Paypal limited after depositing to online casino

[Jufo81]

What happened to me was this:

I recently made a computer simulation program which I sold to a few people on forums for 150 euros per a copy. Five people wanted to pay for the tool by Paypal so I opened a Paypal account, verified it with my details and started taking payments from people from different parts of the world.

I received payment for the computer program from five people in total. I am Finnish and for residents in my country Paypal can also be used to deposit to Internet sportsbook and casinos. I know in many countries (especially U.S.) this is not possible but in my country it is.

So I deposited some of the money from the computer program sales to Bet365. Yesterday Paypal security department called me on the phone and wanted to verify the "suspicious activity" on my account. I verified to them that indeed I had made a few deposits to Bet365 and explained to them that the money received from those five people are for selling the computer program. To my shock yesterday evening I received the following e-mail:

Dear XXX,

We are hereby notifying you that, after a recent review of your account
activity, it has been determined that you are in violation of PayPal's
Acceptable Use Policy regarding your transactions.

We determined that you received gambling payments from other PayPal users
and, in turn, sent those payments to another website for gambling purposes.
While this website is approved to accept payments from certain PayPal
users, PayPal does not allow intermediate accounts to receive gambling
payments and use those funds to facilitate gambling. By engaging in such
transactions, you are acting as an unapproved operator of gambling
activities per our Acceptable Use Policy.

Our review shows that you sent payments to the following gambling website:
bet365

Please refer to:
- Received transaction 4U25XXXXXXXXX
- Received transaction 62YXXXXXXXXXX
- Sent transaction 8GR3XXXXXXXXX
- Sent transaction 4UT4XXXXXXXXXX

Therefore, your account has been permanently limited.

You will need to remove all references to PayPal from your website/s and/or
auction/s. This includes not only removing PayPal as a payment option, but
also the PayPal logo and/or shopping cart.

The PayPal User Agreement states that PayPal, at its sole discretion,
reserves the right to limit an account for any violation of the User
Agreement, including the Acceptable Use Policy.

Under the Acceptable Use Policy, PayPal may not be used to send or receive
payments for activities that involve gambling and/or gaming activities,
including but not limited to casino games, sports betting, horse or
greyhound racing, lottery tickets, certain games of skill, and other
ventures that facilitate gambling at PayPal's discretion.

The complete Acceptable Use Policy can be found at the following URL:
https://cms.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/?c...locale.x=en_GB

To learn more about the Acceptable Use Policy, please refer to our Help
Centre page here:
https://www.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/helpweb?cmd=_help

We thank you in advance for your cooperation. If you have any questions,
please contact the PayPal Brand Risk Management Department at
euaup@paypal.co.uk.

Sincerely,
Serena
PayPal, Brand Risk Management

So they are accusing me for receiving money to gamble from other Paypal users and have thus permanently limited my Paypal account. I cannot withdraw the balance I made from my computer program sales for 180 days and this is also money I need for living as I have been working on the computer program full time.

What's worse that at least one of the customers who bought the computer program have received the same limitation to their account. So they simply bought a computer program from me and now are also accused of "providing me with gambling money" and have their accounts permanently limited as well.

What can I do to get justice and what do you think of my chances? This doesn't only affect my account but all the people who bought my computer program risk their accounts being limited as well.

[oompaloompa]

yeah, you basically admitted to laundering money, and it was for virtual goods too which is another strike. I am assuming you did not have bank attached and therefore needed to get cash out?

An aged account with other mixed payments may have withstood this attention, but it was brand new acc.

your issue now is to wait up to 180 to withdraw, at that point either add your bank or get a check if acc is in your name and address.

[Jufo81]

Originally Posted by oompaloompa

yeah, you basically admitted to laundering money, and it was for virtual goods too which is another strike. I am assuming you did not have bank attached and therefore needed to get cash out?

I didn't launder any money. It may look like that but I didn't. I sold a program and once the money was sent to my Paypal I simply used it to my own leisure, gambling which, I want to stress again, is completely allowed usage of Paypal in my jurisdiction.

If I receive my salary to my bank account and deposit it to an online casino, the bank doesn't have any problem with that so why should Paypal?

I did/do have my bank account attached. Why did you suggest that I didn't have it attached? I want to stress that my account is completely legit with accurate infomation. I have bank account attached, card verified and scans of my passport and utility bills sent to them. I have everything verified and had no limits until now.

I deposited to Bet365 simply because I felt like gambling and it is my leisure activity. I didn't need to get the funds out from Paypal via online casino. Besides if I deposit with Paypal to online casino then I am only able to withdraw the funds back to Paypal so your whole point about laundering money wouldn't even work.

Originally Posted by oompaloompa

An aged account with other mixed payments may have withstood this attention, but it was brand new acc.

Yeah, unfortunately I had another set of bad luck as I had an older Paypal account but the e-mail address of it had stopped working (since it was an university address and I had finished my studies) so I was unable to login to this Paypal account anymore and was instructed to open a new one and request the old one to be closed, which I complied with. Their systems really suck when they don't have a recovery option in case of an expired e-mail address but request you to open a completely new account in this case.

Originally Posted by oompaloompa

your issue now is to wait up to 180 to withdraw, at that point either add your bank or get a check if acc is in your name and address.

I might also be able to send the money back to buyers as refunds and ask them to pay me again via some other method. Does Paypal have something against it if I simply empty my account by issuing refunds back to everyone who bought the program? But I don't want to the buyers to get into trouble as one of them has their account limited already because of my leisure gambling activities.

[oompaloompa]

paypal and gambling is allowed in alot of juristictions, but it is also a known cash out method when there is no bank attached or if it is a VBA or some other bank you cannot or do not want to withdraw to.

You can challenge the gambling issue with them but I doubt they will budge on the digital nature of goods rule that was broken. It is always worth calling and writing, at least to say you tried...

Yes if the buyers are trusted then ask them to dispute and get money back and repay you, but risky and you may want to wait for your money and withdraw.

[Jufo81]

Originally Posted by oompaloompa

paypal and gambling is allowed in alot of juristictions, but it is also a known cash out method when there is no bank attached or if it is a VBA or some other bank you cannot or do not want to withdraw to.

You can challenge the gambling issue with them but I doubt they will budge on the digital nature of goods rule that was broken. It is always worth calling and writing, at least to say you tried...

Yes if the buyers are trusted then ask them to dispute and get money back and repay you, but risky and you may want to wait for your money and withdraw.

Yeah, I understand the suspeticble nature of gambling transcations but yet this is not what I attempted to do. It doesn't sit right that they limit my account simply based on that the activity looks suspicious and not bothering to listen me to when I try to explain to them that there was nothing suspicous about my activity.

And a person who does gambling transactions should get a warning first if this is unwelcome activity. Outright banning innocent leisure gamblers is way too harsh and unfair.

Can you elaborate what you mean by "the digital nature of goods rule that was broken". Have I broken some term there because I haven't been aware of any such term? I didn't see computer programs in the list of excluded goods/services.

[Jufo81]

I checked from eBay that I am allowed to sell a self-made computer program if I provide them to buyers in physical format (not send it to them over e-mail). However I never used eBay in the first place but sold my program just by advertising it on related discussion forums, as it is a exclusive program for only a small number people. Is there a policy against something like this?

[GreenBean]

Wake up!

You used paypal in a way only YOU thought was acceptable.

Sadly you managed to combine a online gambling site as part of your payment process via using an account that had little credibility with paypal.

Such actions are perceived as risky by paypal. paypal has acted to protect itself.

Before you did anything like you did it would have been expedient to speak to paypal to ensure such activities were viable.

What paypal have written as acceptable and what they allow are totally different.

[slapped]

Since you feel that strongly about it, and if it is worth it, Hire a Lawyer to contact Paypals Legal Dept. I can assure you that if your argument has any Merit, a Laywer speaking on your behalf will be able to convey your position to their legal Dept FAR more effectivly than you can speaking to some $2.50 Per hour "Supervisor" Located is some Dingy Unlit Basement Half Way around the World,,

[oompaloompa]

yes, to clarify, I was confused with ebay transactions rule of digital delivery.....

but paypal have mixed views on DD, they allow it but it is frequently disputed via unauth card chargeback (not covered under buyer protection) and the subtle mix of a new account and these types of transactions in isolation, maybe the betting that followed, obviously flagged it.

[Jufo81]

Originally Posted by slapped

Since you feel that strongly about it, and if it is worth it, Hire a Lawyer to contact Paypals Legal Dept. I can assure you that if your argument has any Merit, a Laywer speaking on your behalf will be able to convey your position to their legal Dept FAR more effectivly than you can speaking to some $2.50 Per hour "Supervisor" Located is some Dingy Unlit Basement Half Way around the World,,

Yeh, I feel strongly about this but truth be told the amount of money stuck there is not large enough to go through this trouble.

Right now I simply want to avoid the 180 day confiscating period by issuing refunds to all buyers who bought the program from me. I know the buyers well enough that I know they will repay me via Western union. Can someone explain how this exactly works? Yesterday I was still able to manually issue refunds in my Paypal account (this option was available when I clicked the "Details" of transaction in question). But now those ****ers took away even this option from my account and now Issuing refunds is in the list of actions I cannot do anymore. They are really messing with me here.

So since I cannot manually issue refunds to buyers myself anymore how do I go about with this?

[yotano211]

Tell your buyers they will have to open a paypal claim. You can then simply refund them and they can pay you with another method.

[Jufo81]

Actually I just called Paypal customer support and asked them to do a refund. They asked for the e-mail address and did a refund just like that with no need for the buyer to file a claim first. Thank god this "loophole" worked and with this I will hopefully get the majority of my funds out from that hellhole.