Does PayPal sometimes hold users’ funds without clear justification?
Payments
Asked by Question Bot03/Oct/20141 answer
1 Answer
F
Faisal Khan
Answered 03/Oct/2014
PayPal does not close account for no reasons. Your fears are not unwarranted, PayPal has been known in many cases to freeze or lockout accounts without any advance warning. Even this is done with a reason. Your account could have triggered some anti0money laundering rule, or some fraud detection ruleset, etc. There can be so many reasons.
However, PayPal is trying desperately to change this. With David Marcus as the new CEO, he is trying to instill a culture within PayPal that caters to such queries.
PayPal does not necessarily like pissing its clients, but it is something that the clients do (in most cases) that requires the account to be locked and a review of the account be done.
For example, and I am merely speculating here, the PayPal account used for the Conference may never have seen so much money come in, in such a short time. The account does not know you are having a conference, but the internal fraud and anti-money laundering systems, will trigger quite a few things: Velocity check triggers will go up for sure (which is an anti-money laundering check) and the PayPal account would definitely be frozen until a further manual review.
So this is normal. Users also have to be cognisant of what you can and cannot do with your PayPal account. People blindly accept the terms and conditions, but if this were your bank and you were sitting face to face, I bet you would read through the document you are about to sign, once at least. With the online acceptance of terms and conditions, people just don't read through. If nothing else, read about the Acceptable Usage Policy of the product.
They are able to get away with it, because it is their product for which you signed up. They have certain rules and regulations to go by, and they prefer that you abide by them. Any, out of the ordinary movement, and PayPal will exercise the right to block/freeze funds or suspend the account all together.
However, PayPal is trying desperately to change this. With David Marcus as the new CEO, he is trying to instill a culture within PayPal that caters to such queries.
PayPal does not necessarily like pissing its clients, but it is something that the clients do (in most cases) that requires the account to be locked and a review of the account be done.
For example, and I am merely speculating here, the PayPal account used for the Conference may never have seen so much money come in, in such a short time. The account does not know you are having a conference, but the internal fraud and anti-money laundering systems, will trigger quite a few things: Velocity check triggers will go up for sure (which is an anti-money laundering check) and the PayPal account would definitely be frozen until a further manual review.
So this is normal. Users also have to be cognisant of what you can and cannot do with your PayPal account. People blindly accept the terms and conditions, but if this were your bank and you were sitting face to face, I bet you would read through the document you are about to sign, once at least. With the online acceptance of terms and conditions, people just don't read through. If nothing else, read about the Acceptable Usage Policy of the product.
They are able to get away with it, because it is their product for which you signed up. They have certain rules and regulations to go by, and they prefer that you abide by them. Any, out of the ordinary movement, and PayPal will exercise the right to block/freeze funds or suspend the account all together.