A decade ago I remember a friend who had a small business selling some niche collectors items. One day, he was scammed. The guy reported that the package was never delivered and, without even investigating, Paypal banned my friend's account and awarded the buyer their money back.
Paypal has always, and will always be a shit company. Charging people $2,500 for wrongthink is simply asinine. They must be betting BIG on either woke politics being mainstream for the long term, unbreakable bonds with their existing customers, or both. I can't even think of someone around me that uses paypal regularly.
I will be interested in reading the technical report on how they plan on implementing this because I'm sure it'll be silicon valley diarrhea. I am currently working out how to pay companies in a similar fashion to Paypal. I'm looking at Privacy.com but something is off about it to me for some reason. Once that is solved I'll get this ape off my back forever.
I wonder what happens if I just say "lol, not paying" to them. Would they put me in collections? It seems infeasible to even enforce this and it strikes me that clicking a button doesn't amount of a legal agreement.
I guess you're not in Europe. Paypal is huge here, especially in Germany. Has been useful for years here for free instant transactions without currency conversion fees (at least between some euro currencies)
That's not even a requirement here - they just have to continually adjust their principles to be whatever happens to be most fashionable at the moment, just like most everybody else does.
> I wonder what happens if I just say "lol, not paying" to them. Would they put me in collections?
You can revoke paypal's ACH authorization to your accounts [0]. I would not want to deal with the headache of them falsely telling creditors that I owe them money, though.
Good luck with that. I had some random bad actor somehow get ahold of my account numbers and debit ~$40 out of my account once via something called a "demand draft." My bank refunded me the money, but they told me they'd have to close my old account and open a whole new account in order to stop it from happening again in the future.
How exactly do conditions like this work in practice?
I can go ahead and write a ToS or even a contract that says "if you don't give me a blue M&M on Saturday 29 October 2022, you owe me $1M". I can get a client to sign it, perhaps it's part of my conditions as a freelancer.
I can't realistically see any court enforcing that.
As far as I can tell PayPal can only get away with this nonsense because they hold your money anyway. It's exactly the sort of reason people are fighting against cashless/custodial financial systems.
>How exactly do conditions like this work in practice?
They take the money and bet on not enough people trying to sue and the terms being ironclad enough if they do that they get away with it in general even if they have to pay out a few times.
I've wondered how far these TOS via clicks can go and what would actually stand up in court.
I'm also surprised an activist hasn't attached a TOS to sending payments such as "By accepting my money you agree to pay me $1 Million dollars for any time I spend more that 5 minutes with customer service without my dispute being settled."
I seem to remember a case where someone altered the fine print agreement on a credit card application and the credit card company lost the case with the consumer, but I forget the details.
Wow, great news! Now everyone who says anything racist will have to put $2500 into the swear jar. I expect racism will disappear overnight, and we will have a plushappy society with institutionalized love for all. Thanks PayPal!
PayPalBot recognizes your discourse as sarcastic and diminutive, both of which are specified offenses under the PayPal Terms of Service. Your account has been charged a one-time, irrecoverable fee of $2,500.
I am curious to understand the reasoning behind people saying it was a mistake, like how does something that big get past all the C-suites, F-suites and every other suite people of the company...
Like I mean seriously was everyone blind!?
Well, PayPal did say, several times, it was just an internal error and that they, absolutely, weren't going to implement that measure. [1]
Some people were also reporting, that when closing their account, a message stating the measure was not going to be implemented was shown up in the screen (but I didn't see any clear proof that was true).
It could conceivable just be something like a developer using the wrong draft version, the lawyer accidentally sending the wrong version after a few rounds of back-and-forths over potential drafts, or some other fairly silly mix-up like that.
Of course calling it a "mistake" is more likely to be corporate spin and back-pedalling, but you can never be quite sure because the explanation could be true, and that's kind of the point of the spin.
Same here. I had an account from 2002 and closed it without a second thought. On the plus side, they sent an individual email for each business or person that I had a payment set up with even if it was not recurring which made it very easy to figure out what vendors I needed to update.
The stuff that concerns me just as much as the policing of opinions is all the list of things requiring pre-approval. I have web applications that my customers pay for with cryptocurrency, sometimes use telemedicine or make an adult purchase. It seems like I am supposed to discuss all of my personal life and business ahead of time with PayPal and then I would still be just kind of hoping for good will.
The beauty of this (as far as US weaponization of law is concerned) is that yes, you are correct. But because there is functionally no customer service at Paypal, the Legal Department is customer service.
So to even talk to Paypal about these things you would have to spend thousands of dollars and several months.
And when you make a mistake in a way Paypal doesn't like, you'll be obliterated.
Those of us who grew or lived in the third world will recognize the current status of US law under Biden quite clearly: "For my friends, anything. For my enemies? The law!", it's just now extended down to the consumer ToS level.
I checked the internet archive (wayback machine) and don't see that the AUP has changed significantly in recent months. While I continue to disagree with PayPal's stance and ambiguous language, the article led me to believe that they'd snuck it back in. I don't see anything mentioning "mis-information" in the AUP, but there are still plenty of completely subjective language in the document.
It seems to be this garbage has been the same the whole time.
See https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/ua/useragreement-full and search for 2,500, which reveals: "You acknowledge and agree that $2,500.00 U.S. dollars per violation of the Acceptable Use Policy is presently a reasonable minimum estimate of PayPal’s actual damages".
So it depends on the interpretation of the Acceptable Use Policy and how that policy changes over time.
Admittedly I haven't done a close read, but on first skimming I didn't see anything that limits this to commercial transactions between arms-length buyers and sellers. Where are you getting that from?
To my view, there's a world of difference between "You can't use PayPal as a payment processor for gun sales" and "You can't use PayPal to pay pals back for covering your range fees last Saturday."
Yet the AUP seems broad enough to cover both: "You may not use the PayPal service for activities that... relate to transactions involving... ammunition, firearms, or certain firearm parts or accessories...." https://www.paypal.com/us/legalhub/acceptableuse-full
> To my view, there's a world of difference between "You can't use PayPal as a payment processor for gun sales" and "You can't use PayPal to pay pals back for covering your range fees last Saturday."
Firearms are for absolutely no reason what-so-ever taboo on most payment processors. The AUP is broad enough to cover both because the pearl clutchers don't see a difference. The best part of this is "certain firearm parts or accessories" as if they had a qualified expert anywhere in their company that could identify a bolt from a slide. It's deliberately written to trap you, and now, extort you for $2,500.
Readit News
A decade ago I remember a friend who had a small business selling some niche collectors items. One day, he was scammed. The guy reported that the package was never delivered and, without even investigating, Paypal banned my friend's account and awarded the buyer their money back.
Paypal has always, and will always be a shit company. Charging people $2,500 for wrongthink is simply asinine. They must be betting BIG on either woke politics being mainstream for the long term, unbreakable bonds with their existing customers, or both. I can't even think of someone around me that uses paypal regularly.
I will be interested in reading the technical report on how they plan on implementing this because I'm sure it'll be silicon valley diarrhea. I am currently working out how to pay companies in a similar fashion to Paypal. I'm looking at Privacy.com but something is off about it to me for some reason. Once that is solved I'll get this ape off my back forever.
I wonder what happens if I just say "lol, not paying" to them. Would they put me in collections? It seems infeasible to even enforce this and it strikes me that clicking a button doesn't amount of a legal agreement.
That's not even a requirement here - they just have to continually adjust their principles to be whatever happens to be most fashionable at the moment, just like most everybody else does.
You can revoke paypal's ACH authorization to your accounts [0]. I would not want to deal with the headache of them falsely telling creditors that I owe them money, though.
[0] https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ask-cfpb/how-can-i-stop-a-pa...
I can go ahead and write a ToS or even a contract that says "if you don't give me a blue M&M on Saturday 29 October 2022, you owe me $1M". I can get a client to sign it, perhaps it's part of my conditions as a freelancer.
I can't realistically see any court enforcing that.
As far as I can tell PayPal can only get away with this nonsense because they hold your money anyway. It's exactly the sort of reason people are fighting against cashless/custodial financial systems.
They take the money and bet on not enough people trying to sue and the terms being ironclad enough if they do that they get away with it in general even if they have to pay out a few times.
And they're not subject to banking regulations in the US. If they were a bank they wouldn't be able to pull this sort of BS.
I'm also surprised an activist hasn't attached a TOS to sending payments such as "By accepting my money you agree to pay me $1 Million dollars for any time I spend more that 5 minutes with customer service without my dispute being settled."
I seem to remember a case where someone altered the fine print agreement on a credit card application and the credit card company lost the case with the consumer, but I forget the details.
I may or may not let you have it back depending on my whims.
Since you “gave” me the money, then I can do whatever I want with it.
Oh and I can take whatever money out of your bank account it want. Because I want it
The San Francisco office was closed. https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/27/paypal-shuttering-its-san-...
Dead Comment
Some people were also reporting, that when closing their account, a message stating the measure was not going to be implemented was shown up in the screen (but I didn't see any clear proof that was true).
[1] https://news.yahoo.com/paypal-policy-permits-company-fine-14...
Of course calling it a "mistake" is more likely to be corporate spin and back-pedalling, but you can never be quite sure because the explanation could be true, and that's kind of the point of the spin.
So to even talk to Paypal about these things you would have to spend thousands of dollars and several months.
And when you make a mistake in a way Paypal doesn't like, you'll be obliterated.
Those of us who grew or lived in the third world will recognize the current status of US law under Biden quite clearly: "For my friends, anything. For my enemies? The law!", it's just now extended down to the consumer ToS level.
What does Biden have to do with it? Are you implying this wasn't also true under Trump? He pardoned a bunch of his friends on the way out.
It seems to be this garbage has been the same the whole time.
https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/ua/useragreement-full
https://www.paypal.com/us/legalhub/acceptableuse-full
So it depends on the interpretation of the Acceptable Use Policy and how that policy changes over time.
edit: As the person below me points out, the acceptable use policy is defined at https://www.paypal.com/us/legalhub/acceptableuse-full, which includes obscenity and intolerance.
> items that promote hate, violence, racial intolerance, or the financial exploitation of a crime
to
> the promotion of hate, violence, racial or other forms of intolerance that is discriminatory
And otherwise mostly the same as it was in 2011, including the $2,500
To my view, there's a world of difference between "You can't use PayPal as a payment processor for gun sales" and "You can't use PayPal to pay pals back for covering your range fees last Saturday."
Yet the AUP seems broad enough to cover both: "You may not use the PayPal service for activities that... relate to transactions involving... ammunition, firearms, or certain firearm parts or accessories...." https://www.paypal.com/us/legalhub/acceptableuse-full
Firearms are for absolutely no reason what-so-ever taboo on most payment processors. The AUP is broad enough to cover both because the pearl clutchers don't see a difference. The best part of this is "certain firearm parts or accessories" as if they had a qualified expert anywhere in their company that could identify a bolt from a slide. It's deliberately written to trap you, and now, extort you for $2,500.
> (f) the promotion of hate, violence, racial or other forms of intolerance that is discriminatory
Deleted Comment
Fuck Paypal hard.