 ABN no. and trading name: a legitimate way to reclaim your money
My first Paypal account was hacked by scammers, got a refund from Paypal but resolved to open a ⊗⊗⊗⊗ Paypal account for any non-Ebay transactions where I was a bit doubtful of the buyer/seller. I hit $1000 quickly and the account was restricted.
This worked for me, so just suggesting it's worth a try. If you don't already have an ABN (Australian Business Number) then apply for one as a "sole trader" -it's free. Under the "trading name" section, put your ⊗⊗⊗⊗ name plus whatever you e.g. if your ⊗⊗⊗⊗ name was "John Smith" then your trading name will be "John Smith Electricals" or whatever you buy and sell the most. Enter all the other details correctly and honestly.
Go back to your ⊗⊗⊗⊗ Paypal account. Change the date of birth, address, email address etc to your actual details. In the address section, do something like this:
ADDRESS LINE 1: (your real name) trading as John Smith Electricals
ADDRESS LINE 2: your actual address.
You see, when you have a basic Paypal account you can't enter two words in the Surname field, so it's easy to claim you had to leave the word "electricals" out to make the new Paypal account.
Once you've done all this, you can just go ahead and give Paypal your passport number, a digital copy of your ABN status and trading name, faxes of drivers licence, rates notices etc until all their identity checks are okay. And of course it's all legitimate.
If Paypal wasn't satisfied with all of this, at least you have a pile of evidence to present to present to the Ombudsman and I think they would have to give in quickly.
Hope this helps. I don't want anyone using this info to do anything illegal, and hopefully you can't! But it does annoy me that Paypal has probably claimed hundreds of thousands of dollars through ⊗⊗⊗⊗ accounts worldwide.
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