PayPal restricts my account, advice please

[wilber11]

hello to all.

buyers and myself are having problems with my PP account as they have a new policy of barring any sales to do with these following countries Sudan, Nth Korea, Iran & Cuba.
they insist that i remove all these items from my website or account will be closed in five days.
Have also hadto upload documents to prove myself and sign a affidavit.
My buyers have been unable to pay me as account is restricted until complience and all there payments if they made one, are pending then returned to buyer.
Has anybody had a similar situation?

The email as sent >
Dear ..............
As part of our security measures, we regularly screen activity in the
PayPal system.

PayPal’s Compliance Department has reviewed your account and identified
activity that may be in violation of United States regulations administered
by the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control
(OFAC).

PayPal is committed to complying with and meeting its regulatory
obligations. One obligation is to ensure that our customers, merchants, and
partners are also in compliance with applicable laws and regulations,
including those set forth by OFAC, in their use of PayPal.

PayPal cannot currently be used for the purchase or sale of items
originating from the following countries:

• Cuba
• North Korea
• Iran
• Sudan

It has come to our attention that you’re advertising PayPal as a method of
payment for the sale of items of origin from one or more of the above
countries. To ensure that activity and transactions comply with current
regulations, PayPal is requesting that you complete the following:

1. Remove PayPal as a payment option; or
2. Segregate your checkout to disallow PayPal as a method of payment
for these items; or
3. Remove these items from your website.

When this is completed, please email us at
compliancetransactions@paypal.com.

4. Agree to no longer undertake activities in violation of laws,
regulations and rules as outlined in PayPal’s User Agreement.

Please log in to your account and go to the Resolution Center to find out
what you need to do. If we don't hear from you by July 5, 2013, we will
limit what you can do with your account until the issue is resolved.

Any further violations will result in the closure of your account. As a
result of the violation, details of your account and the transaction have
been reported to OFAC.

We thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. We apologize for any
inconvenience.


Sincerely,
PayPal Compliance Department

PayPal Australia Pty Limited.

[deanosaur1972]

It is late here... so just to clarify..........

Paypal have restricted your account because you:

1. have sold to:

• Cuba
• North Korea
• Iran
• Sudan

Or

2. because you are selling items (stamps) that originate from:

• Cuba
• North Korea
• Iran
• Sudan

[Juliebabe25]

Why not do as Paypal are asking you to do ?

[deanosaur1972]

It is late here... so just to clarify..........

Paypal have restricted your account because you:

1. have sold to:

• Cuba
• North Korea
• Iran
• Sudan

Or

2. because you are selling items (stamps) that originate from:

• Cuba
• North Korea
• Iran
• Sudan

Going to answer my own question - its both..!!.. seems a lot of sellers are having problems on all different sites.

Wilber11 - best if you telephone paypal and try and sort it out.

Hope you get it sorted and thank you for the information.

Time for everyone to start removing paypal as a payment option on those items that originated in those banned countries - you can still direct invoice the customer using paypal as long as you do not use the banned country name in the title.

Also add Syria to the list.....

[wilber11]

I am doing what they want as i said in my writeup, But how can one list these countries for buyers to find the items, without the name in the title header?

[deanosaur1972]

I am doing what they want as i said in my writeup, But how can one list these countries for buyers to find the items, without the name in the title header?

You can still put the countries name's in the title on the listing - you just remove the paypal payment option on your listings which originate from those countries. Paypal payment could still be made for those items, but only if you were to do a direct invoice for the customer. So if a person was to purchase say 5 Cuba stamps (for example) you would send them a direct paypal invoice for 5 stamps not 5 Cuba stamps.

Paypal will have a bot searching the payments coming through - it will flag any reference where those banned countries which are named in the payment transaction.

[westlondoncarparts]

PayPal is an American company.

USA law forbids commercial transactions with a small number of countries. PayPal in turn is required by USA law not to facilitate financial transactions linked to products from or sales to those countries.

There is nothing that you can do to persuade PayPal to change their minds because to do so would mean that they would be breaking USA laws.

I would not advise doing anything to circumvent the spirit of the prohibition as your PayPal account would be closed if you got found out.

[deanosaur1972]

PayPal is an American company.

USA law forbids commercial transactions with a small number of countries. PayPal in turn is required by USA law not to facilitate financial transactions linked to products from or sales to those countries.

There is nothing that you can do to persuade PayPal to change their minds because to do so would mean that they would be breaking USA laws.

I would not advise doing anything to circumvent the spirit of the prohibition as your PayPal account would be closed if you got found out.

For the vast majority of items they are actually ok to be sold under US law - as they are pre-embargo goods. For example a Sudanese item from the 1920's is absolutely fine and legal to sell because it is pre-embargo.

Unfortunately paypal have done a blanket sweep of items that originated from these countries using search bots which have no way of determining whether the goods are either banned or pre-embargo and therefore lawful.

[wilber11]

thanks so much deano for the info very helpful, i shall endeavour to pursue just that.

[suesjools]

Oh wow, I wasn't aware of this, thanks for the heads up.

On second thought, what exactly is restricted besides banned items? I wasn't aware there were stamp or any other restrictions besides Cuban cigars and of course weapons of mass destruction.

Best wishes for many sales to all,