How to Avoid Having Your Paypal Account Access Limited

Paypal is not a bank. As such, the money in your Paypal account is not protected as it is with a bank. Paypal has a very comprehensive Terms of Service agreement that most people never read. Unfortunately, not reading the TOS can get you into a lot of trouble because if you aren’t paying attention to it on a regular basis, you can easily accidentally break a rule in the TOS and then boom, your account can be put on limited access. However, there are things you can do to reduce the possibility that this will happen to you.

Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

1. Read the Terms of Service (TOS). This will go a long way towards helping you to not do something that breaks the TOS and then gets your account either put on limited access or frozen.
2. Check regularly for updates to the TOS. While Paypal does make an effort to inform its users when they make a change to the TOS, don’t leave it up to them, instead be proactive and watch for those changes so you understand what they are and as such avoid any possible pitfalls.
3. Avoid selling any products or services that claim that you will make the money you spent on the product or service back by selling that same product or service to others. This includes any products or services that promise that you will get rich quickly, that are MLM products. This will get your account put on limited access as soon as Paypal discovers it. Doing this violates their TOS.
4. If you are starting a new selling campaign for a new product and you know or think that there might be a large influx of payments into your Paypal account, alert Paypal to this ahead of time before these payments start arriving in your account. Basically Paypal’s TOS says that if they think there is suspicious activity going on with your account they have the right to put it on limited access. This includes sudden large amounts of payments being deposited into your Paypal account. If you let them know ahead of time, there is less chance of this happening to you.
5. Do you use Paypal to pay your affiliates, or are you thinking about using them for this purpose? If you do, you’d better beware particularly if you require your affiliates to purchase from you before they can earn commissions on any of your products that they sell. This requirement is illegal in the United States and as such Paypal will put your account on limited access as soon as they discover you are doing it.
6. Only use a one tier payment system with your affiliate program. A two tier system is another way to get your account put on limited access. Paypal considers this to be a multi-level marketing program, and these are banned by Paypal’s TOS. While these types of programs are legal in most countries including the US, Paypal does not care, they will put your account on limited access if they find out you are doing it.
7. Do you sell resale rights products? If so, don’t promote this fact on your website. Instead after someone has purchased your product direct them to a page on your website with the zip file that has all the resale rights information. Make sure you don’t use any gimmicky or get rich quick type language on this page or on any page on your website for that matter. Just offer the resale rights and leave it at that.
8. Avoid asking buyers for their personal information after they’ve purchased your product, and then refuse to give them what they paid for until they fork over their personal information. This will not only annoy your customers and make them refuse to buy from you again, but it will surely get your account put on limited access almost immediately!
9. Avoid selling a large number of internet marketing products using your Paypal account. This will help you to avoid Paypal targeting you as an internet marketer. Instead vary your products, a few internet marketing products, and then a few other type of products. Varying products will help you to stay on the right side of Paypal.
10. Provide products to customers that have a clear value. When you provide customers with products that have value, Paypal is far less likely to target your account.
11. Get a debit card for your Paypal account (it’s free) and use your Paypal account as though it were a bank account. While it is important to understand that Paypal is not a bank, if you treat it like one using your Paypal debit card to make transactions, my experience has been they will be less likely to put your account on limited access.

Tips & Warnings

• Do not use the words MLM or Multi-level Marketing on any of your web pages or marketing materials. These types of products violate Paypal’s TOS as they are considered to be “get rich quick schemes” and they will put your account on limited access if they find this wording anywhere in relation to your product.
• Don’t remove large amounts of money from your Paypal account at one time. Paypal considers this to be suspicious activity, and in an effort to protect you the account holder in the event that someone is illegally accessing your account, they will put your account on limited access.