Hi all, I’ve been signed up to PayPal for a few years I dont keep any funds in the account and draw on my bank account when making purchases. Last week, out of the blue, they reduced access stating they need further info to confirm my identity. Passport & drivers licence required to be sent to them.
Has anyone else had to do this? Interested to know how many of you needed to.
I make half dozen small purchases a year. It’s not like I’m pumping funds through.
Cheers
I’ve never been requested to supply anything along those lines.
Only things I’ve ever had to do is verify credit cards (Paypal took and then refunded a very small amount of money and I had to input into a box what these values were).
Photo ID sounds suspicious to me. Was this via an email and can you verify that it is genuine?
I’d definitely be contacting PayPal’s support to verify, sounds dodgy that they want both a passport and a driver’s license.
I’ve had this happen to my account when I made some changes once - can’t remember exactly what the nature of the changes were though. Had to provide 100 points of ID in order to verify my identity. Until I did that I couldn’t make payments or withdraw funds. If I recall correctly, it’s all done through the PayPal site so if the url is good and the little green lock is there it’s not dodgy, just damn inconvenient.
My wifes accounts got locked one time when we were doing some fundraising and using her PayPal account for some of the online stuff, while it was a pain, we provided the details and it was unlocked pretty quickly.
One of the clubs that I volunteer for has a PayPal account that’s used for legitimate club business and has been locked a number of times over the years when they ask for the same information (registration etc) which is easily provided. Again a pain but usually pretty quick and simple.
This used to happen more often in the early days when the account wasn’t used very often, these days it’s far far more active as more stuff has gone digital and we transact more online these days. I assume there was an automatic flag that says if thing X happens n+1 times, lock the account… and when you don’t do anything much n+1 = 1 
Long story short, it’s very possible it’s legit. Do your own checks to make sure it is… the first would be logging into your paypal account and seeing if it’s locked… that would be a pretty good giveaway that it’s legit 
I recently changed details on a longstanding PayPal account. Within 24 hours I had a fraudulent credit card charge of $2k+ (and the inconveniences that come with the subsequent cancelling of the card)
I short, I have no plans to ever use it again…
Thanks all for sharing your experiences. I’ll investigate a little further.
Looks like it may be kosher from your responses and other google readings.
Gonna revive this thread, cos - it’s just happened to me, too.
PayPal is claiming they received “notification” that there’s been suss activity on a “related card”. That’s BS. There’s only 1 card connected to my PayPal account, and there’s no odd activity there. And I doubt my bank have contacted them to disclose such activity. So who is this advice from?
PayPal’s required resolution? Provide photo ID, change password, and verify a c/card.
Having just read some lovely articles about identify theft, and with my driver’s license being my only photo ID - I’ve sent them a message to say they can either unfreeze the account or delete it. I’m sure they’ll rue the day they lose my account, and the 5’s of dollars that pass through it on a monthly basis!
cheers
cosmic
Yep.
If they want that sort of info my response would be:
“Sit on this and spin” 
See yuz later.
Al
Reply to my message - just a copy n paste reiterating that they need me to comply to unlock my account.
What’s a good PayPal alternative?
If it’s official It’s not dodgy at all:
If you use your account infrequently, have never had a bank account tied to it and rarely pay anyone, especially if you are now using a VPN, PayPal may assume you don’t exist as a real and physical human being. There are a lot of scammers out there that try to set up a fake PayPal account or even try to set up a fake PayPal account overseas.
I’ve seen accounts limited like this, they’re just trying to work out who you are. With the number of scammers migrating to PayPal it’s for your protection as well as their own to work out who you are and that you are a living, breathing human being so that people don’t unwillingly get defrauded.
It is absolutely PayPal- not a fake.
I use my PayPal account a few times a month on average, including paying utilities as well as occasional eBay buys. Pretty consistent for years. No odd large transactions to set flags.
Just very frustrating when they make claims to obtain something like my drivers license without providing any evidence.
They’re just checking in, consider it like your bank. Would you rather find out what little is in your bank account disappeared overnight into a Nigerian prince’s account or would you rather have your account unlimited?