Obviously we have multiple PP accounts for our office. But this is a paraphrased email from PP regarding the buying and selling of Bitcoins. For this example we are using only two accounts, one personal and one business, so there is no legal issues or violation of their terms.
Just to let everyone know, they are getting pretty damn good with their security these days, better and better everyday. Anyone that is out there using or buying stolen and/or false PP accounts will find that is getting trickier everyday. Logins from odd IP addresses will result pretty quickly in a security page that cannot be gotten past without a call or text to the number on file, new accounts get an almost automatic 60 day period where all received funds are held for 21 days, stuff like that. If you are messing with bad accounts, I do suggest that logging in from a mobile device through the default mobile browser to avoid some security issues, as when the IP address is new to them, but the browser is mobile, they tend to ignore the issue.
Anyway, I have an e employee that does nothing but trade BTC on the FIAT/BTC exchanges. We are referring to sites like localbitcoins. Eight hours a day, five days a week this girl bounces between several sites trading back and forth and making a steady small profit. Last week we set up a PP account for her to use. She has the personal account, but is a new employee and we had her used our accounts until trust was built. Last week she took ownership of the business account for these trades and started using her own personal account as well.
We were unsure about her been a verified account because clients said she was not verified, but PP said she was. So, we performed a trade between the business account and hers to watch step by step from both ends. Everything went fine until the next day. She sent PP funds from her personal account to the business account as part of a localbitcoins TX. The funds in the business account were fine, but a hold was placed on her personal account for the same amount, basically paying it out and holding the same amount again. Now, I have used PP for ten plus years and have a supervisor there that works with me, we have a close business relationship and she will tell me things that another PP employee would not. This is what PP is currently doing and the terms they intend to use currently.
We were using Firefox. She said that PP attempts to check for a new localbitcoins cookie during a TX to an account that has never received funds from your account. I have not tried this, but she says that her understanding is that while you cannot access another URL's cookies, if you try to, the error message will return enough info to determine if another tab has that website open. I hate cookies and coding that shit, but this may be possible. So, her personal account was logged into, localbitcoins was on another tab, funds sent from PP to another account, immediate log out of PP and then into the other account and meanwhile PP tries this cookie trick?
? Bullshit! lol.
She pointed me to the newer terms and explained that a business account can deal in a certain number of currency to currency TX's per anum, the amount is not shared publically, but supposedly a business account is fine until that number is reached. Once the number is passed, the account is limited and a call to support will unlimit the account, but only after a PP lecture to leave BTC alone. She says that a personal account is not supposed to touch BTC trades in any way and will be locked, perhaps unlocked once with a stern warning and nailed shut if used that way again.
As for the cookie thing, if this is possible then it is not a legal approach. I would rather think that the IT department at PP tried to share their methods and she is just confused. If they are watching in any way, I would imagine they have their own accounts on these sites and set people up. In addition, they may be even watching the blockchain for amounts that nearly match their own TX's. One other method that could work is the screenshot method. Any URL that processes payments has the right to take and save a screenshot at the moment of the TX. If you stretch that rule, you could get away with three screenshots within a five second period. There are mass rules as to handling these images, but PP could use that method and see you switching to another tab and a site like localbitcoins. They could not use that as evidence, but as we all know, they can seize the accounts without jsut cause.
Either way, the facts are simple, PP can and will seize up an account for pretty much any reason. Most people do not know how to handle calls to PP and they get stuck there. Legally, through lengthy processes, you can retrieve larger amounts of held funds. However, if your account is locked due to previous accounts with a neg balance, do not even try.
