Paypal account limited?

[EllisDee]

I’ve been using this particular paypal account for like a year. It’s the one that pays all my streaming services (automatic recurring payments) and steam games. Just tried to buy Icarus on Steam and paypal rejected it. Here’s the email I got from paypal:

Your account features are temporarily blocked

There’s a new PayPal account that’s been created using your name. We wanted to make sure your account is owned by you and no one else.

To keep your account and money safe, we’ve temporarily blocked some of your account features.

The following features will be restored once you provide the requested info and we confirm it.

• Send or pay using PayPal
• Withdraw money
• Receive money
• and a few others

Here’s how you can get back the features:

1. Log in to your PayPal account
2. Go to the notification that says “Unblock your account features”
3. Follow the instructions and keep this info handy:

• Photo ID

After we receive all the requested info, we’ll review it and get back to you within 1 business days.

<Button to Login>

Thanks for using PayPal.

Someone else creating an account sounds like a “not my problem” thing, but as far as I can tell after calling paypal on the phone like a caveman, it’s legit. When I go to my account on the computer is says account limited.

Do you guys upload pictures of your driver’s licenses to paypal? Should I? I’d almost rather just stop using paypal altogether. (Of course, she said I can’t close the account until I upload a driver’s license.)

[Reply]

Yeah, the “know your customer” requirements of financial companies can sometimes result in annoying situations for users. Venmo (which is part of PayPal) kept asking me for my social security number the other day, over plaintext email no less. It took me several days of back-and-forths with them to finally get a secure upload to them. It’s a pretty normal thing that can happen if they suspect anything wrong with your account.

If you want to keep using PayPal, I think you just have to jump through the hoops to prove to them that you’re you. They’d rather put the onus on you (and risk losing a single customer) than be on the hook for fraud resulting from insufficient verification.

If you don’t want to use them anymore, just make sure you invalidate any credit cards you have with them. If you have bank accounts linked to them, and they refuse to close or delete your account, you might have to see if your state has laws (like privacy laws) that might force them to on request. Otherwise you’re SOL. They have all the power and you have the option to maybe engage in arbitration with them.

[jnglmassiv]

@EllisDee

Do you guys upload pictures of your driver’s licenses to paypal? Should I? I’d almost rather just stop using paypal altogether. (Of course, she said I can’t close the account until I upload a driver’s license.)

I would, for Paypal. We’ve had a relationship for decades now and a DL is not unreasonable for a bank-client identity verification reason. And the extra IRL artifact on the account might really save your skin if something does happen with theft, fraud, errors, etc down the road.