Paypal shuts down my account…again

Introduction

Like most of you, I have 2 Paypal accounts.  I have 1 business account that I use to sell stuff on eBay (that carries a balance) and I have a 2nd personal account that I use to buy stuff on eBay (so I can pay with a credit card.)  Many moons ago, my personal Paypal account was banned because of MyCash loads.  I was able to call them up and plead my case and they reopened it.  I haven’t had any issues up until 2 weeks ago.

 

Sending money vs loading money

What I didn’t tell you was that the business account also has the PPBDC attached to it.  This nets me 1% on debit signature purchases.  I had been “adding money” via my bank account to it for many months now.  The problem was that it takes about 5 business days for the money to be available, so it’s a long turnaround time.

A friend recently told me that she was able to send money via bank account from Paypal A to Paypal B and the money was instantly available.  That intrigued me because now I wouldn’t have to wait 5 days for things to clear.  So I removed my CU account from my business Paypal and added it to my personal Paypal and immediately sent myself $5000 from the CU account.  THAT WAS A HUGE MISTAKE!  You would think that I would have eased into that amount, but regular readers know that I just go for the jugular.  I had also sent $1,700 to another person and another ~$300 to someone else, all from the newly added CU account.

 

Paypal temporarily limits my account

The day after all those payments (so on the 3rd or 4th day), Paypal temporarily limited my account with this reason:

We recently noticed a pattern of account activity that, in our experience,
is usually high risk. For more information, see Restricted Activities
identified in our User Agreement.

They asked for a picture of my ID and a proof of address and then asked me about my last 5 purchases on eBay (this is odd.)  I complied and sent them all the information.  The morning later, I got this message:

Our review is complete and we have restored your account.

We appreciate your patience and thank you for your help in making PayPal the safest and most trusted online payment solution.

 

Thinking I was in the clear, I sent another $5000 to myself and $1400 to someone else.  I also bought another 10 items or so on my account.  I then bought 1 of those Staples $85 PPDG deals and then another 3 on a separate day.

 

Paypal Permanent Ban

That very night, BOOM!

We recently noticed an issue with your account.
Because of this issue, your account has been permanently limited. We
understand this may be frustrating and inconvenient but you'll still be
able to see your transaction history for a limited time.

What now

I have considered calling in to ask WTF happened, but I’ve chosen to let this one go.  The reason for that is because my business Paypal account is still fine.  Other people have told me that when they called in, eyes on the account, led to a shutdown of their other Paypal accounts (and sometimes household accounts.)   Moving forward, I’ll use my wife’s account to buy stuff on eBay.  If and when they shut another one of my accounts down, I’ll call to ask WTF happened.  Best to let this one go.

The odd thing is that if it was due to the payments, then why would they ask me about the last 5 eBay purchases?  If I was abusing daily deals, I know eBay shuts you down for that, not Paypal.  So things are not totally adding up here.

 

Lesson Learned

Even though my personal account has been seasoned for over 10 years, it’s not a good idea to add a new bank account and start immediately sending large payments to people.  Slow and steady with this one.  Looking back, I should have kept my current system going.  I got greedy with the bank load time and also assumed by me passing the temp ban that I was clear to proceed (which most people would assume too) but I guess not.  Going forward, I’ve also decided to stay the F away from Paypal Digital Gifts.  Or maybe I was shut down because I pushed ‘1’ too soon when checking out with PPDG: