As if Paypal didn't already suck ....

[DeathAndTaxes]

Thank you for using PayPal to accept money with your PayPal account. We recently changed our pricing structure so that you can receive money from friends and family for personal payments within the US for free. Personal payments are for sending a gift, splitting a lunch bill, paying your share of the living expenses, and everyday exchanges of money between friends and family.

If you receive money as a payment for a purchase or service, you will continue to incur fees.
We've noticed that some customers are sending you personal payments for purchases of items or services.
Unfortunately, this is against our policies, and we need your help correcting it. Please don't ask or allow your customers to use personal payments to pay for their purchases.

If we continue to see such activity, we may have to disable your ability to receive free personal payments, and then you will pay fees for all money received through PayPal.

Here's how you can find more information about payment types and fees:

Click "Fees" at the bottom of any PayPal page
Click "Legal Agreements" at the bottom of any PayPal page, and then click "PayPal User Agreement." Sections 4 and 8 refer to receiving money and fees.
If you have any questions, concerns, or think we may have made a mistake, please contact us at P2P@paypal.com.

Guess there is a limit on amount of "gifts" you can receive in a given period of time.

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[datafish]

We've noticed that some customers are sending you personal payments for purchases of items or services.
Unfortunately, this is against our policies, and we need your help correcting it. Please don't ask or allow your customers to use personal payments to pay for their purchases.

How are they determining this?  Matching payments to eBay sales?

[DeathAndTaxes]

We've noticed that some customers are sending you personal payments for purchases of items or services.
Unfortunately, this is against our policies, and we need your help correcting it. Please don't ask or allow your customers to use personal payments to pay for their purchases.

How are they determining this?  Matching payments to eBay sales?

I don't think they determined anything.  More like accuse with no proof.  None of the tx are on ebay.  None of the tx have anything in the notes field which would indicate a sale.

[virtualfaqs]

We've noticed that some customers are sending you personal payments for purchases of items or services.
Unfortunately, this is against our policies, and we need your help correcting it. Please don't ask or allow your customers to use personal payments to pay for their purchases.

How are they determining this?  Matching payments to eBay sales?

I don't think they determined anything.  More like accuse with no proof.  None of the tx are on ebay.  None of the tx have anything in the notes field which would indicate a sale.

This has always been their policy. It was just never enforced. And it's pretty obvious when you're accepting payments from random strangers all over the US or world that they're not your friends or family. Sure there maybe like less than 5% of people who actually have tons of friends all over the world who will get caught in the crossfire. But what I wonder is if you're a special case or they're seriously cracking down on this now.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Time will tell.

[repentance]

It's not really any different than not being allowed to use personal bank accounts or credit cards for business purposes - you might get away with it for a while but eventually the system is likely to flag your transactions and you're going to receive a "please explain" request if you're lucky or an account lockdown if you're not.

Presumably the OP is advertising his services online.  If potential customers can find those ads, so can PayPal's compliance people.

[evoorhees]

What's Paypal?  I heard it was something like Bitcoin but with chargebacks, currency debasement, account holds, and 3% fees? Is that true?

[rjk]

What's Paypal?  I heard it was something like Bitcoin but with chargebacks, currency debasement, account holds, and 3% fees? Is that true?

LOL touché

[adamstgBit]

What's Paypal?  I heard it was something like Bitcoin but with chargebacks, currency debasement, account holds, and 3% fees? Is that true?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbmJwpvlTIM <- someone should tell this guy about bitcoin.
            maybe adding a video responce with the what is bitcoin video, might be a good idea too...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld0MzGPuMl0 <- seems like bitcoin missed a few geeks  Ops!

also see www.paypalsucks.com

[malaimult]

your account has been flagged and someone from paypal staff take a look at it and he or she determinate that you use your paypal account to receive payments for services or goods.
that means they lose money!! so be careful maybe next time they will block the account

[BrightAnarchist]

I've been buying btc with paypal for a while, but today I got a phone call from a pypal rep asking about "suspicious behavior" in my account.

I guess they don't like you sending lots of cash gifts to random people either.

[repentance]

I've been buying btc with paypal for a while, but today I got a phone call from a pypal rep asking about "suspicious behavior" in my account.

I guess they don't like you sending lots of cash gifts to random people either.

Nope, they don't.

Places like CreditBoards And FatWallet are always publicising "loopholes" and once they become well publicised financial service providers usually move quickly to close them.  Lots of cash deposits into your account from different people or lots of payments out of your account to different people should be flagging their system for possible AML activity anyway, so you're likely to come under scrutiny one way or another.

[jwzguy]

Unfortunately, I figured this was just a matter of time. Remember the good ole days of personal accounts with 0 fees for PP <-> PP transfers?

I'm doing my best to never use PP to accept payment.

[ZodiacDragon84]

just wonderful. Bastards.

[nextnonce]

I'm doing my best to never use PP to accept payment.

I'll celebrate the day when I can do the same.  I tried dropping them in September and profits went to zero    

[repentance]

I'll celebrate the day when I can do the same.  I tried dropping them in September and profits went to zero    

In January this year they reported that they were getting 1 million new customers per month and that overseas revenues are now exceeding domestic revenues.  With the kind of market penetration they now have in many countries (their operations are still very restricted in some), small merchants who don't accept PP as a payment method are at a disadvantage.  The balance has tipped towards demand for PP being customer driven whereas in the past it was often merchant imposed.

The sheer amount of money they turn over requires that they act more like conventional aquirers/payment processors.  When you're dealing with billions, being able to cut losses by even a fraction of a percent gives you a significant advantage over your competitors.  PP mightn't quite be at the stage of using predictive analytics to profile its customers from their first transaction, but it's almost certainly running some sophisticated anti-fraud and AML algorithms to identify high risk accounts.

[Stephen Gornick]

I had posted this in another thread, but it applies here as well.

This is just like Ubuntu's Bug #1:

Ubuntu Bug: Microsoft has a majority market share
 - https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1

Though Ubuntu never made much headway against fixing that bug, they did declare success after determining that the Mobile O/S essentially made Ubuntu Bug #1 a "Won't Fix" / "No longer a problem":
 - http://www.muktware.com/news/3571/mark-shuttleworth-ubuntus-bug-1-fixed

So, Bitcoin's "Bug #1" would be:
  "PayPal is still relevant"

But we don't solve it by simply using something else (e.g., Dwolla).  We fight PayPal by doing what we can to make Bitcoin's ecosystem work for us.  If you have a prepaid mobile phone, then you pay for your wireless phone refills using one of the three services that accept bitcoins for that:
 - Tangible Cryptography: http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=82924.0
 --  Catalog: http://www.bitmit.net/en/user/TangibleCrypto
 - BTCBuy.info - http://btcbuy.info/CallingCards.cshtml
 - Bitcoin Wireless - http://signup.bitcoinwireless.com (Coming soon)

Or next time you fly in the U.S., you try to take Southwest so that you can pay for the ticket through Spend Bitcoins:
 - https://www.spendbitcoins.com/convert/southwest-airlines/

Or you need some tools, or houseware's ...
 - http://www.bitcoindeals.com

And you carry around a few physical bitcoins, so that you can show people bitcoin in a way that might help them associate this abstract concept of digital money to a physical item familiar to them.
 - http://www.Casascius.com

And you remind every merchant that uses PayPal or other payment system that there's this Bitcoin thing that has advantages they might like, ... like non-reversible charges, low cost transaction fees and fast settlement allowing the funds to be spent in about an hour or less.

That's how the road toward fixing Bitcoin's Bug #1 is traveled.

[SlaveInDebt]

Haven't posted in awhile but I've been PP free since my troubles with them last year.
Good luck DAT with them as you will need it.

[caveden]

I'll celebrate the day when I can do the same.  I tried dropping them in September and profits went to zero    

Instead of dropping them completely, have you tried offering a more competitive price for bitcoin purchases?
http://www.bitcoinmoney.com/post/23551708288/discount-for-cash

Maybe if customers see they have a financial advantage in using bitcoin, they'll at least be motivated to learn about it.

[virtualfaqs]

I'll celebrate the day when I can do the same.  I tried dropping them in September and profits went to zero    

Instead of dropping them completely, have you tried offering a more competitive price for bitcoin purchases?
http://www.bitcoinmoney.com/post/23551708288/discount-for-cash

Maybe if customers see they have a financial advantage in using bitcoin, they'll at least be motivated to learn about it.

I think he meant dropping PayPal payments not bitcoins.