My side hustle went viral on TikTok, then my payment processor froze $800

Back in March I posted a 15 second clip of my custom painted plant pots and it blew up, like 2 million views. Orders poured in for two weeks, then PayPal randomly locked my account with $800 sitting in limbo. It took me 6 phone calls, 4 emails, and a full 19 business days to get my money released. The hype died down, my sales are back to normal, and now I'm just wondering if anyone else got burned by a platform freeze right when their stuff went viral.

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1 Comment

henry_ross2d ago

19 business days is insane, but honestly I dont think PayPal was the real problem here. You went from zero to 2 million views in a day, that triggers every fraud algorithm they have. I mean, any processor would lock that down, its not like theyre singling you out. Maybe the real issue is you put all your eggs in one basket with a single payment method and no backup plan. Ive seen this happen to a few small sellers, and the ones who survived had Stripe or Square set up as a second option before they blew up. Idk, it sucks, but the freeze probably saved you from a bunch of chargebacks if some of those orders were sketchy.