Hi,

I hope that there may be a friendly forum person who can help me.

In Jan 2005 I bought an ebay business of a chap in Sheffield. In the last year I have worked exceptionally hard to build the business and have received over 7500 positive feedbacks and only received 4 negatives, so in anyones eyes I would think that I am a pretty good ebayer. I have paid all my paypal and ebay fees on time and have never had a problem until now.

On Monday morning I received an email from paypal telling me that my account and all funds within it are frozen as my account has been linked to an account that has problems. It transpires that the account with problems belongs to the chap that I bought the business from.

Other than the fact that I purchased the business from this chap, I have no other connection. Paypal have frozen my account on the basis that because I purchased the business I am connected.

I have spoken to the chap who I purchased the business from and he does have problems with paypal, but they have nothing at all to do with me and that is a dispute between him and paypal.

I have confirmed my name, address, credit cards, bank accounts etc with paypal, sent them many emails and spent ages on the telephone only to get the same message that I am linked to this other account and unless I sort it out I will not have access to my funds. They also state that my account will now always be linked to his so this situation could arise again in the future and I would have my account frozen.

Paypal are now asking for passport/driving license, utility bills and worst of all they want my suppliers names and addresses and copies of invoices (this is priviliged and commercially sensitive information). Even if I supply all this information, my account will not be unfrozen unless the trobled account is rectified. I have worryingly found that this is not an uncommon practice with paypal and there are a whole host of sites dedicated to the poor way customers are treated by them.

I work for myself and run my business from home and just this week I have lost £1500 in orders. I am now setting up a nochex account and my own merchant account, however Paypal are ruining me.

Do I have a leg to stand on? I am not in a postition to instruct legal representation due to costs and timespan.

Help appreciated.

sounds to me as if paypal are trying to get a piece of your action......i would personally consider taking legal action or advice from you solicitor....

Hi,

I hope that there may be a friendly forum person who can help me.

In Jan 2005 I bought an ebay business of a chap in Sheffield. In the last year I have worked exceptionally hard to build the business and have received over 7500 positive feedbacks and only received 4 negatives, so in anyones eyes I would think that I am a pretty good ebayer. I have paid all my paypal and ebay fees on time and have never had a problem until now.

On Monday morning I received an email from paypal telling me that my account and all funds within it are frozen as my account has been linked to an account that has problems. It transpires that the account with problems belongs to the chap that I bought the business from.

Other than the fact that I purchased the business from this chap, I have no other connection. Paypal have frozen my account on the basis that because I purchased the business I am connected.

I have spoken to the chap who I purchased the business from and he does have problems with paypal, but they have nothing at all to do with me and that is a dispute between him and paypal.

I have confirmed my name, address, credit cards, bank accounts etc with paypal, sent them many emails and spent ages on the telephone only to get the same message that I am linked to this other account and unless I sort it out I will not have access to my funds. They also state that my account will now always be linked to his so this situation could arise again in the future and I would have my account frozen.

Paypal are now asking for passport/driving license, utility bills and worst of all they want my suppliers names and addresses and copies of invoices (this is priviliged and commercially sensitive information). Even if I supply all this information, my account will not be unfrozen unless the trobled account is rectified. I have worryingly found that this is not an uncommon practice with paypal and there are a whole host of sites dedicated to the poor way customers are treated by them.

I work for myself and run my business from home and just this week I have lost £1500 in orders. I am now setting up a nochex account and my own merchant account, however Paypal are ruining me.

Do I have a leg to stand on? I am not in a postition to instruct legal representation due to costs and timespan.

Help appreciated.

In my view you have no option but to seek legal representation. I know you have said you are not in a position to do this but you have no option. You could check if you have any insurance that covers legal costs this is something that a lot of people have without knowing it.

Seeking legal representation would likely just end up being quite costly - don't discount it, but apparently all these fraud related account closures are to do with money laundering regulations - which would probably explain why they have requested copies of invoices and so on, to ensure that everything is above board. I'd follow through with all their requests first

I doubt they are after a 'piece of the pie' - they process millions in orders each week, and I also doubt that they would distribute any commercially sensitive information.

both ebay and paypal do have slightly dodgy practises
id seek legal representation tbh

I had the same issue about 18 months ago. What type of business is it ? PayPal tend to jump on anything like ebooks or what they class as get rich quick schemes. No matter what your feedback, if someone claims you are ripping them off, your account is frozen and from experience and what I've heard from other people, there ain't a lot you can do.
I sent all the detail they asked for and it wasn't enough but then after the 180 days (probably mentioned in your email), the money came through.
I reckon it's their way of making money off your money in the form of interest - probably for an office party

I'd look into contacting 'Watchdog'- they've covered things like dodgy e-bay issues on their programme and, when they investigate companies they tend to get some resolution as it's all done on national TV.

As Paypal are a financial institution you could try the Banking / Financial Services Ombudsman.

In the meantime, just accept cheques or POs from your customers, or set up a proper credit card payment system with a bank.

loads of really good advice. I personally wouldn't seek legal representation yet because this could be costly. If you do ensure you are represented from a firm with experience in this field.

You should send them all the information that they requested. They're not going to use your info for alternative purposses. They're a huge company (paypal are owned by ebay) and I imagine they're just protecting themselves from fraud. Request written confirmation that they have been shredded once the case is over. As you're a business I assume you do have invoices from orders you have purchassed so it shouldn't be a problem. If you don't have this info, well thats your fault.

I assume you're running ebay account guard, so you know the pages are the real deal so you're not being scammed.

In the mean time, open up a second ebay and paypal account so you can continue your business, you may need to do this through someone else, someone you trust very much who could be a partner - then they can't get you for having 2 accounts. Once the situation is sorted out, you can transfer the feedback from your temp account to your main account. I don't see why you can't close this paypal account and open a new one, I know you've got the temporary prolem of your funds but that will get sorted out, you'll need a way of getting over the cash flow problems though

Its also an opportunity to seek other sales channels too if you like.

I've spoken to paypal (actual people, not a machine)on the phone before, and they gave me loads of info over the phone regarding the dispute and it got dealt with quickly.

Ring around a few solicitors, some offer the first hour's consultation for free and give excellent advice within this hour. I used one (can't remember name though) when I had some hassle regarding a web site I had and the download bandwidth that the puplic used from my site, the Hosts of the site tried to scam be out of £1500 which I got cancelled!