PayPal has suspended dotDB permanently without explanation. (Updated)

We regret to inform you that our PayPal account has been permanently suspended because of someone's persistent abuse of our services and a miscommunication with PayPal. Unfortunately, this means that we can only accept credit cards as a payment method for now. We are actively seeking assistance to recover our PayPal account and restore it as a payment option.

On April 9th, 2023, a dotDB subscriber filed a dispute with PayPal regarding our Expert Plan, claiming that the service was significantly different from the description provided and requested a refund. After an investigation, we discovered that he had used our Bulk Search and Export services extensively for an entire month before filing the dispute, which contradicted his claim. In addition, he had subscribed to our Expert Plan twice in 2022, but requested a refund both times as the 30-day subscription period was ending, citing not being happy with our service. Even though we had provided him with full refunds on two previous occasions upon his request, he still subscribed to our service again in March 2023, despite having expressed dissatisfaction with our service earlier. Therefore, we have decided not to offer him a refund for the third time.

Although the subscriber did not provide any additional information to PayPal, he persisted in requesting a refund for the third time. In response, we presented multiple pieces of evidence to PayPal, demonstrating that the subscriber was attempting to exploit our services without any intention of paying for them. Since the subscriber failed to provide the requested information, the case was ultimately resolved in our favor and closed.

On April 18th, 2023, we received a notification from PayPal stating that our account had been permanently suspended due to potential risk without any further explanation. This suspension prevented us from conducting any further business using PayPal, and any funds in our balance would be held by PayPal for up to 180 days. Consequently, dotDB subscribers were no longer able to be automatically billed according to the agreement they had previously consented to with us.

We reached out to our account manager for help internally. However, the Risk/Compliance team at PayPal denied our request to recover our account, stating that their platform does not permit SEO service providers to use their services. Even after we explained to the Risk/Compliance team at PayPal that dotDB is a SaaS provider based on Big Data and not an SEO service provider, they still maintained their decision that we are no longer authorized to use PayPal.

We are currently seeking assistance from someone responsible at PayPal as well as legal support and we kindly request your help in sharing this page on Twitter and tagging @paypal, @AskPayPal, and @PayPal4Business, or any technology news or blogs that may be interested in reporting this issue to raise public awareness. Your support in this matter would be greatly appreciated.