HeldFundsPayment holds by the numbers
As of 20 October 2026, the incident record holds 1754 cases of a payment company keeping a merchant’s money after closing or restricting the account. In 1583 of them (90%) the person says the money is still held. 74 (4%) were reported released. Every number on this page is counted from that record when the site is built, and every case links to its public source.
This is a count of what we found and could verify, not a survey. The record opened on 7 September 2026. Cases come from public places where merchants describe their own holds: the companies’ own help forums, the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s complaint database, complaint sites and developer forums. A company with a busy public forum will show more cases than one without. So the counts compare what is on the public record, not how often each company holds money. Every figure is the merchant’s own statement, not our finding.
| Company | Cases | Still held | Released | Part released | Not known |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stripe | 520 | 458 | 16 | 4 | 42 |
| PayPal | 412 | 389 | 10 | 3 | 10 |
| Venmo | 180 | 174 | 2 | 0 | 4 |
| Shopify Payments | 140 | 105 | 23 | 3 | 9 |
| Wise | 104 | 97 | 7 | 0 | 0 |
| Square | 91 | 85 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| Payoneer | 73 | 67 | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| Skrill | 53 | 49 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Cash App | 43 | 42 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Paddle | 26 | 25 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Eventbrite | 22 | 18 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 2Checkout | 21 | 16 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| WePay | 18 | 17 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Etsy Payments | 10 | 9 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Gumroad | 8 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Lemon Squeezy | 7 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| WooPayments | 6 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Fiserv | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Relay | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Nayax | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Fourthwall | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Elavon | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Worldpay | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| FastSpring | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| QuickBooks Checking | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Mercury | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| American Express | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Chase QuickAccept | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| CardConnect | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Global Payments (Cayan) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| KurvPay | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| All | 1754 | 1583 | 74 | 16 | 81 |
“Still held” means the money had not come back by the person’s latest post that we could read. When a person later reports the money released, the case is changed to released. A case stays “still held” when nobody posted again, so this column counts silence as well as money that never came back.
How much was held
1425 of the 1754 cases give an amount. Amounts are in U.S. dollars as the person stated them; the median is the middle case, so one very large case does not move it.
| Company | Cases with an amount | Total reported | Median case |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stripe | 475 of 520 | $7,571,041 | $4,909 |
| PayPal | 330 of 412 | $1,311,992 | $704 |
| Venmo | 171 of 180 | $188,959 | $200 |
| Shopify Payments | 69 of 140 | $1,928,086 | $7,000 |
| Wise | 65 of 104 | $864,963 | $1,900 |
| Square | 79 of 91 | $432,412 | $2,500 |
| Payoneer | 63 of 73 | $253,269 | $1,000 |
| Skrill | 43 of 53 | $18,042 | $129 |
| Cash App | 43 of 43 | $30,615 | $256 |
| Paddle | 11 of 26 | $152,916 | $2,200 |
| Eventbrite | 19 of 22 | $35,122 | $1,100 |
| 2Checkout | 13 of 21 | $26,894 | $750 |
| WePay | 17 of 18 | $132,625 | $2,900 |
| Etsy Payments | 0 of 10 | $0 | None given |
| Gumroad | 8 of 8 | $9,060 | $238 |
| Lemon Squeezy | 3 of 7 | $8,422 | $2,000 |
| WooPayments | 3 of 6 | $11,240 | $2,600 |
| Fiserv | 3 of 3 | $19,077 | $2,077 |
| Relay | 3 of 3 | $74,200 | $20,000 |
| Nayax | 2 of 2 | $361 | $181 |
| Fourthwall | 1 of 2 | $365 | $365 |
| Elavon | 1 of 1 | $70,000 | $70,000 |
| Worldpay | 0 of 1 | $0 | None given |
| FastSpring | 0 of 1 | $0 | None given |
| QuickBooks Checking | 0 of 1 | $0 | None given |
| Mercury | 1 of 1 | $200,000 | $200,000 |
| American Express | 1 of 1 | $24,000 | $24,000 |
| Chase QuickAccept | 0 of 1 | $0 | None given |
| CardConnect | 0 of 1 | $0 | None given |
| Global Payments (Cayan) | 0 of 1 | $0 | None given |
| KurvPay | 1 of 1 | $181,000 | $181,000 |
How long they were told it would be held
Each case records what the company told the merchant about the length of the hold, in the merchant’s words. Those words are not uniform, so this table only counts what the field says on its face. A case that was told “120 days, then 180 days” counts in both rows.
| Stated hold | Cases | Counting rule |
|---|---|---|
| Mentions 120 days | 123 of 1754 | the field contains the number 120 |
| Mentions 180 days | 200 of 1754 | the field contains the number 180 |
| No period given to them | 1014 of 1754 | the field begins “None” or “No ” |
Where the cases come from
Every case links to the page where the merchant told it. This is where those pages are.
| Source | Cases |
|---|---|
| pissedconsumer.com | 897 |
| bbb.org | 448 |
| reddit.com | 138 |
| shopify.com | 121 |
| trustpilot.com | 58 |
| consumerfinance.gov | 44 |
| squareup.com | 24 |
| ycombinator.com | 15 |
| wordpress.org | 6 |
| Filed directly with this site | 1 |
| indiehackers.com | 1 |
| dediroom.com | 1 |
Using these numbers
You can quote and reuse them. Please name the source and the date, for example: “HeldFunds incident record, snapshot of 20 October 2026, heldfunds.com/data/”. The counts change as cases are added or updated, so the date matters.
The structured fields of every case, one row each, are at heldfunds.com/data/incidents.json: case number, company, country, kind of business, amount, when it started, stated hold, status, and the source and archive links. The merchants’ own words are on the record page, next to each case.
If you are a merchant whose money is held, the company files put these cases in context: Shopify Payments, PayPal, Square, Stripe and Paddle. To add your own case, file it here.
Sources
- HeldFunds, the incident record. Each entry links to the public post, complaint or thread it was taken from, and to an archived copy where one was saved. Every count on this page is taken from that record as it stood on 20 October 2026.
Every factual claim on this page is sourced below. Last verified against primary sources on 20 October 2026.