Paypal Account randomly banned by the system

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The Nyanquack Apr 6, 2021 @ 11:28am

Hi,

I was using my Paypal-Account for years without issues. I got a message yesterday that the transaction was not possible due to an error (which happens sometimes). So after trying multiple failed attempts, I contacted the support. The support basically said that they have an automatic system and that my Paypal account can't be used anymore. No reason was provided. It just got detected by an automatic system and that's it. Instead of helping me out to fix this issue, I was told to use another paypal account or to use other buy-options.

Ist there any way to fix this nonsense?

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Showing 1-15 of 38 comments

nullable Apr 6, 2021 @ 11:37am

Well it depends on the root cause. Which you don't seem to be aware of. So I'd be curious what inquiring with Paypal would reveal. This may not be an issue to "fix" on Steam's side and there's lots of reasons a FOP might be suspended.

You may feel like it's nonsense, but it may not be nonsense to other parties involved.

Last edited by nullable; Apr 6, 2021 @ 11:38am

The Nyanquack Apr 6, 2021 @ 2:04pm

Originally posted by Snakub Plissken:
Well it depends on the root cause. Which you don't seem to be aware of. So I'd be curious what inquiring with Paypal would reveal. This may not be an issue to "fix" on Steam's side and there's lots of reasons a FOP might be suspended.

You may feel like it's nonsense, but it may not be nonsense to other parties involved.

Appearently my account is involved in "fraud" that I have no idea about. The support talks about "refunds", but the only thing I "refunded" is basically nothing. I cancelled and redone purchases on steam, because there were some issues and I believe I refunded a total of 2 games on Steam since I use Paypal (which is completly fine). If I knew at least why this happened, I could maybe fix it, but I have no f*cking clue, the support is telling me sh*t and I am just suppose to accept this situation for no reason at all. It is utter nonsense.

The Giving One Apr 6, 2021 @ 2:09pm

Since we can't possibly know what Support's side is, since we as regular users do not have access to that information, there is not much we can do here to help, probably.

You could always post your support ticket conversations here if you wish, with just copy and paste, but be sure to redact all of your personal information when doing so, and then we might have a better idea what is going on but still not fully know what happened on or with your PayPal account.

crunchyfrog Apr 6, 2021 @ 2:22pm

As The Giving One rightly points out, we're kind of stuck as users here.

It boils down to this - there is clearly a problem between either Valve or Paypal. It's not uncommon for this to happen where a payment is out of the blue seen as fraudulent. Used to happen as LOT on Paypal.

But the only way you can get to the bottom of it is to talk to Paypal primarily and found out in fine detail exactly what is happeneing, to exactly what payment and why.

Then talk to Valve about it.

Because the thing you absolutely must try to avoid is Valve having provided games for payment, and the payment gets rescinded, because they end up out of pocket. If that doesn't get resolved in a certain period of time, then you end up with you being unable to purchase. You get frozen out.

So make sure to talk to Paypal as that's the prime source of where the money is coming from. Work from there.

Oh and don't take ♥♥♥♥ from them. If you don't get any reasonable answer, escalate it higher.
Even if you have to go all the way to the CEO.

rawWwRrr Apr 6, 2021 @ 3:00pm

Originally posted by The Nyanquack:
Appearently my account is involved in "fraud" that I have no idea about. The support talks about "refunds", but the only thing I "refunded" is basically nothing. I cancelled and redone purchases on steam, because there were some issues and I believe I refunded a total of 2 games on Steam since I use Paypal (which is completly fine).

How did you "refund" your purchases? Did you refund them through Paypal?

The Nyanquack Apr 6, 2021 @ 5:00pm

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:
Originally posted by The Nyanquack:
Appearently my account is involved in "fraud" that I have no idea about. The support talks about "refunds", but the only thing I "refunded" is basically nothing. I cancelled and redone purchases on steam, because there were some issues and I believe I refunded a total of 2 games on Steam since I use Paypal (which is completly fine).
How did you "refund" your purchases? Did you refund them through Paypal?

Nope. Normally over steam. Nothing with Paypal. This year I haven't refunded a single game as far as I know. I haven't even bought anything on steam for a month or so (if not longer), which is why I don't understand what the issue is. I am not being told what exactly the problem is.

The Nyanquack Apr 6, 2021 @ 5:02pm

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:
As The Giving One rightly points out, we're kind of stuck as users here.

It boils down to this - there is clearly a problem between either Valve or Paypal. It's not uncommon for this to happen where a payment is out of the blue seen as fraudulent. Used to happen as LOT on Paypal.

But the only way you can get to the bottom of it is to talk to Paypal primarily and found out in fine detail exactly what is happeneing, to exactly what payment and why.

Then talk to Valve about it.

Because the thing you absolutely must try to avoid is Valve having provided games for payment, and the payment gets rescinded, because they end up out of pocket. If that doesn't get resolved in a certain period of time, then you end up with you being unable to purchase. You get frozen out.

So make sure to talk to Paypal as that's the prime source of where the money is coming from. Work from there.

Oh and don't take ♥♥♥♥ from them. If you don't get any reasonable answer, escalate it higher.
Even if you have to go all the way to the CEO.

If I knew what the problem is, but I don't. I am just being told that fraud and refunds are involved. When, what games, why is not explained. My paypal account is just "automatically" flagged. That's it. That's all I am hearing.

Dr.Shadowds 🐉 Apr 6, 2021 @ 5:29pm

I had to fight Paypal once to giving my account back, because their SMS text were having problems on their end, and due to entering code at the wrong time, which I was getting code late like half hour, and trying contact support, my account got flag and locked for brute force attack depsite it just me getting back into my account. The 1st Support was rude to me over the phone and told me go make a new account as it's locked because I didn't put my full 1st name on the account, basically guy didn't want to unlock my account, had to argue with the guy for over 10 minutes, until finally sent me to the manager, which solve my problem in less than two minutes flat, all I had to do was confirm questions I had, address, and card number, didn't take much, and even sent the complain about the 1st person I spoke to that was rude, and didn't want to do his job. The dumbest thing was being on hold for almost an hour to get a hold of support by phone.

TL:DR I had to call paypal spent almost hour to get help by support that was a prick, and had to speak to manager to fix my problem, and reported that prick that gave me issues.

Anyway Call paypal if you can, and explain your issue.

Like Steam can't do anything unless it was Steam that banned your paypal payment method then only Steam support can help in this case, but you would've gotten a Red notice on your Steam account, and an email by Steam support if they claim you commited fruad.

What steam will do is not accept payment or won't do anything if Paypal tells them the account is reported for fruad, or whatever, which Steam can't do anything really, as this be Paypal problem, and only Paypal support can help if they're the ones that flagging your paypal account as fruad, and locking it.

Last edited by Dr.Shadowds 🐉; Apr 6, 2021 @ 5:32pm

The Nyanquack Apr 7, 2021 @ 1:58am

Originally posted by Dr.Shadowds 🐉:
I had to fight Paypal once to giving my account back, because their SMS text were having problems on their end, and due to entering code at the wrong time, which I was getting code late like half hour, and trying contact support, my account got flag and locked for brute force attack depsite it just me getting back into my account. The 1st Support was rude to me over the phone and told me go make a new account as it's locked because I didn't put my full 1st name on the account, basically guy didn't want to unlock my account, had to argue with the guy for over 10 minutes, until finally sent me to the manager, which solve my problem in less than two minutes flat, all I had to do was confirm questions I had, address, and card number, didn't take much, and even sent the complain about the 1st person I spoke to that was rude, and didn't want to do his job. The dumbest thing was being on hold for almost an hour to get a hold of support by phone.

TL:DR I had to call paypal spent almost hour to get help by support that was a prick, and had to speak to manager to fix my problem, and reported that prick that gave me issues.

Anyway Call paypal if you can, and explain your issue.

Like Steam can't do anything unless it was Steam that banned your paypal payment method then only Steam support can help in this case, but you would've gotten a Red notice on your Steam account, and an email by Steam support if they claim you commited fruad.

What steam will do is not accept payment or won't do anything if Paypal tells them the account is reported for fruad, or whatever, which Steam can't do anything really, as this be Paypal problem, and only Paypal support can help if they're the ones that flagging your paypal account as fruad, and locking it.

Afaik my Paypal account is fine. I didn't get any issues with it until now. I think the issue lays with Steam, but I didn't get any notification from Steam either, which is so infuriating to me. I am getting banned/flagged for nothing. I never received any E-Mail from Steam about any fraud and I don't see an issue with my Paypal Account either.

Zekiran Apr 7, 2021 @ 2:04am

You should still actually phone them about it.

#10

Supafly Apr 7, 2021 @ 2:09am

Originally posted by The Nyanquack:
Originally posted by Dr.Shadowds 🐉:
I had to fight Paypal once to giving my account back, because their SMS text were having problems on their end, and due to entering code at the wrong time, which I was getting code late like half hour, and trying contact support, my account got flag and locked for brute force attack depsite it just me getting back into my account. The 1st Support was rude to me over the phone and told me go make a new account as it's locked because I didn't put my full 1st name on the account, basically guy didn't want to unlock my account, had to argue with the guy for over 10 minutes, until finally sent me to the manager, which solve my problem in less than two minutes flat, all I had to do was confirm questions I had, address, and card number, didn't take much, and even sent the complain about the 1st person I spoke to that was rude, and didn't want to do his job. The dumbest thing was being on hold for almost an hour to get a hold of support by phone.

TL:DR I had to call paypal spent almost hour to get help by support that was a prick, and had to speak to manager to fix my problem, and reported that prick that gave me issues.

Anyway Call PayPal if you can, and explain your issue.

Like Steam can't do anything unless it was Steam that banned your paypal payment method then only Steam support can help in this case, but you would've gotten a Red notice on your Steam account, and an email by Steam support if they claim you committed fraud.

What steam will do is not accept payment or won't do anything if Paypal tells them the account is reported for fruad, or whatever, which Steam can't do anything really, as this be Paypal problem, and only Paypal support can help if they're the ones that flagging your paypal account as fruad, and locking it.

Afaik my Paypal account is fine. I didn't get any issues with it until now. I think the issue lays with Steam, but I didn't get any notification from Steam either, which is so infuriating to me. I am getting banned/flagged for nothing. I never received any E-Mail from Steam about any fraud and I don't see an issue with my Paypal Account either.

Still wouldn't hurt to talk to some at Paypal about this. As it's a Steam/Paypal issue maybe Paypal could shed some light on the issue. Even if they can't solve the issue it would at least be nice to know the cause of it so you may as well give it ago.

#11

The Nyanquack Apr 7, 2021 @ 2:18am

Originally posted by Aesthetic:
Originally posted by The Nyanquack:

Appearently my account is involved in "fraud" that I have no idea about. The support talks about "refunds", but the only thing I "refunded" is basically nothing. I cancelled and redone purchases on steam, because there were some issues and I believe I refunded a total of 2 games on Steam since I use Paypal (which is completly fine). If I knew at least why this happened, I could maybe fix it, but I have no f*cking clue, the support is telling me sh*t and I am just suppose to accept this situation for no reason at all. It is utter nonsense.

Cancelling purchases because of issues sounds like you did some chargebacks. Chargebacks will result in that payment method being banned.

See: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=6687-HJVM-8966#:~:text=With%20any%20chargeback%2C%20funds%20are,the%20dispute%20will%20be%20restored.

What I mean with that: Putting something into the "shopping cart" on steam and deleting it before the payment. I didn't cancel a purchased game. There was one instance a few months ago, where I bought VPN for my wife, but we couldn't access the country we wanted to, so we contacted the support of the VPN and got my money back. Aside from that I once (like a year ago) bought Medieval Total war 2, played it for 10 mins and got it refunded. That's all I ever did. I don't see why any of that should result in my Paypal Account getting flagged.

Last edited by The Nyanquack; Apr 7, 2021 @ 2:19am

#12

The Nyanquack Apr 7, 2021 @ 3:02am

Originally posted by Zekiran:
You should still actually phone them about it.

I did call Paypal, but the issue seems to be on the side of Steam and I don't see a phonenumber to call (for steam).

EDIT:

Just tested if I can buy stuff with my Paypal Account: It works. I had no issues purchasing a game from a different platform. So Steam is definetly the problem here.

Last edited by The Nyanquack; Apr 7, 2021 @ 3:11am

#13