I have my business Paypal account, and a few months ago they send a notice that I had to verify my business by sending proof of ID. Well, time flew by, and now my account is limited I can;t receive payments if I sell anything, or send payments if I want to buy anything.
I thought the sending ID would be simple…but there are 5 types they need! I can do 3 of them, but am stuck on the following:
Proof Business Registrations - This helps us ensure that your business is licensed or registered in your industry. This isn’t a request related to the existence of your business. Acceptable forms of this document include broker-dealer, remittance or escrow licences.
What does that mean???
Membership Information - Please provide proof of professional licences or trade memberships for your industry.
I’m a sole trader artist - I don’t have any of this stuff
I thought I was doing right by setting the Paypal account up as a business one, but I should have stuck to the simpler one!
I do have a second Paypal account, but that’s being used by my second Folksy shop. I’ve had to ask permission to use a Paypal account I run for a small fundraising group just so that I can accept payments when I make sales.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrr! If I had been organised and sorted this earlier I would have been able to contact Paypal and ask about it before the account got grounded
I should just try and ring them up and speak to them, I certainly didn’t have to provide anything so complicated.
You can use the same paypal account for 2 different shops, could you use the other one temporarily or do you really need to keep it separate for the fundraising?
Bummer - just realised that yes, it’s the same Paypal for both shops, just a different email needed for setting up the shop - but that does mean I can use my personal Paypal account temporarily instead of the fundraising one
It’s a Premier Account I’ve got, my other is a basic personal one, and I’ve never had to do any of this ID stuff with that account.
This is the message I have on my account at the moment: You’ll need to provide updated information to continue to use your PayPal account. Your account will be restricted until we receive this information. This means you can’t send, transfer or receive funds.
I haven’t had to provide anything for mine yet, but maybe they’re still playing catch up and I will have to soon. I switched to the business one because you can’t send invoices from a personal one, so would like to keep it. I’d call them and find out what your options are and why you have to provide all this extra proof - maybe they will accept the ID you can provide.
Does it actually produce an invoice or just a request for payment? When I started I was using a personal account but was advised that anyone actually running a business had to have a business account, and I wasn’t able to produce invoices from my personal account, so I switched. But it’s more expensive and I’m wondering now why I bothered.
You should be able to contact them to get some clarification on the documentation. If your business is that of a sole trader you won’t have a Reg No from Companies House but you may have a bank account in that name or some other ID related to that business.
Anyone registered with HMRC as a Sole Trader or needing to complete a Tax Return will receive a UTR number from them.
UTR means Unique Tax Reference.
Not everyone in business is registered for VAT and only Limited companies will have a number from Companies House.
So the UTR number should be sufficient to prove that you have a business which is registered with the relevant authorities.
You can find your UTR by looking on a copy of your latest Tax Return ( on the front page, top left hand corner) or on correspondence from HMRC. It is all numbers and should be 10 digits long.
I should add that not everyone with a UTR number is necessarily running a business or a partner in a business.
Some people just have complicated Tax affairs and so need to complete a Tax Return.
@uxtest No, not really, you get a number which they use instead of your NI number but I don’t think it means anything to anyone except them. I think I’d be hard pressed to ‘prove’ I was in business other than directing people to my online shops and saying ‘honest, that’s me’. I have enough difficulty convincing my mum anyway, when I showed her my flowers featured in a national wedding magazine she thought I had copied the idea from the person in the magazine sigh
Edit: UTR, that’s the number I meant. But it’s not really proof that you’re in business, is it?
@StephanieGuy It used to be that Paypal’s t&cs stated you should have either a premier or a business account if you were trading rather than just a personal one. And there was a limit on how many times you could accept credit/debit card payments through paypal with just a personal account. I assume it’s still the same but it’s a long time since I had to look into all this.
I actually have a Premier account, not a business one. I upgraded from personal to premier because I wanted my customers to be able to pay by debit/credit card as well as by paypal account, and the premier account allows for that, whereas the personal account doesn’t. There doesn’t seem to be much benefit to upgrading to business, so I’ll stick with my premier account - hopefully I won’t need to provide all that ID stuff then.
I have no idea - I think you can get monthly statements that are easier for your accounts or something? I just thought that as I do this full time I’d better get the business one LOL
I can;t receive payments if I sell anything, or send payments if I want to buy anything.
Must have had enough ID to be ok’d 
