Wix Website Owners - PayPal Account Suspension

[slcousin]

Are there any fellow Wix website owners who received a PayPal account suspension in the last 2 days (since 04/18/2022)?

A PayPal support specialist told me that a stack of Wix website owners have had their accounts suspended. The suspension is a computer flagged suspension i.e. it's not actually been reviewed by a human being for suspicious / "risky" activity. Support told me that they are looking into why this has happened and just to sit tight while they investigate... No estimated time to fix it. I will definitely lose some sales due to this error 😞

The suspension email reads " After a review, we decided to permanently limit your account as we detected that this account was engaged in activity to deceive PayPal and its customers. You'll not be able to conduct any further business using PayPal..." Pretty harsh for a legitimate web-store selling products to happy customers! FYI, I sell 3D printed motorcycle mirrors, so not some risque/controversial/illegal products

Is anyone else in the same boat?

[VGO10]

Yes I was affected today and it was working this morning for me! This makes up 75% of my sales and Im sure to lose money and not being able to access my money is an issue! I sell rope products was told the same thing from Wix and a PayPal rep said thousands are effected and millions tied up right now…but be patient!

[StayWildDog]

I ended up also reaching out to their Facebook support on this bcuz I got no where waiting for support kn the phone. The chat agent said the same thing, 72 hours to wait. I am really miffed

[yixunn727]

Can i transfer my account to another website builder now? Or just do nothing and wait? 

[bondir_official]

This just happened to me 11 hours ago. I literally just got an order right before they suspended my account and they said "Based on this decision, if applicable, you're no longer eligible for Seller Protection as per our User Agreement. This will apply to all existing and future cases you receive. If you have money in your PayPal balance, we'll hold it for up to 180 days.".

This is ridiculous! Does anyone know who I should contact to resolve this problem?

[FBCHEM]

Hello,

I am Wix user and affected as well.

Account blocked since yesterday evening without reason.

No info on the phone from the assistance on the reason why, because of privacy... Mail at assistance come back saying it will not be taken into consideration, and the message should be send with the account. In the account nobody is available on the helpdesk... A nightmare

[lyndseybtn]

Me too! When I saw this thread I was relieved!

Just happened late last night (UK time). No warning and no explanation. Every time I replied to the email asking for help, advice or appeal I would get an email to say we have replied to you, only to find the original email in the message centre. Incredibly frustrating. I can't work out why this has happened based on the reasons why an account can be limited I haven't breached any of them.

I run an in person social events company and use PayPal to take payments for event and memberships, not having PayPal is really unhelpful as it's great for my customer journey. BUT if it's this fickle I am not not sure it's the right platform for me as I need stability - and credibility - in my business.

Just spoke to a nice PayPal agent who has opened a ticket for me to investigate, but it looks like a risk triggered by Wix. Same deal 24-72hrs.

[slcousin]

Does anybody have any journalist contacts, that publish internet-type news?

[slcousin]

Please email your local/national news outlets with a "news tip" about this. If it is really 1000s of users, with millions of dollars locked up by PayPal, then some press coverage may help us all get this resolved quickly. At the moment, its not too clear if this is a PayPal or Wix blunder...

Here is a template to use to send out:

re:  News tip - PayPal unjustly locks thousands of business accounts and withholds millions of dollars.

Dear _______

Over the last 3 days, PayPal has suspended a significant number of accounts belonging to website owners that use the Wix website building platform to host their web-based e-commerce sites and also use PayPal to accept payments.

Affected people, like myself, first heard about it through a harsh email from PayPal that starts like this: 

“You can no longer do business with PayPal - After a review, we decided to permanently limit your account as we detected that this account was engaged in activity to deceive PayPal and its customers. You'll not be able to conduct any further business using PayPal. …”

There is a post on the PayPal community website meant to try and collect as many of the affected folk as possible: https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/Security-and-Fraud/Wix-Website-Owners-PayPal-Account-Suspension/...

It is hard to know how many people are affected, however, one post on the page listed above describes 1000s of users and millions of dollars locked by PayPal. Calls to PayPal support suggest waiting 72 hours while they investigate and calls to Wix support claim not to know of any problem. It's unclear if this is a Wix error or a PayPal error, however, there continues to be a growing collection of very angry users of the systems, who are being locked out of the payment system, with their funds frozen for no legitimate reason.

[slcousin]

PayPal just restored my account!

minutes after writing to about 6 national news outlets 😛

[VGO10]

Hopefully my account will be unlocked soon glad you got going again!