Since early 2011, PayPal has been a real nightmare for Indian users.
Rewinding: In order to comply with RBI guidelines, PayPal enforced two deadly rules for all Indian PayPal accounts. First, Indian users must empty entire PayPal funds to their bank accounts within 7 days of receiving a payment. Second and the worst of all, Indian users can never use funds in their PayPal account to buy goods, pay bills or even send the money to someone else. It is a one way street, the ($) can check in any time she likes but she can not be transferred to a PayPal account of someone else’s. Unless you have a credit card linked to your PayPal account, Indian users can never send money, buy goods or pay for services.
In last couple of months, PayPal quietly rolled out auto withdrawal of Payments and waved off withdrawal fees for Indian users. This came as a surprise for many, since Indian users are not used to hear good news about PayPal’s changing policies and rules every now and then.
No sooner I realized that Okay, things have settled down, I can now peacefully go back to work, here he comes again.
A lot of Indian users are facing a typical problem of Invalid name on PAN, while the truth is that their names are actually same on both their PayPal accounts and PAN card. There is no way anyone can change their name on a PAN card which has already been registered with Govt of India, while on the other hand PayPal limits specific Indian accounts saying that Your PAN card is invalid.
The result is that until and unless a valid Pan number is added to a PayPal account, the user can not receive a payment. Makes no sense at all!
The Problem of Name Verification In PayPal and Indian PAN Card
Few days back, I logged into my Gmail account and was shocked to see an email from PayPal stating that my PayPal account has been limited from receiving payments.
My initial reaction was Wait, what? I have already added my PAN number in PayPal, along with my Bank details, home address and a purpose code for withdrawing payments. Everything was fine just the other day, what happened all of a sudden? I will first check my PayPal account and see whether everything is fine or not
When I logged into my PayPal account, I saw this big red notification Your PayPal account access is limited
For the sake of checking the receiving status of funds, I called up a friend who lives in U.S and asked him to send a small payment at my PayPal address.
Dang!
My friend could not send the payment and PayPal showed him this message:
So here is my PAN card (which can be registered only once in a lifetime).
And here is what I see when I try to update my PAN on my PayPal account:
If you are going through a similar situation, let me assure you that it is not your fault. This is probably a glitch in PayPal’s PAN verification system and there is no possible way to get over this other than convince PayPal staff that your PAN is correct and no action is possible from your side.
Here are a couple of things I did, in order to remove the PayPal PAN restriction:
1. Follow @AskPayPal on Twitter and tweet your problem to him. This guy is faster than the tech support staff of PayPal and he will surely respond to your Tweet.
2. Take out your camera and click images of your PAN card, Bank pass book and your Indian citizenship voter card. This is important, as the photo on your Indian voter card and the photo on your PAN will prove that you are the same person.
3. Login to your PayPal account, click the Contact us link and send PayPal an email describing your problem in full detail. Here is a sample email template
Hello
My PayPal account has been restricted from receiving Payments. The cause stated in your email [date] is that my PAN was found to be invalid. The truth however, is that my PAN is valid and my name is same on my Bank Pass book, PayPal account and my PAN card. There is no way I can change my name with any of these organizations.
I have checked my Information with the Income tax department website of India.
- The name on my PAN card is [Your name]
- The name on my PayPal account is [Your Name]
- The name on my Bank Account is [Your name]
I have attached five documents as email attachments, let me know if the photocopies or scanned copies of any of these documents needs to be shipped at a physical address.
Enclosure:
A. The name as it appears on my PayPal account.
B. The Name as it appears on the income tax website.
C. The name as it appears on my Bank pass book and bank cheque book.
D. The name as it appears in my PAN card (Photo identification).
E. My Voter ID card which proves that I am an Indian citizen (photo identification).Please let me know what should I do now.
4. Hold on for a day or two and you should hear from PayPal soon. In my case, they sent me an email stating that Your PayPal account has been restored.
Phew!
Thank you Pallab.