Just got hit with the 'verify your tax status' email message.

[ninjastyle10]

Brief backstory:

1) I'm a US resident.
2) This was a purchased ebay/pp combo stealth account...all fictitious info and in a different state.
3) I've done around 70 transactions in 6 months and ~$7k in sales.
4) this was my first warning message from paypal
5) Account is not officially in 'limited' status yet, but my latest received payment was put on a 21 day hold until they receive this info...

My question is this: I've read SO many different threads on this with very confusing and conflicting answers. I don't necessarily NEED to keep selling on this Ebay account this year, but it would be nice to be able to since it is up for Top Rated status in 2 weeks.

In the meantime, I've ended all my active listings as I don't want to trigger any more received payments with PP for the time being until I clear this up.



- Right now it's asking me to verify either my ssn or TTIN. I'm assuming EIN isn't an available option because I haven't upgraded to a business account, correct?

- If I do upgrade to a business account, what is the BEST way of going about doing this. This is the part where there is so much conflicting and confusing info in numerous threads.

Registering the EIN with the IRS:

- I've heard sole member LLC is not a good thing for some reason relating to W-9's and won't really work with Paypal. Is this true?

- Of course registering the EIN with IRS will require using my real name and home address, I'm assuming.

- In this case, what info do I provide to Paypal regarding EIN? The business address and phone number will be the ⊗⊗⊗⊗ address and number from the original stealth account? I assumed this wouldn't pass the system because it wouldn't match IRS records?



Or am I just confusing myself and putting energy into nothing, and is this account basically toast and needs to be abandoned?


I'd like to be proactive about this and not wait too long, so hopefully I can get some concrete answers from those with actual successful experience in this.

Thanks ahead of time!

[Kajunrook]

The last two I tried to upgrade to business acct, Paypal IMMEDIATELY asked for a lot of corporate documents, bills sent to corporate address, cc statements in corporate name, etc. So I just abandoned it.

[agent006140]

Top rated plus status will give you a 10% discount on FVF of the item,not FVF of shipping,I would abandon the account and start a new one.

[ninjastyle10]

Thank you sirs. Not exactly the answers I was hoping for, but I appreciate the honesty. Back to square one I go!

[Leader2dark]

The stealth game is getting tough. You basically need a new account, it won't reset next year.

[Kristian]

Based on my experience you should be fine. I had a few accounts get hit with this message last year, and I kept selling on them. They got hit with the message at around 100 sales. I kept selling until around 160-170 items. After the new year the message went away.

The message that they sent you has changed from what it was in the past years, but it is pretty much the same thing. Just don't get too close to 200 items or $20,000 sold in the same year and you should be fine.

[rsot]

Originally Posted by ninjastyle10

Thank you sirs. Not exactly the answers I was hoping for, but I appreciate the honesty. Back to square one I go!

Best of luck ninjastyle10