Keeping your business and customers safer
To ensure PayPal remains a safer place for enabling payments, we regularly review all accounts. Sometimes, limitations may be placed on your PayPal account, which could restrict you from completing certain actions: such as withdrawing, spending, or receiving money. Limitations are in place to help protect all our customers, and in some cases to meet our regulatory obligations. Protecting your account and money is important to us.
Account Limitations: What might cause it, and how to help avoid it?
If your PayPal account is limited, you may be unable to withdraw, send or receive money. There are a number of reasons why your account could be limited:
Suspicious & unusual activity
- We suspect someone could be using your account without your knowledge.
- Your bank alerts us that someone has used your credit/debit card linked to your account without your permission.
- There are unexpected changes to your selling activities such as a sudden increase in your typical sales volume.
In such cases, we do what it takes to protect you from potential fraud prompted by the unusual activity– through limiting your account, and investigating.
You can safeguard your personal information and help protect yourself against fraud through some simple measures. For example, don’t enter your personal or financial details when describing items for sale or in response to emails, and log out of sites you’ve entered your personal information into.
Regulatory reasons or business is not compliant
Your account could be limited for regulatory reasons. For example, India PayPal sellers need to include additional information to be able to accept payments in their account. Also, reaching a certain transaction value in your account may trigger a limit, which can also be removed by providing information required to PayPal.
There are also restrictions on what a PayPal account can be used to accept (and make) payments for. For example, PayPal doesn't allow the sale of counterfeit goods or banned items. So, ensure that your business is compliant with PayPal’s Acceptable Use Policy .
Increased buyer issues
An increase of complaints, claims and chargebacks from buyers can lead to account limitations.
Following some simple guidelines can help you improve your performance and reduce the likelihood of limitations. Overall, communication is key. You should:
- Provide detailed product descriptions and photos.
- Be upfront about policies such as shipping and returns.
- Ship orders promptly and track shipments.
- Respond quickly to any messages from buyers.
- Work to amicably resolve any problems.
- Ship to the address provided in the transaction details page.
- Use quality shipping materials to prevent damage.
Removing limitations
If your PayPal account is limited, here’s what happens:
- We’ll email you to let you know – we’ll ask you to log in to your PayPal account and go to the Resolution Centre for details on how to resolve the issue quickly, usually by providing information.
- Once you’ve submitted the information required, we’ll review and reply via email.
- We’ll remove the limitations once we have verified your account. At times, limitations can be removed by simply changing your security questions and password.
Here are the types of information and documents we may need from you:
- Supplier’s invoice with contact information
This helps us determine the inventory source and validate that you have the items that you’re selling in stock.
- Payment information
When an invoice is unavailable, we’ll review the following information about your payments:
- The item or service that was sold
- The buyer’s name and shipping address
- Proof of shipment to verify that an order was delivered
- Shipping or Tracking information
This helps us to verify that customer orders are being fulfilled.
- Proof of business
This provides evidence of a valid business registration and business ownership.
- Information for India sellers
This is to comply with our India regulatory obligations. Provide a valid PAN, a local bank account and the purpose code in your PayPal account task board.
- Proof of address such as bank statement or utility bill, Proof of identity such as passport or driver’s license
This helps us verify your identity when there is unusual account activity or to comply with regulations.
Once you’ve submitted your information, look out for any more emails from us as we may need additional details. We’ll do our best to confirm your information and remove the limitation within 2 business days, but sometimes it can take a little longer.
Quick Tip: If your PayPal account is limited, don’t open a new account. It could be traced back to the limited account. It’s always best to resolve the limitation. We will guide you through it and restore full access to your PayPal account as quickly as possible.
