You know what? I should have known better. We had $50K frozen for 6 months about 10 years ago when paypal suddenly decided they liked our money more than we did.

Eventually they paid it back but not after all the symptoms that you just described.

Then, about a year ago I did a project with a freelancer in the US (another HN'er) and I ended up having to pay him using paypal because we had no other viable option.

So, I thought maybe they'd cleaned up their act in the meantime.

Now I kick myself for being so stupid.