Your account got blocked or suspended on an app or platform: what the company can do and what you can do

Blocking you isn’t illegal — doing it however they please is

To you, a digital platform is a provider under the Consumer Protection Code, and as such it answers for the idoneidad (fitness for purpose) of the service it offers: the match between what it promised and what you actually get (art. 18). That includes continued access to the service you signed up for, not just on-time delivery of a product.

That doesn’t mean a company can never suspend you. It means the way it does it — with or without cause, with or without notice, with or without a chance to respond — is also part of the consumer relationship, and can also break the law.

The clause that says “we can suspend you whenever we want” can be void

Almost every app or marketplace’s terms and conditions include a clause along the lines of: “We reserve the right to suspend or cancel your account at any time, at our sole discretion.” Article 50 of the Code attacks it directly. It’s an absolutely void abusive clause — unenforceable even if you accepted it when you signed up — when it:

• lets the provider unilaterally suspend or terminate the contract (art. 50.b), or
• lets it end the contract without prior communication, or without a reasonable notice period if the contract has no fixed term (art. 50.c).

The key word is “unenforceable” (inexigible, art. 49.1): the clause can stay written in the contract, but Indecopi can rule that it doesn’t bind you. Clicking “I agree” doesn’t make it valid if it still leaves you at a disadvantage against the company.

There is a real exception here, not a loophole: the law itself carves out cases where “a different legal provision” or “duly-supported prudential rules issued by the relevant authority” allow the unilateral suspension. That’s the case, for example, for banks answering to the SBS (more below).

Changing the rules on you without notice is also prohibited

Beyond blocking accounts, some platforms change service terms (fees, requirements, usage policies) and treat your continued use of the app as acceptance. Article 56.1.c expressly bans this as a coercive commercial method: the provider cannot modify, without your express consent, the terms under which you signed up — “even if the provider believes the change could benefit the consumer” — and your silence cannot be read as acceptance unless you yourself authorized that in advance, expressly.

Does the physical-store “right of admission” apply here?

It’s tempting to invoke the “right of admission” rules (arts. 38–40) to argue that an app also can’t exclude you without an objective cause. The argument is reasonable, but it’s worth being honest about its limits: the text of those articles literally speaks of “establecimientos abiertos al público” (establishments open to the public) and requires restrictions to be posted “by placing signs or notices […] outside the establishment” — language written for physical premises, not digital platforms.

That doesn’t rule out the analogy — Indecopi has extended other consumer rules to the digital environment when the underlying consumer relationship is equivalent — but it isn’t confirmed that arts. 38–40 apply as written to an account block. If your case involves exclusion for a discriminatory reason (origin, race, sex, language, religion, opinion, economic status), you also have the dedicated route covered on the discrimination and right-of-admission page, and potentially the criminal route under article 323 of the Criminal Code.

The platform must give you a complaint channel — and respond within 15 business days

Since the 2026 e-commerce reform (Legislative Decree 1729), every platform, app or digital channel offering goods or services must have accessible, effective, always-operational mechanisms to receive and resolve complaints (art. 24.4). If the company isn’t domiciled in Peru but targets the Peruvian market, the law requires it to keep at least an email address open for complaints, suggestions, exchanges and refunds (art. 24.5).

Once you file your complaint, the general deadline for a response is fifteen (15) business days, non-extendable (art. 24.1). If they don’t respond, or the response doesn’t solve your problem, that’s when it’s time to escalate to Indecopi.

If you sell or deliver on the platform, the rules change

Everything above protects the end consumer: the person who uses the app to buy something, request a ride, book a stay, or similar, “for their own benefit or that of their family or social group.” Article IV, paragraph 1.1, is explicit in excluding from that definition anyone who uses the product or service “normally intended for the purposes of their own activity as a provider.”

That means a marketplace seller, a delivery driver, or a rideshare driver who loses access to the app they use as a work tool faces, in principle, weaker and different protection than a buyer does — because for them, the account isn’t an act of consumption but a tool of their own business. There’s a possible route as a protected “microempresario” when there’s an information asymmetry about something unrelated to their core business (art. IV.1.2), but it isn’t confirmed that this route specifically covers a work-account block. This remains, as of today, a real gap in the law that this page does not resolve.

Bank accounts and digital wallets: a separate set of rules

If what got blocked is a bank account, a card, or a regulated digital wallet, don’t apply the above directly: article 50 itself carves out suspensions based on “duly-supported prudential rules issued by the relevant authority” — and in the financial system, that authority is the SBS. Banks and financial institutions can block accounts for anti-money-laundering purposes or other prudential rules, under their own regime, distinct from a general consumer app.

What to do, step by step

Save evidence of the block, pin down the exact clause the company is relying on, file a complaint through the platform’s mandatory digital channel, and if you don’t get a response in 15 business days or the response doesn’t solve the problem, use the complaints book or file directly with Indecopi. If money was also left frozen in the account, ask for it back explicitly — don’t assume a complaint about the block automatically covers it.