It will be held in non-interest generating accounts until it can be released. Srsly, this is financial services and there's the odd regulation or two that everyone - including PayPal - have to follow.

They can't 'steal' the money - when accounts are locked they either hold onto it for six months or require you to keep a minimum balance. This is how they mitigate their massive risk profile.

Their customer services are entirely worthless, it's true, but I suspect that anyone coming to 'disrupt' PayPal will struggle with many of the same issues because they're caused by fundamental risk issues with online payments.