If you use paypal as a seller, you've been being notified for over a year now that new government regulations require paypal to report to the IRS sales in excess of 20,000 dollars and 200 transactions per year. They need to have your SSN or tax number to report this to the IRS on form 1099-K. Since they don't know until after the fact whether you'll meet those thresholds, they require the SSN from anyone receiving money through paypal.
Here is the paypal information that explains it. This is not a hoax, this is the law. If you don't give them your SSN, they won't/can't allow you to use paypal to do business.
https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/ma...ng_us/IRS6050W
I've been using PayPal for years and have never received anything like this. This sounds like a scam to me, as well as the other post. Contact PayPal directly - not the number that might be provided in these emails.
I was a victim of a $2K scam years ago so I don't trust anything like these anymore. Scammers can create websites that look like valid sites, even include the BBB logo (which takes you to a bogus BBB site with positive feedback). Gee, how do I know this? I fell for the whole thing and signed up for an online course to learn web design. Over $2 million were scammed from many people and, yes, the crooks did end up in jail but we never saw a penny of our money.
Sorry for rattling on but please don't fall for these scams.