PPC Submitter : Monday, August 13, 2012, 10:44
Permanently limited due to “repeat violations of their Acceptable Use Policy”
Hello. I am the owner of a website selling medicinal teas to customers in Canada. PayPal limited our merchant account a few months ago asking us to remove all instances of the word “Kratom” from our site, stating that the sale of this herb is in violation of their user agreement. We removed all PayPal buttons from our site and asked for an appeal after reading their Acceptable Use Policy and arguing that the sale of Kratom did not appear to be against their policy as it is not a narcotic, steroid, controlled substance or anything that presents a risk to consumer safety.
They re-instated our account and thanked us for making the required changes, even though we did not make the changes they asked for. We took this to mean that our appeal was granted and that they agreed that the sale of Kratom was not against their user agreement.
A few days ago, our account was permanently limited due to “repeat violations of their Acceptable Use Policy.” They stated that they reinstated our account obviously because we removed the PayPal buttons from our site, though that is not what they requested originally. After a few emails back and forth they said that our appeal was denied this time and that the funds in our account will be held for 180 days. We are now without a payment processor for our business and are loosing out on sales each day this goes on.
We feel that this may constitute a financial liability on their part. I found this website while searching on information on how to sue PayPal as we feel that they may have liability to us. They either directly stated in their previous communication a few months ago, or they strongly implied that our products are acceptable to PayPal and do not violate their AUP. I am not a lawyer so I do not know for sure if this would count as a written or implied contract that it is acceptable to continue business with PayPal, I feel however that this is the case. If this does constitute a contract with PayPal, then they would be liable for our financial loss during this time that we do not have a method for accepting payments, as well as the financial loss we may incur as a result of loosing customers to competition when they attempt to purchase our product and cannot do so.
Submitted By:: Pete
Location-: Canada
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“constitute a financial liability on their part” it should but it doesn’t and the reason for this is the user agreement that every single paypal user have to agree to when signing up with paypal. Even if you do everything paypal asks you for, follow all their policies they can still limit your account at any time for no given reason. Paypal is too risky to use when running a business
The way I look at it is if you no longer have to work with them then it’s a good thing. I found out I had a closed paypal account by chance. My cousin asked that I open an account in my name because she had a dispute going on with them but still needed to run some orders. I obliged because heck she’s a blood relative, imagine my surprise when I get a notice that I can’t open a new account because my last account was in bad standing. Well I never had an account before. I called the number on the site and got no where fast. I had to basically prove that my first account was opened fraudulently. It’s more effort than its worth. I guess my point is that paypal is an unorganized, company who is well aware of fraud but does nothing about it! -___-