Is it legal to sign up for a PayPal/EBay account under a random, fictitious name? I'm not talking about stealing someone's identity or attempting to circumvent paying taxes.
I just want to create multiple accounts to increase my reach.
1 Answer
It would appear not legal to sign up for a PayPal account while not using your real name, reading the TOS at PayPal:
Prohibited Activities
You may not use the PayPal service for activities that:
1. violate any law, statute, ordinance or regulation.
Signing up for a banking service using a fake name is fraud just about anywhere.
If you did sign up under a fake name, how will you verify banking information with PayPal to be able to transfer funds? Verification requires a bank account in that fake name, and/or documents with that fake name. Forging documents is not legal.
Google will show you forum threads where people give advice and step-by-step instructions to sign up for PayPal accounts with fake names and to verify bank accounts, but that doesn't make them legal.
You can sign up for PayPal using the name of an LLC or a DBA (doing business as), but those are not fake names; they are legal entities. This may be a solution to using multiple accounts in a business and marketing sense.
answered Sep 11, 2017 at 20:07
