eBay

ay656 · ‎08-29-2020

I want to warn everyone that If you receive the following email from PayPal concerning your Canadian business account:

"We work hard to make PayPal a place where you can do business safely and securely. When you confirm your business identity, you'll help keep PayPal a safer place to send and receive payments.

You're receiving this email because under Canadian law your PayPal account activity may require that we collect more information about you and your business soon. Please provide this information soon to avoid any interruption in your PayPal services."

this may not end well.

We had PayPal account for about 6 years, and I thought this was a formality. I filled the form as they requested. Contrary to what email said, this didn't prevent interruptions. Instead, the account was frozen immediately, with all the money we accumulated on it. It has been frozen for a week. It then took me whole day chatting/speaking to PayPal to get they attention, but in the end I received request for more information - photocopies of driver licenses and credit card statements of shareholders and whatnot. This is all sensitive private information and I have no desire of sending it to PayPal. And even if I do, who knows what they're going to ask next. I found a blog where the author had his account frozen for four months while sending various information to PayPal. I certainly will not go through this. I will try to close the account and get my money back from PayPal.

If you receive such email know that filling in the forms does not avoid interruptions but instead may get your account frozen.

I wish I took all the money from PayPal before filling in the form, or even closed the account immediately. We don't really need an account which can be frozen at any time.

reallynicestamps · ‎08-29-2020

Did you send the email to spoof@paypal.com?

When I get anything odd, that is usually my first reaction.

Then I look at the extended email address for further oddities.

However, it does sound as if PP was the original sender.

That whole mess is nasty.

Maybe you could ask eBay to be moved into Managed Payments early. At least it would give them food for thought.

ay656 · ‎08-29-2020

Yes, this is the real PayPal. The account is frozen, money inaccessible.

brettjet38 · ‎08-29-2020

NEVER EVER REPLY to ANY "Email" from "PayPal'...

The first thing you do is log into the PayPal site directly and read the message there if there was one. You did not do this, you replied to that "Phishing Scam" ...

Sounds to me like your account has been hacked and stolen by a 3rd party and, it sounds like the real PayPal have now got involved and "seized" it...from "ALL the Parties involved"...

Good Luck!

I have used PayPal since it was introduced, and I have never replied to any email messages from them or any other service provider...

...I log into the account directly and find out these messages were never really sent to me by the service provider, be it eBay, PayPal or Tim Horton.

kawartha-ephemera · ‎08-29-2020

This is very good advice. No matter what sort of account may be involved never, ever reply to or follow links found in unsolicited emails.

I've been receiving these fake paypal emails on a weekly basis. There are a number of different versions of them but the common thread among them all is a warning your account is either restricted or about to be. I forwarded one to Paypal right away but it was nothing new for them, common spoof mail.

reallynicestamps · ‎08-29-2020

I'm guessing the whole shutdown of the OP's account is PP trying clumsily to clarify who owns the account and not letting anybody use it until that is done.?

Meanwhile, the OP @ay656 could try opening a new account and revising all her Listings to give the new account as the recipient of payments.

This won't give any access to the existing money, but still allows the seller to get paid.

@ay656 you will need a different bank account and credit card to do this.

msmaggie060 · ‎08-29-2020

I got a new one the other day. Supposedly from PayPal saying it was an invoice for, I think, $200, that I had requested. Said the money was for helping people with Covid 19 or something like that. It was an obvious fake email, easy to spot. Deleted and trashed right away.

ay656 · ‎08-29-2020

The first thing you do is log into the PayPal site directly and read the message there if there was one. You did not do this, you replied to that "Phishing Scam" ...

I think you misunderstood my point. This was a genuine email from PayPal. And this is genuine PayPal I'm warning you about.

brettjet38 · ‎08-29-2020

Did you go into your PayPal account to see the original message, then reply to it?

or

Did you reply to the email message in your email account, did you click the link in that message?

Then afterwards you tried to log into PayPal and could not...

Then you called PayPal,

Is that the order of the events?

ay656 · ‎08-29-2020

@brettjet38 wrote:
Did you go into your PayPal account to see the original message, then reply to it?

or

Did you reply to the email message in your email account, did you click the link in that message?

Then afterwards you tried to log into PayPal and could not...

Then you called PayPal,

Is that the order of the events?

I received the email and read it.

Then I closed the email, opened my browser and logged to my PayPal account. Verified that the SSL certificate belongs to PayPal (as I always do before logging to anything). Once I logged in, I saw a box above the list of transactions stating that I need to provide business Information to PayPal.

Once I did it, the box has changed to a different box saying that the account is limited until PayPal verifies the information. And this would take 2-3 business days.

After about a week, I contacted PayPal by phone and asked what's going on. The Lady created a support case for me. Next day I received an email from PayPal that I need to supply more information.

As usual, I closed the email, logged into the PayPal account (checked the certificate before logging). The account is still limited, but now they ask for much more information. If I give them more information, It is not clear whether they ask even more. Tried to withdraw money, or close the account, to no avail.

I am not the first. After searching the Internet I found a few cases which describe how it may take months to get out of this situation and how ridiculous the PayPal requirements might be. For example:

https://academicwritersph.com/return-paypal-account-regular-status-limitation/

https://community.ebay.ca/t5/Seller-Central/PayPal-now-requires-you-to-upload-your-Canadian-Tax-Retu...

PayPal actions caused great damage to my business, and I want to warn others, so that they would know what to expect.

reallynicestamps · ‎08-29-2020

Glad to hear that you didn't get scammed.

If you think PP might keep you shut down for months, please open a new PP account as soon as possible. There's no point closing down your business while you wait for some ponderous bureaucracy.

travis7s · ‎08-29-2020

Something similar happened to me a couple years ago but I really can't remember too many details about it. I feel like it was the other way around, my Paypal account got frozen for no real reason and I had to call to verify some things and they immediately unfroze it.

In the past year I have got some really convincing fake emails talking about blocking my account and such, you do have to be careful.

kawartha-ephemera · ‎08-29-2020

That's quite an ordeal the academic writer person went through. Sorry you're having this unpleasant experience, a cautionary tale for all.

I've read a few other stories like this before where an account is limited simply because there was a spike in volume. PayPal must link changes in sales patterns with an increased likelihood of some sort of fraudulent activity, kind of like how credit card companies flag cards when there are unusual purchase patterns.