Paypal limitation ruins ebay account

[GreenBean]

Not what I would do.

At the very least,if you phone, ask for a manager. Dont make any convo with anyone but a manager. Get their name as well. Where you stand right now, they do not give a toss about you. Your case is hovering at a point where they could refuse to take your call and you will get no-where.

If you read this B4 you make the call, consider not do it

[lordbrowns]

Hello All.

On the advice of a particularly helpful forum member, i spoke to Paypal T&S in Ireland again, and proposed the following.

To negate all future risk to Paypal, we would be happy to agree to the following in return for Paypal to restore our account.

1. Process all future transactions through our own merchant account
2. Create a "rolling-reserve" of funds to cover any potential future chargebacks and
3. For all payments to be held for 60-180 days to, again, protect Paypal from any future chargebacks.

I spoke to a Manager (Eva, who was actually really pleasant) who escalated this proposal to the relevant department responsible for the original decision, and told me to expect an email response within 24-48 hours. She said she had never escalated such a proposal, and agreed that all offers within the proposal dealt directly with the concerns stated by Paypal as reasons why they no longer wished to do business with us.

So, til then, i shall sit and wait and hope for good news.

What more could a seller offer? Admittedly, offer 1. might not be to their liking, but i fail to see how they could reasonably refuse to accept offers 2 and 3.

I hope their response to this proposal is positive but, if nothing else, should all parts of this proposal be rejected, it will at least confirm all my worst fears, and your thoughts, about their modus operandi.

Rest assured, as soon as i hear back from them, i shall post their response.

Fingers crossed.

[ensignia]

I wouldn't hold your breath. I was in a similar situation and was told, in no uncertain terms, once you get the 180 days limitation there is virtually no chance for that account any more.

I was doing a roaring trade selling high-end phones and was a fully registered UK company displaying VAT numbers and a business address on an eBay account which has been around since 2002 with NO negatives or even neutrals, yet they decided to limit my account for "unusual activity" in November 2010. The imbeciles even phoned me two weeks earlier to tell me that I was doing an excellent job and to "keep up the good work".

Maybe your situation is slightly different as you are selling fairly low-risk (I'd assume) items, and they may agree to your terms even though they are pretty unfair on you. Good luck though, it's certainly worth pursuing and you seem like a stand-up guy.

[Daz]

Hi, Lordbrowns, sorry to hear about the way you have been treated.
The same thing happened to me at te beginning of March, totally out of the blue, they shut all my accounts down and froze my paypal account for 180 days with over £500 in it.

Although i wasnt making the sort of money you were and employing people, i was supporting my family, with an income of around £800 - £1000 a month from ebay, they were making plenty of money from me in listing and final value fees, paypal were making plenty of money in payment processing fees, but after one unsubstantiated anonymouse complaint from what i am 99% sure was a competitor who was playing dirty, they destrioyed my business overnight!

2 months down the line, my savings accounts are all empty, i dont know how i am going to pay my mortgage this month, i have been doing some casual work where i can find it to get some money through the doors while i am rebuilding my business - unfortunately eb ay are such big players that you need to sell on there to get any kind of serious income, and they know it and do whatever they please to whoever they please and know they have no recourse whatsoever.

If nothing else, it is a terrible way to run a business, they are literally turning away money from loads of sellers on a regular basis, because of some over-paranoid business model that must have been dreamed up by a madman!

However, there is a small light at the end of the tunnel for me, i bought and digested the stealth guide, i have just opened up my 4th stealth account and i am selling again, just not at the level i was before though because of their ridiculous listing limitations on all new accounts, which seem to be done at random as well, but i said to myself 3-6 months to build the business back up again, and it looks like i was about right with that, am hoping i will be able to list unlimited amlunts on at least one account soon!

I have learned a very valuable lesson though, never to keep my eggs all in one basket, i am looking at other ways to make money both online and offline, and even with ebay i wil never again have 2 accoutns linked together if i can help it, if it happens to me again for any reason i will have other accoutns ready to go.

Several people on this forum have recommended having 10 separate eb and ppal accounts, which is my aim, 4 down 6 to go! This really does seem like good advice, and this forum is full of very helpful people, so i do wish you the best of luck with them!

I really wouldnt hold out much hope of appealing to any sense of reason with anyone at ppal though, it really does seem like once they have made their minds up that is that, i do strongly suggest you dont pin all your hopes on them giving you any kind of reinstatement, get a few spare unlinked accounts started asap, i generally leave a few days at least before opening one, even if they do by some miracle reinstate your account, you will be future-proofing yourself by getting other accounts up and running, and you know they will be going through your reinstated account with a fine tooth comb looking for the slightest of reasons to pull the plug on you again and keep your money!

Best of luck, do keep us all informed of the outcome!

[stillselling]

Please don't try to copy what OP has done. There are communications that you're not aware of.

Don't take PP for idiots, beyond the CS reps, they actually have experts working in loss prevention. If you sell foo foo, can't provide REAL paperwork, and can't provide customer service up to eB standards, just move along, there's nothing to see here.

[cazador]

Wow,I am sorry to heard that man.
Something i dont really understand is,Why this idiots pp and ebay close an accounts for 1 stupid complaint or just cause the buyer didn't liked what he buy?.
Who will drive more money to their accounts? buyers or sellers?..SELLERS!!
why this idiots always stay at the buyer side,a person who use their sites once a year or maybe 2 and let the sellers suffer all humilliations..
Damn i wish google or another famous place open a crowded auction site to dump ebay and pp.Amen

[lordbrowns]

Hello All.

You will be unsurprised to hear that my proposal was turned down point blank, without any explanation as to why. Unbelievable.

That being the case, whilst i had the T&S Manager on the phone yesterday afternoon, i suggested that the only course of action i believed was left open to me was to request all information held on our business account by Paypal under the Data Protection Act, with a view to having it poured over by our solicitor, prior to taking our case to the FSA & Ombudsman & MP & National/Local Press & BBC Watchdog.

Whilst being our least preferred course of action, as going through this process was likely to cost all concerned a considerable amount of money, we clearly had nothing else to lose (including our business) so were committed to taking this matter as far as was legally and morally possible.

Her immediate response was to offer to re-forward this case to "Executive Escalations" (the layers of management at Paypal would appear to be never-ending) for their consideration. I, of course, agreed to her offer to do this, and was told i should expect a response within 48-72 hours.

So, the dance continues.

Certainly, i expect the same outcome as before but, if that is to be the case, it will at least allow us to exhibit to whoever we do take our case to that, not only are we an entirely genuine, honest, transparent and successful independent online retailer of fine used furniture, but that we have gone to the ends-of-the-earth to resolve and negate any outstanding or future issues to the satisfaction of Paypal.

I do not see how much more compliant we could offer to be?

As ever, a thousand thanks for those who are still prepared to offer their thoughts and advice on this episode as, not only are you educating and equipping us regarding the harsh realities of life when dealing with Paypal, your messages of support continue to galvanise us through this difficult time.

I will report back as soon as i have more to share.

Warm regards.

[gungadin]

.....but im in the same boat!
paypal accnt was running fine until i hit the £1900 limit.
they wanted verification, which i did, green ticks everywhere.
but they still wanted more, ie docs!
now, this is where the fun starts, cos the accnt was "creative", and in my rush, i forgot to jot down ALL the details, like my creative DOB, etc etc.
so, you guessed it, now they wanted my DOB, which i didnt remember!

tried the old trick of entering wrong details 3 times, in the hope that they'd give me the coice of email verification, but no!
they asked for id documents.
oh well, time to don my creative hat again......

someone told me about karma....well, the amount of bad karma paypal have accumulated over the years by annoying off so many people, they'll all probably be reincarnated as ticks at the mouth of a camel's rear!
!

[Apple on Head]

I like the options you mentioned- that's the way to go because I really don't think you will get anywhere with the people in Ireland.

I'm also with Daz - I've given myself 3-6 months to get up and running again even though my savings are dwindling I have managed to start selling again and am doing about 1/3 of my original sales, just need to build things up. However, my personal website is also up and running, no sales yet but it looks good - just need to promote it.

Keep the faith, all hail Aspkin

[stillselling]

@lordbrowns, I found the words "potentially fraudulent" in PP's original response to you rather harsh considering they've decided to part ways. We have focused on the high risk part, maybe the problem was the potential fraud all along.

Stripping out all the extenuating circumstances, this is what's left. You sold a piece of funiture for 2000GBP and for 3 weeks nothing happened. It wasn't until the buyer filed a claim before you refunded him fully. If you had criminal intentions, you could've gotten away with a lot more in that timeframe.

We all thought by providing the refund, it's the end of that issue. That could be where the PP differ from us. It's up to you to document and demonstrate to PP that the delay is an one off event despite your best effort. Would you be able to get some sort of collaborating letter from the courier? Or a log of phone calls you made to the courier? Have you forwarded all your email correspondences with the buyer to PP? I understand that the buyer spoke with PP regarding the problem, but maybe PP uk is not aware of that.

Stay strong.

[GrannyT]

Originally Posted by lordbrowns

Hello All.

You will be unsurprised to hear that my proposal was turned down point blank, without any explanation as to why. Unbelievable.

That being the case, whilst i had the T&S Manager on the phone yesterday afternoon, i suggested that the only course of action i believed was left open to me was to request all information held on our business account by Paypal under the Data Protection Act, with a view to having it poured over by our solicitor, prior to taking our case to the FSA & Ombudsman & MP & National/Local Press & BBC Watchdog.

Whilst being our least preferred course of action, as going through this process was likely to cost all concerned a considerable amount of money, we clearly had nothing else to lose (including our business) so were committed to taking this matter as far as was legally and morally possible.

Her immediate response was to offer to re-forward this case to "Executive Escalations" (the layers of management at Paypal would appear to be never-ending) for their consideration. I, of course, agreed to her offer to do this, and was told i should expect a response within 48-72 hours.

Hmm - you put it a lot better than most of us do - you are obviously an accomplished wordsmith.

I do know that both EB and PP dread adverse publicity and it could well be that because of the level of business that went through your account they may view you a lot differently to the usual oicks (thats me!) that make these kinds of threats. They may well view it that you could, and would, manage to do the things you state (Forget Watchdog - it aint going to happen)

I would make one point - the 'enemy' undoubtably troll these forums and from the information you have already posted it would not be difficult to ascertain who you are on their systems. If you do manage to get fully reinstated it will only be a matter of time before you are blown out of the water again. The 'enemy' does not like its decisions questioned or over turned.

Whatever the outcome you must take steps to ensure this does not happen again - you know by now how to do it!

I hope you get where you want to be

[oompaloompa]

yes that is a very offensive term and actually sometimes they do not even write 'potentially' beforehand, they say we have reason to believe you WILL be fraudulent or give bad customer experience, phrases like that, and you can literally not understand that they are referring to you. Dont be so sure about watchdog, it will be on there, the scale is so vast though, what can they do, I mean it wont stop people using this monopoly. Understand the rules of the game, do not leave large sums in your balance, do not use your real address, this is what I would advise to anyone even a first timer starting a business with them.......

[GrannyT]

Originally Posted by oompaloompa

yes that is a very offensive term and actually sometimes they do not even write 'potentially' beforehand, they say we have reason to believe you WILL be fraudulent or give bad customer experience, phrases like that, and you can literally not understand that they are referring to you. Dont be so sure about watchdog, it will be on there, the scale is so vast though, what can they do, I mean it wont stop people using this monopoly. Understand the rules of the game, do not leave large sums in your balance, do not use your real address, this is what I would advise to anyone even a first timer starting a business with them.......

Good advice!!

[Daz]

lordbrowns, your story has really touched a nerve with me, and i am really keen to hear how you got on with executive escalations at pay p al, do you have any updates for us all?

Even if they have reinstated your account and everyting is hunky dory again, it would be nice for all of us in this forum to know that, it may provide a small ray of hope to somebody else in your situation!

[GrannyT]

I guess the OP must have sorted out his problems. Would have been nice to hear the outcome though

[GTB]

(in a voice of mystery and wisdom)

grannytrannyeeeee.......

have faaaaith my friend....

all....is not losssst

he could still be awaiting the outcomeeee........

dont worry......he is on the path to enlightenment

(and vanishes in a puff of smoke)

sorry,been watching stargate SG1,got abit carried away

[GrannyT]

Mr GTB - I really think you need some help, now, my doctor can see you tomorrow at 4.30 ..... LOL

[GTB]

pmsl:D

i know man

heeeelp meeeee!

[rsot]

pms? What this about.