PayPal 180 day hold on $23K - any way to speed this up?

I'm losing my mind here. Been running a shopify store for 8 months, things finally started taking off in October. Did about $23K in sales over 3 weeks which was way up from my usual $2-3K/month.

Yesterday PayPal slaps me with a "reserve" and says they're holding all funds for 180 days due to "elevated risk." No chargebacks, no disputes, customers are happy. I have suppliers to pay and this is going to wreck my business.

Is there ANY way to get this released early? I've called support 3 times and they just read from a script.

been there. same exact situation 2 years ago when my store popped off. they held $31K for the full 180 days despite my begging, documentation, everything

the scaling is what triggers it. their algorithm sees sudden volume increase = risk. doesn't matter if its legit sales

only thing that sometimes works is CFPB complaint. file one today. paypal HAS to respond and sometimes their executive team will negotiate a partial release or rolling reserve instead

Few things that helped me get a partial release:

1. Gather EVERYTHING - invoices from suppliers, tracking numbers for all shipments, screenshots of positive reviews, your business license, bank statements showing the business is real

2. File CFPB complaint with all that documentation attached

3. Also try emailing executive escalations directly (google for the email, I think its something like executiveoffice@paypal.com)

4. If you're in a state with strong consumer protection (CA, NY, etc) mention that you're considering small claims

Took me 6 weeks but they released 60% and put the rest on a 90-day rolling reserve. Still sucked but better than 180 days on everything

honestly just switch to Stripe going forward. I know I know, Stripe can do the same thing, but in my experience theyre way less trigger happy with holds

the irony of people fleeing PayPal for Stripe and then Stripe doing the same thing to them is not lost on me btw lol

The real lesson here is never rely on one processor. I run everything through Stripe AND have a backup merchant account through a traditional processor. PayPal is checkout option only for customers who insist

Also for future - if you know you're about to scale, call them FIRST and let them know. sometimes prevents the auto-flag

Update for anyone who finds this later - filed CFPB complaint like you all suggested. Got a call from PayPal's "Office of Executive Escalations" about 2 weeks later.

After sending them like 50 pages of documentation they agreed to release $15K immediately and put the remaining $8K on a 60-day hold instead of 180. Not ideal but I can at least pay my suppliers now.

Already set up Stripe as primary. lesson learned the hard way. thanks everyone