Why Payment Processors Freeze Funds - And What Actually Stops It

Payment processors freeze funds because they hold your money before it reaches you. Artega never holds your money at any point, so there's nothing on our end to freeze.

Most processors sit between you and your client as custodians. Your client pays, the processor takes the money in, and it decides when, or whether, to release it to you. That gap is where freezes happen, and it's not a rare edge case.

PayPal held a 22-year customer's account for six months before seizing $26,984 without explanation. Square deactivated a merchant's account and left $1,500 unpaid for nearly a year. Stripe can apply a reserve of up to 15% of your transactions for 120 days, without asking your permission first. SumUp merchants report weeks-long holds with no clear reason given, a pattern documented across BBB complaints.

These aren't isolated stories. They're the ones that became public.

Why this can't happen on Artega

Artega is a SaaS tools provider, not a payment processor. When your client pays by card, our payment partner Wert converts that payment and sends it straight to your own wallet. Artega never holds the money, never sees a balance, and never sits between you and your funds. We can't freeze what we never hold, and we can't sell what we never see.

What about the stablecoin itself?

Not by Artega, and not by Wert. Neither ever holds your payment, it settles straight through to your own wallet, so there's no balance sitting in a system either of them controls.

Being straight about the full picture: Artega pays out in Tether (USDT), and Tether can and does freeze specific wallets, but only when acting on law enforcement or sanctions requests, not at Artega's, Wert's, or any practitioner's discretion, and not something that happens as a matter of routine business.

Sources: Terms.law: when Stripe holds your money · WATE News: the Square deactivation case · BBB: SumUp complaint pattern · Engadget: the PayPal seizure lawsuit · Tether Transparency