Today without warning Paypal "closed" my account with $5,772.91 dollars in it. They say on the website and in several calls I made to them that they will not release the money due to a routine credit scan they made and didn't like what they read in my equifax credit report.
What closed means by their definition is I can't take the money out and I earn no interest on the money for 6 months. Almost 2 months have gone by since this happened and this is still the situation. They say when I signed up for Paypal I signed a standard agreement that says they can freeze the money in my account any time they want to. I strongly suspect they are earning interest on the money and, in effect, this is a scam on their part to make millions of dollars. I have 100% positive feedback as a seller on eBay (which owns paypal) and I've sold over 100 items. I have a feedback score of 86 with many of these being repeat business that doesn't cause the feedback number to increase. The money was frozen from an auction in which all the winning bidders gave me positive feedback except for one non-paying bidder in Italy who never sent the money despite repeated emails so, of course, I never sent him the item. (The amount of the non-paying bidder is $500.00 --- but since he never sent any money by Paypal or any other means I fail to see how this could play a roll in the "closed" account).
Periodic non-paying bidders are, unfortunately, a fact of life on eBay --- fortunately a rare one in my experience. The other eight winning auctions of the "freeze" auction all gave me not just positive but glowing feedbacks saying they both received the items I sent them and were extremely happy with them. Without the money from PayPal there is a very good chance I will lose my family home as well as my mother's home we are attempting to bring up to code. I, my wife, and two sons have lived in our family home for around 18 years. My mother, before she was institutionalized lived in her house (with my father, me and my sister in the earlier days) for around 50 years. We were planning on renting out my mother's house to help pay for the expenses of her staying at Alzheimer Gated communities which charge $3,500.00 a month and more.
When PayPal first started showing up everywhere and I ran into the necessity of having to open an account, I did some research before doing so. (after I read their terms which did not sit well) I found that site and a whole lot of other negative commentary on them. I still don’t have a PayPal account and don’t plan to get one.
Meg Whitman should intervene on this. The publicity she would get if the Geller matter became well known would not be good for her right now. Hmmmm, is that an angle that should perhaps be exploited?
I saw that along with numerous other similar stories. I’m surprised that there isn’t a class action lawsuit against PayPal.