First off, I'd like to make it clear that this guide is purely theoretical and that it is not based on any real experience. It is meant to be interpreted as more of a story rather than a guide. Any instances of the word "I," "My" or "Me," are not meant to reference myself nor anyone else, and are simply used to make this story more interesting as if it were written in first person.

This theoretical literature is for information and entertainment purposes only and the author takes no responsibility as to how this information is used.

Now on to the good ~censored~:

If you've ever tried to use paypal in a particular way that many people including paypal do not approve of, you may have noticed that many of your attempts to use paypal in that way have been thwarted by something that happens to your account, called "Limitation".

Getting limited means that your account has been rendered inactive by paypal, or "frozen." Whilst limited, your account is completely useless. You will be unable to send or receive funds, remove the bank account attached to your paypal, remove the credit card attached to your paypal, or close your account. The only way to get unlimited is to follow what is usually 3-4 steps given to you by paypal that are designed to make you prove that you are who you say you are. These steps vary and can be anything from agreeing to let paypal run a credit check on you, to faxing in recent utility bills. Although there are usually 3-4 steps, there can sometimes be as much as 6 steps to complete before your paypal is unlimited depending on the circumstances. The other alternative is waiting 180 days, at which point paypal is legally required to mail you a check for the remaining balance in your account. Now that I've told you a bit about being limited, you may be wondering why it keeps happening to you and how you can avoid it. (Obviously you know why it keeps happening, but you may not know where you keep ****ing up.)

First lets start off with creating your paypal account. When you sign up for an account, you'll have 3 options to choose from regarding the type of account you'll be making. You'll either want to choose "Premier" or "Business" for your account type. You don't want a personal account because the monthly limits are too low. Each choice has specific pros and cons. A Premier account has lower expectations from paypal, which means although your account will be watched closely for suspicious activity, it will be subject to less scrutiny than a business account will. Meaning it will ultimately slightly lower your chances of being limited. The downside of having a premier account is that your days of pulling successful jobs on that account will be numbered, since its only a matter of time before people on Craigslist or Ebay start to familiarize themselves with the name attached to the account. With a Business account, the name of your "Business" will show up when making transactions instead of the name you used to create your account. This allows you to create as many email accounts as you want and use different names for all of them, as opposed to using the same name over and over again. I realize it is also possible for people to become familiar with the "business" name as well, but trust me, it takes a hell of a lot longer and people tend to think your name is whatever you use when you setup your email account. Besides having your account watched more closely, another con to having a business account is that if things are taken too far, you are 100% more likely to be investigated by the FTC or IC3 for fraudulent online business practices or consumer fraud, which is essentially the same thing in this case. If your activities include tangible goods, be extra careful that you don't go overboard.



Once you have chosen your account type and successfully completed registration, your ready to start prepping your account for "jobs". To avoid being limited, it is essential that you attach a bank account to your paypal. If you try to complete a transaction without having your account verified with anything, your account will often be automatically flagged and frozen by PayPal's automated system. It is possible to buy bank accounts online, but a lot of times you may be unable to find such a deal and have to end up using your own. This could present a problem. When you attach a bank account to your PayPal account, the name on the bank account must match the name on the paypal account. A lot of early limitations occur because people fail to realize this and end up using a purchased bank account that's in someone else's name. One thing you could do is back up a few steps and purchase a bank account before you create your paypal account so you know what name to use with your paypal. Option 2, once again, is to use your own bank account. This of course means that the paypal account has to be in your name, so your best bet is to go with a business account in order to hide your real name from being displayed on every transaction you make. The City, State, Address, and phone number do not have to match the bank account, so you can freely use any address and phone number you like. I do recommend not using your own because although PayPal's policy is to only release your information at the request of authorities, it is possible for an angry "customer" to get on the line with an inexperienced PayPal employee who lets your private details slip out under the pressure. Even though this is unlikely, using bogus contact info is a good way to protect yourself from this situation. I'd like to note that the authorities requesting contact details from PayPal is also very rare and only happens in extreme circumstances, but in this situation, you'd be at least semi-safer using bogus details as well. The thing is, if you were ever stupid enough to make the circumstances that extreme, they would probably request the bank details attached to the account as well, and if you were using your real one, it's all over.


I think its worth a mention that it's a good idea to setup an online voice mail, or even better, purchase a Skypein number so you can make the area code correspond with your fake address., and use that number as your primary home phone. Sometimes nosy PayPal employees will call the number to check your side of the story in a dispute. Instead of calling and getting some random shop that says theres no one named Jacob that lives there, they'll hear a voice mail greeting by Jacob Smith saying he's not in at the moment. If PayPal ever calls the number and it turns out to be the wrong number, they'll send you a notice via email asking you to update the contact details on your account, sometimes with a deadline. Failure to comply may get your account limited. Furthermore, another means of building your account up to withstand being limited is to verify the address on the account with a Credit Card. This can easily be done by getting a prepaid Visa that allows you to login to the account online and alter the billing address yourself. You change the Name, Address, and Contact Info to correspond with your PayPal account details. Address verification using this method is a must if your using a business account, and it really helps if your using a premier account as well. I recommend getting a Simon Giftcard.

After you've gotten your account verified, you will still be on something called "New Status". New Status is like a probational period for your account. Your account will stay on New Status for 60 days, and during this time it is closely monitored. PayPal's automated system is set up to have certain expectations for accounts that are on New status, and if any activity takes place that the system recognizes as "suspicious," your account will be automatically limited. While you are on New Status, it is required by my personal (theoretical) system that you complete at least 2 legit transactions (3 is even better.) Doing this helps establish you as a reputable account holder, and adds to your paypal rating, which you will not see until 30 days after each transaction is completed. Buyers are able to check this rating, so having a positive one is an added plus. After you have completed your legit transactions, you need to wait at least a week from the time the last one was completed. After the week is up your ready to start doing some real business, however, you must start extremely slowly because your account will still be on New Status. A sudden increase of disputes and claims on any account still in the probationary phase will surely get you limited right away. For the first month your jobs should be limited to one transaction at a time, and the transaction should never exceed $500. Essentially, this only gives you about 1 "job" during the first month, since it takes 3-4 weeks for each dispute to clear. By the time you've completed your first job and have been successfully sided with, your account will be going into its second month since being created.

Now that you've used your account a bit, you can step up your productivity. Within the next month of being on new status, you should never go past $1000. Each job should never go over $500 per hit, and the pending disputes on your account should never go over 5 at one time. This does not mean that you can have 5 disputes going for $500 each. You will get limited. This means that the no matter how many disputes on your account, you can never have over $1000 total earned during that month.

Now it should be 60 days later since creating your account. You've made a bit of money, but not too much because you've been flying low to avoid PayPal's limitation radar. Now that 60 days has passed and you've correctly conditioned your account, and have finally escaped New Status, your ready to kick into full gear. All your hard work will allow you to take your earnings up to $2,000 per month maximum. The rule of never going over 5 disputes at a time is still in effect, and every hit should remain under $500 a piece. You could try to push 6 at your own risk, and although I know *people* who are good enough at working paypal to run up to 7 at a time and not get limited, it isn't recommended. It is never a good idea to have more than $900- $1,000 in your account at any given time, so any money made should immediately be transferred to your bank as you make it. If your using a fake bank account, it will be much more difficult to cash out, since sending money to another paypal account for a friend to cash out adds to your transaction amount history, and remember, you don't want your monthly account transfers to exceed $2000. A good way to avoid raising your monthly transfer amounts, that I just now thought of as I was typing this, is to use an online banking service like INGdirect, to attach the account to your purchased bank account, then connect the online bank account to your paypal. This way you can deposit the money to a bank account that you are in control of.

Before that revelation I just had, I had been planning to explain how online bank accounts can help you out if you do slip up and get limited. With certain banks like INGdirect, you can close and reopen the bank account as many times as you like, and every single time you do, you get a new account number. This makes it possible to verify your accounts over and over in the event that you keep ****ing up. The only requirement for this is a checking account, which must be attached to the online bank account. Unlike paypal, you can keep closing and reopening the accounts while using the same checking account number each time, so you'll never need anything more than a checking account to use online banking to verify your PayPal an unlimited number of times.

So now that I've told you almost everything I know about manipulating PayPal as far as limitations go, I'd like to point out that there are other ways to get limited that can only be found out by trial and error. Even using my system, it has happened to me. I'd like to mention two mistakes you don't want to make.

Unauthorized Transaction Disputes:

These can be very tricky, and if someone files one on you, you should be very cautious. The only true way to tell whether you should try to raise a claim on one, or cancel it instead, is to pay very close attention to how the person was acting when you were speaking to them. Most of the time they happen because the person filing them is inexperienced with PayPal and doesn't know how to correctly file a dispute. Some of the time it happens because the PayPal account that you received payment from didn't belong to the person who sent it. Afterwards the real owner of the account realizes that they're account was compromised and calls PayPal, then PayPal opens an unauthorized transaction claim for the account owner. If you attempt to dispute one under these circumstances, your most definitely going to be limited. If you think the buyer was acting strange in the least, then you should immediately refund the payment rather than fighting the dispute.

Sending money to yourself:

DON'T DO IT!

Although PayPal's policy allows customers to have one Personal or Premier account, in addition to one Business account per person, they do not like it when you send money from one of your accounts to the other. Don't attempt it unless the IP addresses aren't connected in any way. I wouldn't even attempt unless the IP addresses originated from different states.

That concludes my informational story on how to theoretically manipulate PayPal. I hope you've all enjoyed.



Code:
Credit:
A.D.E.D.of MadSpoT