Verifying a PayPAL premier account

A bit of a rant guys about PayPAL's poorly designed forms. My parents are moving house and we have a lot of second hand stuff to sell.

I set up a new ebay account at the beginning of the year for this purpose in my parents name.

I also set up a Premier PayPAL account as we are obviously going to sell a few items and need to be able to accept all payment types, which a Personal account can't do.

So far so good. I completed all the steps, registered my Mothers bank account and credit card and set about the verification process to lift limits. Everything went fine, until the final stage.

It asks you to fill in your business details, but we are not a business? So I selected individual as the business type, but have to fill in the rest of the form in order for it to accept the details. Part of this form asks for a catagory and sub catagory of what your business usually sells (eg computers, cars, clothes etc)? We don't usually sell anything? We are not a business? Just random second hand goods that we are actually selling at a loss compared to what we paid for them?

So I stupidly selected "nonprofit" and in the sub category "personal" without thinking. Two days later PayPAL's automated system restricted the account saying they want proof of our business by providing them with a cancelled cheque wrote out in the businesses name; a tax exempt form and letters addressed to our business showing our address and business name. If we don't resolve this issue by faxing them the documents, they will restrict the account? I don't have these items. We are not a business and I selected INDIVIDUAL as the business type in order to tell them this fact as directed to do so by their very own instructions. Made no difference to the robo-judge server at the other end. It thinks I'm setting up a business, with a grand total of £40 worth of transactions in two months! LOL!

I've sent them an email and tried to get through on the phone but it's proven impossible so far. Really annoying. Their stupid business information form is not relevant to individual sellers that are not running businesses but just shifting their own second hand goods. The form contains traps and pitfalls that can restrict your account automatically and they are not explained AT ALL via warning messages or information on the actual page.

I have since changed the business info from "Nonprofit->Personal" to "Services other->Services (not elsewhere classified)", an option that is not very easy to spot! The form is set out for business users only, who sell a specific kind of product most the time. Stupid!

Now I have to get this sorted out just as I was about to list a load of old toys and second hand items on ebay. The timing couldn't have been worse. I'm fuming. After reading around the net, there are other horror stories of people having accounts frozen for up to 180 days and not being able to pay for or accept payments. Some have £100's of pounds stuck in PayPAL for the same period.

Odd, I have a Premier PayPal account, verified, and I never had to do any of that. Where do I find what category I'm in?

Sorry I can't really be of any help, but it is now about five years since I got my paypal account.

I think ebay has changed quite a bit over the last couple of years, probably for security reasons due to increasing numbers of users.

When I first read your post I thought you could write to them, but that probably wouldn't do much good unless you know a specific person there to write to.

Could you cancel the account and register a new one?

Thanks for having a read through all that rant guys - I do appreciate you responding. I needed to let off some steam!

Originally Posted by burns flipper:
Odd, I have a Premier PayPal account, verified, and I never had to do any of that. Where do I find what category I'm in?

My PayPal account is from 2002 and I never had these issues either or had to fill in a business form to get verified. The details are under your profile/account settings under a link on the left hand side titled - "Business/Personal Information".

Originally Posted by Stephen Coates:
Sorry I can't really be of any help, but it is now about five years since I got my paypal account.

I think ebay has changed quite a bit over the last couple of years, probably for security reasons due to increasing numbers of users.

When I first read your post I thought you could write to them, but that probably wouldn't do much good unless you know a specific person there to write to.

Could you cancel the account and register a new one?

It won't let me cancel the account until the matter is resolved. I can't register the same name or account details again. I have to get this one account sorted out. The best bet is to keep on trying to ring them, as I'm guessing like most large businesses emails get you nowhere - just generic responses.

The reason I'm so mad is I'm off work this week and went home to get all this stuff listed for them. Now I can't unless I use my account which I wanted to keep separate.

I'll battle on and let you know the outcome. Just be warned - if you open up a new PayPAL premier account, be careful what you select in the business category section! They are getting very strict to avoid money laundering and/or tax evasion, but normal users are suffering from the automated system.

They only ask you to fill in that business information on existing accounts if your activity goes over £1000 within that year as they have a £1600 fixed maximum you are allowed to deal for a whole year without the business details. They say it is to prevent money laundering but that is stupid when the EU law is near to £5000.

And I have to agree that that form you have to fill in is very confusing and not clear at all what to do if you are an individual and not a business. It had me stumped for a while too. And I did end up selecting the services other option as you eventually did.

Paypal is a very easy and convenient online payment service, but it is a nightmare when you need to change any details or settings. I forget what it was for, but I had an email from them last year asking me to update or change something and I could not find where to access and edit the information. And their FAQ files pointed me to an out of date url that no longer existed. Nice!

Thanks for the advice Harrison. If that's the case for existing accounts, I'm annoyed that they are forcing people to fill out the business details now on new accounts in order to get verified when the system is obviously flawed. I'll admit I selected a wrong option under category in hindsite, and apparently one or two other options can lock you out as well forcing a request for futher information, but at the time was given no guidance or warning as to what would happen. I thought everything would be fine, as I'd selected "Individual" telling the system that I'm not a business.

That account will likely do a few hundred pounds at most this year - no where near £1000 - so I didn't even have to get it verified. I thought I'd go through the verification process however as it looks more professional to buyers and it stops nagging you under the "things to do" list. Plus some sellers want verified PayPAL users only.

The battle continues.........