rate or the High Volume Dispute Fee rate. The Dispute Fee will be charged in the currency you selected for the original transaction listing. If the transaction was in a currency not listed in the Dispute Fee table then the fee charged will be in your primary holding currency. The Dispute Fee will be deducted from your PayPal account after the claim is decided.

How is the Dispute Fee determined?

The Dispute Fee amount will be determined when the dispute case is created. The fee is based on the ratio of the total transaction amount of your claims compared to the total amount of your sales for the previous three calendar months. Your total claims include all claims filed directly with and escalated to PayPal, except claims for Unauthorized Transactions; and all chargebacks from the buyer’s card issuer or reversals from the buyer’s bank.

What are the different Dispute Fee tiers?

If your disputes ratio is 1.5% or more and you had more than 100 sales transactions in the previous three full calendar months, you will be charged the High Volume Dispute Fee for each dispute. Otherwise, you will be charged the Standard Dispute Fee for each dispute."

This would perfectly explain why my "dispute" percentage is still zero, because I have never gotten any claims or chargebacks. But still, it would be awesome if someone with knowledge would confirm this.

[Steven2021000]

Good day, I am just a normal Ebay seller, and I only used Paypal to receive money from Ebay or refund some. I cannot know why you limited my account, also cannot understand why. Do I have to wait 180 days to get my own money??? I am a new and small Ebay seller, I don't have much money, please kindly help.

[KillerMillerCo]

I'm having this problem. They tell I'm not allowed to do business with them anymore, will hold all my funds for 180 days, and it cannot be reversed. I am a real person trying to execute real business. PayPal has been an entity that I tolerate for many months now since starting an online business, and now it is just a joke. This is literally preposterous and no reason was given to me even after calling customer service. It is difficult to get away from PayPal because so many people use it to shop safely online. Even though I think this is a joke of a company, I NEED to have this resolved. If any employee is seeing this, please reach out to me and try to resolve this. This is hurting my business and lessening my respect for PayPal.