A reason, a person, and a date for the money

Letter from the table

To the Platform Council,

On 8 April, I opened my account and found that it had been suspended. The message did not say what I had done. It said that activity on the account required review. The balance shown as pending was MXN 14,800. I had expected that money to arrive in my bank account that week.

I read the message again because I thought I might have missed a second page. There was no second page. There was no transaction number, no date by which the review would finish, and no name or role for the person I could ask. The notice gave me a link to a general help form.

I submitted the form that morning. I asked which activity had triggered the review, what documents were needed, whether the balance would be paid, and when I could expect an answer. I received an automated confirmation. On 15 April, I sent another message through the same form. I attached the records I had available and kept copies of the confirmation emails. The amount still showed as pending.

On 22 April, I contacted my bank to check whether a transfer had been attempted or returned. No transfer had arrived. That distinction mattered: SPEI, Banco de México’s electronic interbank payment system, can carry a bank transfer, but it cannot make a platform send funds that it is still holding. I also checked my own tax and payment records, including the CFDI documents I keep for accounting. Those records helped me confirm the amounts and dates on my side; they did not explain the platform’s decision.

On 29 April, the account was still unavailable and the balance had not changed. I received no specific explanation and no date for a decision. I could not tell whether the issue concerned one transaction, the whole account, or a document I had failed to provide. That uncertainty was harder to plan around than a clear answer would have been. I did not know what to correct, what to challenge, or when I could count on the money.

I am not asking the Council to decide whether a platform may investigate suspicious activity. It may need to do so. I am asking that a business not be left trying to guess what is happening while its access and money are affected. A notice that says only “under review” does not give a person enough information to respond.

The draft Platform Fairness Standard is right to require written notice, a specific reason, review by a person, and a time limit for payout holds before an account suspension, listing removal, payout hold, or fee change. I support it. I also support applying the same basic protections in every country where a platform operates. A business in Puebla should not receive a thinner explanation simply because it is outside the platform’s home market.

I have one practical proposal for putting this into effect. Each notice should be built from a short, standard case record that the business can save or print. It should show:

• the action taken and its effective date;

• the specific policy or issue involved, explained in language the business can understand;

• the information or documents the business may provide, and how to submit them;

• whether the decision was automated, and how to request review by a person;

• the date by which the platform will give its next update or decision; and

• for a payout hold, the amount held, the reason, and the date by which the hold must end or be reviewed again.

A person reviewing the case should be able to see the account history and the documents already submitted. Otherwise, an appeal can become a loop in which the business repeats its explanation to a new form without knowing whether anyone has considered it. If the reviewer needs more information, the request should say exactly what is missing. If the platform cannot meet its stated deadline, it should send an update before that deadline passes, give a reason, and set a new date. An update is not a final answer, but silence is not one either.

This process need not require a long letter for every case. A clear notice with a case number, a reason, a response route, and a date would be a practical start. The platform could keep a record of notices and review outcomes to check whether deadlines are being met and whether people are receiving meaningful reasons. That would also help distinguish a short, necessary review from a hold that simply has no visible endpoint.

As of 16 June, the Platform Council’s internal tally records 1,314 reports for this agenda item.¹ A tally does not tell the whole story of any one account. But it is a reason to design a process that works for people who may not have specialist advisers, a local contact at the platform, or spare cash to wait without a date.

My account was not just a screen I could no longer open. It was also the place where I could see money I had earned but could not plan to use. I could keep my own records and ask careful questions, but I could not make the missing reason or deadline appear. A clear notice would not guarantee the outcome I wanted. It would let me understand the decision, respond to it, and know when the money question would be addressed.

Notes and sources

1. Platform Council internal data as of 16 June 2026. ↩