A public record of withheld funds.

What this record does and does not claim

This site collects primary documents — regulatory filings, court orders, published complaint data — and first-hand accounts from merchants and consumers whose funds a payment company withheld beyond the stated release date.

Every number above comes from a document published by the body that issued it. Where this site publishes a person's account of what happened to them, it is labelled as their report, it names the source it was taken from, and it links to that source so the account can be read in full and assessed independently.

No entry is invented, and none is unattributed editorial presented as a finding. If a company disputes an entry, the dispute is published alongside it.

The incident record

1998 cases are currently documented to the standard below. The record is at its beginning; it does not measure the size of the problem. It reflects how many accounts have been verified to date, and it will grow as reports arrive.

The same entries are collected by company in the Stripe file, the PayPal file, the Shopify Payments file, the Square file and the Paddle file. Where Square is holding payouts, its file sets what its own staff say a review takes against what sellers report. The Shopify Payments file covers the 120-day hold applied to store payouts: that period is quoted to almost every seller and appears nowhere in the contract. Where a Venmo balance was declared available and then frozen, a federal order addresses that practice, in force until 2038.

Where the company holding the funds is regulated in the United States, the complaint can be filed with a federal agency that can require the company to answer on the record: which regulator to contact, and what the complaint should contain. Where it is regulated in the United Kingdom, the deadlines and the ombudsman route are set out here.

If a payment company is holding your funds, submit the case here. Publication of your name is optional.