PayPal is the one at fault here. Don't let someone use your service without adequate ID. Tell them and require it before you can use the service.
If transferring money without SSN is illegal; I wonder how collecting it without one would be legal.
Two, these rules do not come from PayPal; they come from the US Federal Government.
Three, the thing you're saying they should make clear is something someone else guessed about, and it's not correct. As long as the number is under $600 a year, there's no paperwork required.
I don't understand why we're all panicking so hard about a set of guesses that people have made. If you just think the situation over a little bit, it's pretty obvious that what's really going on is OP hasn't finished his free tax paperwork, and that PayPal can't hand out money until the tax situation is made legal.
And when you look at it that way, PayPal is actually doing exactly the right thing.
I'm very interested in what tax laws you believe he's broken though.
One place an American can usually quite easily check this is at your local gambling area. They are locked by the same rules. If you win big at the horse races, you don't get to take your money until you fill out tax paperwork.
This is no different, except that OP is international, and didn't know our rules as a result.
No. You don't need an SSN as long as it's less than $600 a year. This was correct.
His money hasn't been taken; they just won't disburse it until he does his free paperwork, as required by the US Government. That's entirely legitimate.
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> PayPal is the one at fault here. Don't let someone use your service without adequate ID.
They did not. When OP does the rest of what he's supposed to do, he's going to have his money unlocked.
PayPal is being as liberal, correctly, as the law permits.
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> Tell them and require it before you can use the service.
Yeah, they did. Maybe you should read the user agreement of a system before using it to collect nearly a quarter million dollars internationally. It's only three pages.
There is a point at which OP had a responsibility, too.
Half of it will be taken by the U.S government, that's likely the reason his paypal account got locked.
There is nothing legitimate about theft, whether its paypal or the IRS stealing his money.
> Yeah, they did. Maybe you should read the user agreement of a system before using it to collect nearly a quarter million dollars internationally. It's only three pages. There is a point at which OP had a responsibility, too.
He earned that quarter million dollars providing a service other people found useful. There is no justification for any organization or government to take any of it away from him.
Yes, that's called taxes. There's nothing wrong with that. Also, the correct number is likely quite a bit lower.
Venezuela's going to take more than the US does.
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> There is nothing legitimate about theft, whether its paypal or the IRS stealing his money.
It's really hard to take you seriously when you pretend that taxes are theft, and that the IRS is stealing.
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> There is no justification for any organization or government to take any of it away from him.
Uh huh.
Of course there is.
> It's really hard to take you seriously when you pretend that taxes are theft, and that the IRS is stealing.
It's hard to take me seriously because I assert that its theft when one group of people threatens another with violence unless they give them their money?
What gives governments the right to take whatever they want from anybody?
I didn't ask the government to do any of that for me, and I would prefer they didn't. I can't fix someones car without telling them, and then demand payment.
Our government has done a terrible job at infrastructure and I hardly find it unreasonable to believe that I should be allowed to hire people I choose for my needs.
If I wanted an exciting life full of collapsing bridges, sinkholes, and trigger happy police, I would gladly hire government. I'm dull though. I prefer things to work the way I expect them to, no surprises for me please.
I never agreed to be a citizen in the first place. Why should anyone have to give up everything they have just because the government decided to auto enroll them into a system without their consent?
Taxes are usually filed by a specific time. Taxes are not taken at an arbitrary time, after an arbitrary amount of money is collected. Which appears to be what is happening here.
It seems to me that all this talk about taxes is wrong - it sounds like PayPal's insane money laundering hair trigger got invoked, and they froze the money. Now they are asking for paperwork or ID (a Social Security Number) that cannot be provided because the one who collected the money is not a U.S. citizen.
That's holding the man over a barrel.
Please count me out of any talk that taxes are illegal though. That's about the most ridiculous position anyone can take.