PayPal does its best to protect its users at all times, but sometimes, the company has to permanently limit or ban a customer’s account based on their activity. So, if you have received a message or email from PayPal saying, “You can no longer use PayPal,” you are probably wondering why this is and if you can fix this issue.
What Does “You Can’t Use PayPal Anymore” Mean?
When PayPal permanently limits or bans your account, it’s because you have violated one of its terms or agreements. Any leftover funds will be held for 180 days, and you cannot create a new account. Additionally, if you believe PayPal’s decision is incorrect, you can contact the company directly.
Why Can I No Longer Use PayPal?
If you can’t use PayPal anymore, the company believes you have violated one of its terms or agreements.
PayPal may believe you committed one of these actions:
- You have provided false, inaccurate, or misleading information
- Your account has taken part in fraudulent activity
- You have a negative balance
- You have more than one account
- You violated one of PayPals agreements, such as:
- User Agreement
- Commercial Entity Agreement, or
- Acceptable Use Policy
Note that many more actions violate PayPal’s terms and agreements, but these are the main ones.
Can a Permanently Limited PayPal Account Be Restored?
Unfortunately, if your PayPal account is permanently limited, then the only thing you can do is directly contact PayPal Customer Support to see if they will lift the limit.
Furthermore, if PayPal made an error in limiting your account, such as if there was fraudulent activity on your account, but you were hacked, then PayPal will restore your account.
However, if the account limit or ban is due to your action, then PayPal will not restore your account.
Additionally, you will be banned from future PayPal services, and your money will be held for 180 days before you can get it back.
Can I Create a New PayPal Account After Being Banned?
Unfortunately, you cannot open another PayPal account if you already have a banned account. This is because PayPal retains the right to refuse to provide future services to anyone.
Therefore, if you violate one or some of PayPal’s terms or agreements and PayPal permanently bans your account, you will not be provided with future services.
What Happens to My Money If I Can’t Use PayPal Anymore?
Regrettably, if PayPal permanently bans or limits your account, it will hold any remaining funds in your account for 180 days.
PayPal holds any remaining funds in your account for 180 days.
PayPal does this so that if there are any disputes or claims brought towards your account, the company has the money to take care of them.
After 180 days, if there have been no disputes or claims towards your account, PayPal will contact you with details of how to recover your funds.
Furthermore, if there is a dispute or claim brought towards your account in 180 days, then PayPal will have to look into the dispute or claim before you can receive your money back.
Additionally, if PayPal decides that a refund or chargeback is granted, then the funds for the refund or chargeback will be taken from the leftover amount in your account.
Once PayPal has solved any disputes and claims against your account, if there are any funds left over, PayPal will then contact you with details to recover the funds.
How Do I Contact PayPal Customer Support?
You can go to the Contact Us page if you need to contact PayPal. Here, you will see common questions and answers and several links on how to contact PayPal.
You can contact PayPal through:
- “Message Us”
- “Ask the community”
- The “Resolution Center”
- “Call us”
Additionally, PayPal also has an email option. However, you will only see the “Email Us” link if PayPal’s platform decides your issue is great enough to give it to you.
Furthermore, you can contact PayPal through social media:
- Facebook: @PayPal
- Twitter: @AskPayPal
To know more, you can also read our posts on why is PayPal so expensive, how does PayPal make money, and if you can cancel a PayPal payment.
What a pathetic screwed up company Paypal is. I just signed up for a business account using 100% current, correct and valid information (full name, address, phone number), but upon completing the initial sign up process, immediately when the account page opened there was a notice:
“You can’t use PayPal anymore
At PayPal, we value a safe community for our customers to do business. We noticed activity in your account that’s inconsistent with our User Agreement and we no longer offer you PayPal services.
Based on this decision, if applicable, you are no longer eligible for PayPal Seller Protection as per our User Agreement. This will apply to all existing and future cases you receive.
Any bank or credit card information linked to your PayPal account cannot be removed nor can it be used to create a new account. You can still log in and see your account information but you can’t send or receive money. Any money in your balance will be held for 180 days, after which we’ll send you an email with instructions about transferring your money.”
Seriously? No explanation, reasoning or opportunity to prove my identity and credentials? Just wow. Not at all funny, but I couldn’t help myself from busting out laughing. Thank GOD I didn’t make it far enough to give them my SSN#, bank or any other personal information. Screw that!
Solution? Stripe. I went to their site and signed up for a business account fully linked up to my bank account and website store, up and running live, start to finish within a grand total of 10 minutes time. Done and doner.
Never ever again will I EVER deal with Paypal in any way shape or form. And after reading dozens (of tens of thousands) of similar and far far worse experiences littered all around the internet, I implore you to do the same – AVOID PAYPAL AT ANY AND ALL COSTS!!!! Good riddance.
*and no, I don’t work for Stripe.