| inverser | 09-09-2009 02:46 PM | No PMs necessary.
The PayPal account was created in my friend's name and was later upgraded to a business account before selling.
When the account became limited, as you can see by the very first screencap in this thread, PayPal required only an SSN to remove limitation.
Unfortunately, my own personal SSN is blacklisted from eBay/PayPal, so that wasn't possible. Classy I know! And I didn't want my friend, who very graciously allows me to borrow his identity, to feel obligated to extend his generosity that much more. So we chose to contact PayPal and explain that we are a business and tried to have the limitation removed by providing an EIN or Tax ID number instead. I applied for and received an EIN for a new LLC from the IRS for this very reason a few months ago.
My friend was the one who actually spoke with them, so I will never know how it really played out, but I was told the PayPal rep asked many private questions about the business and even seemed to be googling us on the phone. He asked about our supplier, monthly volume, and shipping times. Unfortunately I was not even present at the time of the call. I wish I were but it's not like I could've really coached him while he was talking to them.
Minutes after this phone call however, the PayPal account became "doubly" limited. On top of the first reason for limitation, a second reason was listed. This reason stated that the limitation was for "suspicious withdrawal activity."
Now, PayPal wanted much more than just an SSN. They wanted copies of invoices, supplier info, etc. All of this was provided as well a document from the IRS showing our business name and EIN but they still wanted an SSN.
I'm not sure why they still wanted the SSN even though a "substitute" was provided but they did and we chose not to argue. There was four grand in there that I needed to fill orders.
Perhaps the problem was that the PayPal account used to be a personal account that was later upgraded a business account? Who knows. I plan on doing more research on this particular subject in the very near future.
Lastly, other members have brought up using a DBA paired with an EIN/TID to bypass the SSN. I wish I could've tried this time around but the accounts were not set up appropriately to give it a go.
Next time, fo sheezy! |