access to any funds in your account<\/a> \u2013 at least until they decide to close it down!<\/p>\nAnyway, I got really angry about this situation and started writing emails on forums while stressing out \u2013 which was not good for my heart\u2026or my health or marriage! After fighting with them for 2 whole days over the phone and via email (during which time I received replies telling me there was nothing wrong with my account) I decided to call their corporate office in San Jose, California. They were incredibly helpful there but said they would pass the information along because it was up to the call center in India to sort this out. An hour or so later the Indian call center phoned up and said I was cleared to spend my funds again \u2013 although they were still refusing to tell me which country (or countries) had been listed as \u201crestricted\u201d by them! This is a ridiculous policy that cannot help but cause problems for honest people who may unknowingly have customers in banned countries or simply randomly freeze their account because of an internal glitch, so I am writing this e-mail hoping PayPal will change their policies.<\/p>\n
Even so, they took away all my customer balances \u2013 allegedly due to fraud worries but without warning or any concrete evidence beyond an accusation from another customer based on circumstantial\/unsubstantiated claims. It was a shock to suddenly lose all this money and it was only after the call center people in the US intervened that I finally got my balances back through sheer persistence. Some of these customer accounts were less than $100 but as I said above, there are many thousands of users out there who rely on PayPal for their living and cannot afford to suddenly be cut off without warning \u2013 especially when you consider how much it costs them to pay via credit card!<\/p>\n
I am sure you don\u2019t want your customers scammed or ripped off by criminals, so why not implement better fraud detection processes before closing down an account? Or perhaps get someone with a brain at the Indian call centers who can tell good businesses from bad ones?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sure most people would be happy to give you a list of customers who have made small transactions, especially when the business is Amazon selling books and CDs where people pay for goods with Paypal.<\/p>\n
The other problem I have with PayPal is the fact that there are scammers\/criminals out there who use legitimate looking email addresses linked to legitimate looking businesses but which are in fact fronts for fraud. Just recently I received an email from \u201cPayPal\u201d requesting my personal details supposedly to confirm my account \u2013 complete with their real name and logo on it! Yet when I tried contacting them through either friends or colleagues (who knew me personally) they said that they had never heard of them\u2026.so how safe can these companies really be? This business was in the UK and had a real looking website \u2013 but I am sure there are many companies around the world using similar tactics. Remember, scammers will only get to you by emailing you out of the blue!<\/p>\n
All you need to do is use your credit card or bank account to confirm who you are \u2013 so why on earth would they be asking me for my postal address, mobile number and date of birth? When I told them that giving them this information was against all online security policies they quickly moved onto asking me for other people\u2019s details (both work colleagues and friends) claiming they needed their permission too. Needless to say, I refused to give these incriminating details because it wasn\u2019t an official PayPal e-mail anyway \u2013 it had been spoofed!<\/p>\n
I have heard of other cases where users have received similar dodgy e-mails from PayPal stating that you need to enter your postal address and phone number to finalize your account \u2013 don\u2019t do this as they will not only try to scam you but you could also be handing them all the information they need to commit identity theft on someone else. For example, a criminal may get hold of one of these email addresses and then sell it on under their own name in order to steal people\u2019s credit cards etc without being traced because it was never really \u201cthem\u201d who requested the account closure in the first place.<\/p>\n
As I said, criminals will use whatever means they can to get at your personal details so always be on your guard, especially with dodgy e-mails. I also find it incredible that since PayPal are now part of eBay (who have a huge customer database themselves) they are still asking for extra personal information when you only want to buy something online? Do they really need to know my date of birth or do they simply think because I am such a great customer for them on Ebay I should give even more to them \u2013 I don\u2019t know but it seems suspicious at the very least.<\/p>\n
Although some people feel these security policies are necessary and fair towards both merchant and customer alike, many others just cannot see why PayPal does not offer merchants an option \u201cnot to accept payments as PayPal from new customers who refuse\/cannot confirm their identity\u201d.<\/p>\n
I would also like to know why they have such a policy, as it doesn\u2019t make sense. If someone wants to pay me money from a bank account or credit card then surely that should be enough? I am not PayPal\u2019s customer, the other person is. As far as I\u2019m concerned there is no need for them to store my credit card details and neither do I want to give them! Why on earth should I trust my personal information with an online company who feel that using real names, addresses etc are necessary (as you can see this policy is so dangerous) when what we\u2019re really doing here is protecting ourselves and making sure we only deal with legitimate businesses?<\/p>\n
If PayPal really did charge all businesses the same fees then I would accept it as fair \u2013 but they don\u2019t. In my experience, small businesses pay higher fees for using PayPal than larger companies do \u2013 and of course when it comes to payment protection (which is your money), you will never get that if you are a small business either.<\/p>\n
PayPal has also been very slow at implementing credit card chargeback regulations which means many consumers have had their money stolen by dodgy or non-existent sellers who have taken payment before stopping all contact with them in order to get away with it scot free! For example, someone buys goods online thinking they are buying from a legitimate store based in the UK and therefore covered under European laws regarding consumer rights etc but actually this may not be the case.<\/p>\n
What may appear to be a UK store selling goods from within the UK (regardless of what \u201csales spiel\u201d they feed you) who accept payment via PayPal from a credit or debit card could in fact be based anywhere else in the world and not offer any rights at all if anything goes wrong. This is because it\u2019s possible for anyone to set up an online trading account using their own name and bank details which can then be used by anyone else. The problem with this is that it looks completely legitimate even though you are actually buying from someone who lives thousands of miles away, has no track record at all and no legal obligations whatsoever towards you when things go wrong.<\/p>\n
PayPal have admitted themselves that they can do nothing if you buy from a dodgy seller because they cannot obtain transaction information in certain countries. They recommend that you use your own credit card when buying online but that\u2019s exactly what a lot of people don\u2019t want to do \u2013 and this is because they also have no rights there either! PayPal cannot offer any help at all and neither will your own bank as they are not informed of the transaction details. That\u2019s why it\u2019s so important for me to make sure I only deal with genuine sellers who offer fair policies regarding payment protection, dispute resolution etc. This is how I protect myself (and my money) and no one else should be able to tell me otherwise, particularly an online company who have their own security problems which include hacking and data loss.<\/p>\n
In one case (which I have filed a report about with the IC3), my bank say they cannot refund even though I have evidence because PayPal has decided that it was \u201cnot their problem\u201d and, as such, how can anyone actually hold them to account if anything goes wrong? The fact is \u2013 you cannot! And this is why we should not be forced to use PayPal in order to conduct our own business online, especially when there are so many other payment options available today which operate on entirely different principles.<\/p>\n
Anyway \u2013 all of the above is just an introduction into why I\u2019m writing this guide but also to highlight some of the problems PayPal have caused for myself in particular over the years. Their security issues<\/p>\n
\n
What happens if PayPal closes your account?<\/strong> <\/p>\nPayPal will hold your balance for 180 days if they close the account because you violated their terms of service<\/strong>. If there are any fines or liabilities associated with your account closure, PayPal will deduct those fees from your balance.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\nWhat happens if your PayPal account is closed?<\/strong> <\/p>\nAfter you close a PayPal account, you will no longer be able to access your transactions and history. Unpaid requests are automatically canceled<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\nCan you reopen a closed PayPal account?<\/strong> <\/p>\nOnce you close your PayPal account, it cannot be reopened. However, if you do decide to open a new account, it will not include any of your transaction history from the previous account.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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Answer PayPal will hold your balance for 180 days if they close the account because you violated their terms of service. If there are any fines or liabilities associated with your account closure, PayPal will deduct those fees from your balance. I\u2019ve had no-one to turn to for help but found that PayPal is very … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/droidweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3649"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/droidweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/droidweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/droidweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/droidweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/droidweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3649\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/droidweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/droidweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/droidweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}