Hello I need some help and insight regarding getting decimated by Paypal business. I am a small time business operator (sole proprietor) with a Paypal business account that has been in perfect standing for 15 years. Previously I took donations for a non-profit I founded and run with no issues (we have all the IRS status and paperwork on file with govt) - and only in the last 3 years I have used Paypal for taking credit /debit card payments as well as paypal payments for tutoring services (packages) and occasionally - only 3-4 times a year - payments related to scuba divers traveling. I ship no goods. I am American, I have had travel plans on my account since 2017 - they never had an issue this whole time. In the past 10 years I have had ONE dispute - which was a year ago - and I won the dispute. My total revenue is somewhere between $1000-$3000 per month. Also the account is used to process donations for my registered non-profit through a 3rd party site fundrazr - I am wondering if a person can call paypal if they hate me and lodge a false claim of whatever they are going to say to try and close me down - if paypal will listen to that and lock me down - I have a person who hates my non-profit - they are a rival - my income on the account has not gone up or down drastically in any way. I use my real name and social sec no and address, I used the business debit card option they had - because I am traveling - to access the money through ATMS and buying at stores. About 18 months ago, while in Africa - I used my card to get money out of an ATM at a gas station and found out the same day someone in Indonesia skimmed the card when I put it in the machine and took out $400 - at that time paypal was very understanding, mastercard gave me back the money they issues me a new card and life went on- ON Feb 11 with no warning at all - no transactions that I can possibly see were shady or weird or unusual - paypal terminated my account with a 3 line email - with no information given at all, put a 180 day freeze on the $800 that was in there - I called to try and find out what I did - they refuse to tell me. How can I know how to deal with this if they won’t tell me what I did to make them do this to me? I wrote a letter and appealed through some back door portal paypal.com/eerb that an agent gave me over the phone - no answer - tried to email through message center - only BOT form responses that don’t even mention my question. I am in hell now I have to keep my business going or I am going to starve. 1) Did Paypal put me on the Merchant Watch List??? Are they required to notify me if they did? It’s been 3 days and the rules from Mastercard that I see online is that they are required to notify me they have put me on the list within a day after terminating me.
2) Can anyone out there tell me what other electronic payment receiving method to try where I can email invoices and let customers pay with their credit card? I read up on Square and stripe and I see that the number of complaints against them are as numerous as against paypal. I need guidance how to find out if they put me on the watch list - and also how to continue to collect payments so I can live. My bank account is Wells in the US but I am traveling. I teach English so my students are from all over the world - US - Canada, China, Russia, EU - Indonesia, Phillipines - all of the countries. I called Fattmerchant they won’t even deal with me because my payments come in from multiple countries. I only make 1-3K per month - Can anyone out there guide me and tell me what to do!!! Need help! Thank you!
I only issue invoices through email - I don’t need e-commerce or website payment portal -
Anyone know anything about any of this I need help - have not slept in two days trying to research what the hell Paypal is doing to me and why - getting no answers!
To add on:
I am American
My permanent business address of the last 20 years is in Los Angeles
My bank is Wells Fargo
75% of my clients are in foreign countries.
While I can’t provide any useful input on your current PayPal issues, I think you should open a merchant account with Stripe to use as a backup. There are so many services that integrate with Stripe, including ones that let your customers pay invoices with their credit cards. One free example of the latter is Sunrise—just sign up for their self-serve solution.
I would also recommend keeping your non-profit and personal income separate from each other. So you’d want two Stripe accounts and two PayPal accounts.
In my experience once PP closes your account it’s you have close to none chances to get it back.
Now the questions is - have they just closed it and you can still open new one, or your name is blacklisted.
Try chatting with them and keep asking for a callback by a real person.
You can also try to google forums with some basic howto’s on what you may try, but don’t pay anyone who offers to get your account back. Usually it’s just a scam.
I second that Stripe is an amazing solution.