Large Scale Central

Pay Pal and account limiting

General Discussion
#1

My Pay Pal merchant account has been limited until I provide them with a horde of new documentation such as incorporation papers, proof of address etc which is going to take me some time and inconvenience.
To resolve some questions I am supposed to download pdf forms, print them out, fill them out then fax or upload them back. One even requires that I print my letter head on the pdf print out.

Then there was this doozie of a question.

“Under Australian Anti Money Laundering legislation we need to know if you hold or have held a position of political office, or associated with someone who does or did. Please click the Resolve button to answer the questions.”
I could choose YES or NO to resolve the matter.

What load of cods-wallop.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr!!

#2

Tony,
Sounds like a bunch of B.S. to get your info, most likely a scam.

Chuck

#3

I had a PayPal account. Every few months I was getting scam letters. I contacted PayPal several times and was totally ignored. I have not used PayPal in several years. They weren’t interested in my business!

#4

Agreed, If you call Paypal 1st they can tell if it’s true or not. Never give any info to a Email from Paypal, Always login to your account
and do it there if needed.

#5

What Nicholas said is right. Or just log on to your account (not from the email) and see if there is a notice there for you. If not, it’s “phishing”

#6

Tony sure sounds phishy to me, why not contact PayPal directly, if this is from a branch of your Government, why not contact them directly (DO NOT use the numbers provided by the emails) and ask is this a legitimate rule, but I wouldnt send whoever is asking for this a thing until its been verified. I think its a scam.

I can assure you if something like this was tried up here, there would be furious discussion about it on line and off line and by the major news sources, seams kinda funny your the only one down there so far being targeted by this rather intrusive rule.

#7

Really sounds like a scam. I don’t know how it is in the ‘Land Down Under’ but I have had very good experiences calling PayPal direct. Until then, I wouldn’t touch that email with a 10 foot mouse click!

#8

About two years ago, I had something similar happen with the account attached to the not-for-profit that I run. Paypal suspended the account until they got some documentation that it was actually a not-for-profit. Opinions on what’s going on is that they’re starting to get some behind-the-scenes pressure to ‘join’ the banking industry, and are making sure they have all their ducks in a row.

#9

Tony,

Absolutely a phishing scheme! If there is a consumer protection agency in New Zealand, I would most certainly contact them.

Jerry

#10
Chuck Cole said:
Tony, Sounds like a bunch of B.S. to get your info, most likely a scam.

Chuck


https://www.paypal.com/helpcenter/main.jsp;jsessionid=RBM4QlpF2npstvLHYWDsJDCptR2kJtH2PnJ22hZTjYWJKJTQ1VhG!-703367006?locale=en_AU&_dyncharset=UTF-8&countrycode=AU&cmd=_help&serverInstance=9004&t=solutionTab&ft=browseTab&ps=solutionPanels&solutionId=1219741&isSrch=Yes

PayPal said:
Is PayPal authorised to request this information from me? 
Yes. Just like a bank, PayPal is required by Australian law to confirm the identity of our account holders.
Australian Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing laws impact all financial institutions, including PayPal Australia which is subject to similar regulations as Australian banks.

 

You can find out more about the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing laws on the Attorney-General’s Department’s site.


Learn more about PayPal’s proof of identity process.

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Copyright © 1999-2012 PayPal, Inc. All rights reserved.
PayPal Australia Pty Limited ABN 93 111 195 389 (AFSL 304962). Any general financial product advice provided in this site has not taken into account your objectives, financial situations or needs.


http://www.austrac.gov.au/aml_ctf.html

© Commonwealth of Australia - AUSTRAC 2010 said:
New AML/CTF obligations came into effect from 1 November 2011 for all reporting entities and remitters

Following the passage of the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre Supervisory Cost Recovery Levy (Consequential Amendments) Act 2011 and the Combating the Financing of People Smuggling and Other Measures Act 2011, changes to the AML/CTF Act came into effect from 1 November 2011. As a result:

reporting entities are required to enrol with AUSTRAC and to keep enrolment details up to date
providers of remittance services (remitters) must apply to be registered with AUSTRAC, this includes a requirement to demonstrate suitability for registration.

Further information
For information on these new requirements, please visit the following pages:
New enrolment requirements for reporting entities

New registration requirements for remitters.

About the AML/CTF Act

The Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (AML/CTF Act) received Royal Assent on 12 December 2006.

The AML/CTF Act forms part of a legislative package which implemented the first tranche of reforms to strengthen Australia’s AML/CTF regulatory regime and bring it into line with international standards including standards set by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

The AML/CTF Act covers the financial sector, gambling sector, bullion dealers and other professionals or businesses (‘reporting entities’) that provide particular ‘designated services’.

The AML/CTF Act was implemented in a staggered manner from 2006 to allow industry to develop necessary systems in the most cost efficient way. All provisions of the AML/CTF Act became fully operational from 12 December 2008.

The AML/CTF Act imposes a number of obligations on reporting entities when they provide designated services, which include:

customer identification and verification of identity
record-keeping
establishing and maintaining an AML/CTF program 
ongoing customer due diligence and reporting (suspicious matters, threshold transactions and international funds transfer instructions).

The AML/CTF Act and the supporting AML/CTF Rules together implement a principles-based and risk-based approach to regulation. Reporting entities determine the way in which they meet their obligations based on their assessment of the risk of whether providing a designated service to a customer may facilitate money laundering or terrorism financing.

Under the AML/CTF Act, AUSTRAC is Australia’s AML/CTF regulator with supervisory, monitoring and enforcement functions. AUSTRAC is also Australia’s specialist financial intelligence unit.

#11

PayPal NEVER answered my questions!

#12

Tony,

If the PayPal questionaire sent you to a secure link (https) on their website, then “all’s well”. Based on what Forrest wrote, the information is a public law requirement.

I don’t have a PayPal account and don’t want one… from a business standpoint, it’s a customer convenience.

Suggest you sit down with your favorite beverage and ‘fill in the blanks’ for PayPal. I feel your pain.

Jerry

#13

After they did a supreme screw-up on my private account a few years ago - of course I couldn’t get any answers, even the “supervisors”, “Managers” didn’t have a clue - I cancelled both accounts. Not a hardship since payment choices evolved in the meantime and there are different ways to go.

@ Tony

Here’s what I would do: request all their correspondence as hard copy to your snail mail address, including the forms that you’ll need to complete. :wink: :slight_smile:

#14

Even if the info request is legit under the new law, AND even if the site has an httpS protocol (HyperText Transport Prototcol - Secure) it could still be a phishing scam. The baddies have the means to create false sites via false servers anywhere in the world, and that means they can create their own certificates and run their own secure services and databases. Its not really all that hard.

and paypal.com and paypa1.com look similar enough that some might miss the fact that the second one is paypa-(number one)-.com instead of an “L”.

HJ’s suggestion to get hardcopy communications is a good one, its harder, though still NOT impossible to falsify legit hardcopy. The ONLY secure way to ensure you get to the original site is to type https://www.paypal.com into your browser’s address bar.

Just remember, HTML coding allows the author to ascribe any text to a hyperlink: http://www.largescalecentral.com <- go ahead click it, I promise it won’t take you anyplace TOO terrible, though their use of google ads creates a drive-by download infection vector. You will notice, it looked like it would send you here, but it didn’t.

Words to live by: scientia explorator praecaveo Literally translated it means “Knowledge Explorer Beware”. In today’s internet age, I’m translating it as “Surfer Beware”

#15

Thanks for the advice guys.
All legit. Comes up at log in on The Australian Pay Pal site.
Wasted 30 minutes hanging on the phone at cell phone rates.
I have to use Pay Pal because many customers either don’t have CC’s or will not use them directly.
Pay Pal are quite happy to continue accepting funds from my customers paying me for goods, but I can’t access any funds.
Pay Pal have my money and will not let me either transfer it to a proper bank account or use it for purchases from suppliers overseas.
Pay Pal (and the OZ Govt) have me by the short and curlies. Plus they are less expensive to deal with than banks.

#16

Tony,

If that’s the case: Go for it!

In my case I’m afflicted with a very long memory; fool me once and you won’t get that chance again. :wink: :slight_smile:

#17

Tony

Sorry to hear that PP are giving you grief. In Europe they really are useless at dealing with fraudulent transactions, took me the best part of a week to sort one out.

eBay wanted me to do the same downloading forms to be filled in, scanned and emailed back to get an incorrect statement removed from feedback - so that may be where the PP process came from. Too much trouble and I told them so, but I agree its difficult to do without them both …

If you fancy a break from bureaucratic hassle I started a thread over on gscalecentral that I was hoping you would see - Planet T5 under Battery Power.

All the best

mike

#18

Thanks Mike I will check it out.

#19

Tony,
Just a question and not being sarcastic. How did you do business before Pay Pal?

#20

In the days before the GFC and the high A$ I had dealers in the USA and UK. I very rarely dealt direct and when I did it was always with CC’s.
When dealers were no longer viable because I could not offer them any margin I had to deal direct with consumers.
I have found Pay Pal really good for dealing with customers direct and want to continue using the service. Jumping through the Pay Pal hoops to comply with their requirements will just be another wall a small manufacturer has to handle.

All the above was really just a vent at the hassles a small maker has to put up with.