The story isn't really about them freezing the account. I think everyone accepts that PayPal needs to be vigilant against fraud, given the amount they deal with. The story is that that legitimate customers are pretty much powerless to unfreeze their accounts; there's no due process, no oversight, and no accountability. If PayPal decides to screw you, that's it. Game over. Thanks for the free money.

No, they freeze accounts when their automated system flags them. Things like you had more sales this week than normal. Then they won't talk to you or the people who will talk to you are so brain dead that they actually don't seem to understand what Paypal has already done or don't realise when they're asking you to do impossible things.

That's my experience with them anyway. Eventually got it all sorted out but at the cost of not being able to get at my money for about a month.

Just having friendly helpful customer support who can explain what's going on would make a huge difference.

This kind of story about PayPal is extremely common.