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If you opened your PayPal account before you were 18, close it

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Re: If you opened your PayPal account before you were 18, close it

#51

Post by a3n »

> I’m not really sure what half a year of holding on to my money will help PayPal achieve?

If they have a pile of similar money (likely, by the stories we hear), then they earn interest, and may (IANAA) be able to point to that cash as an "asset" in situations where they need to show assets.

Re: If you opened your PayPal account before you were 18, close it

#52

Post by Hydraulix989 »

omfg wrote: post #25

Do people not realize PayPal has phone support? It's not some black hole of support. Just call them up like a normal company... they've been helpful for any odd issues we've had in the past.

The phone support is absolutely terrible. After spending 15 minutes on hold, you get connected with script readers with indecipherable foreign accents, and if they can't help you because it's not on their script (yes, I know how to use a web site, here's why the steps you gave me won't work), they advise you to open a case in the Resolution Center just to get you off the phone -- where I have one pending now for over six months (I paid an eBay seller who didn't ship me my item and whose account got banned by eBay shortly after I purchased it, so I can't open a claim on eBay to get a refund -- as a buyer, the UI for opening an eBay claim is completely inaccessible if a seller's account is banned. PayPal insists it's an eBay problem and I should talk to eBay, eBay insists it is a PayPal problem and that I should talk to PayPal; it's deadlocked). If you mention the word "eBay" at all to PayPal on the phone, they immediately transfer you to eBay (and vice versa). Classic game of "pass the buck." At one point, I managed to stump the PayPal script reader (my unique situation wasn't on the script), so they just transferred me to another T1 agent. There's zero recordkeeping at all (likely no ticketing system), so nobody knows anything at all about my case so it's like I'm talking to them for the first time any time I'm talking to a new person.

So yes, it is some black hole of support.

Re: If you opened your PayPal account before you were 18, close it

#54

Post by ben0x539 »

aselzer wrote: post #47
ben0x539 wrote: post #29

Is there a way to find the precise age of your paypal account retroactively? It says mine was created the year of my 18th birthday, and I'm sure I did it all above-board, but it'd be nice to have it confirmed. Update: It looks like you can get some day/month number if you check your account limits at https://www.paypal.com/de/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_lift-limits if you still have any, and combine them with the year it act…

Or search for the "Welcome to Paypal" email if you haven't deleted it. Turns out my account was created when I was 14.

Yeah, looks like my mail backlog for that account falls a few years short. I guess I didn't know about IMAP back then, or had weird ideas about data retention. :/

Re: If you opened your PayPal account before you were 18, close it

#55

Post by unstatusthequo »

lj3 wrote: post #48
jliptzin wrote: post #27

Here's three rules someone once gave me which I can't emphasize strongly enough. 1. Never use Paypal. For ANY reason. 2. Never. Use. Paypal. For. Any. Reason. 3. See rule #1.

What's the alternative?

Venmo, Square Cash, etc.

Xoom is PayPal now.

Re: If you opened your PayPal account before you were 18, close it

#56

Post by iDemonix »

tyingq wrote: post #44
iDemonix wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, I managed to do this an hour ago. It's actually hidden in the new UI, there was no button that would let me do it, I managed to go back to settings and re-enable the classic UI, then in the view transaction details page I found the missing refund button.

I would be tempted to have my friend now send some small amount and then take PayPal to whatever the UK equivalent of small claims court is. PayPal would then have to spend money and time to deal with you. The beauty there is you don't have to win, to win. A £5 dispute costs them more than you, when you get to control the venue.

I did think about contacting the financial ombudsman or similar to recoup the fees or something, but I thought hopefully an article that gets a few thousand readers might do more financial damage than a hushed away small claims court ruling.

Re: If you opened your PayPal account before you were 18, close it

#57

Post by iDemonix »

nikon wrote: post #53

Just closed my account. Have you tried Transferwise instead? You'd save a fortune on fees.

Good! I haven't heard of it but I'll take a look, I think we're likely to use Western Union for our global transfers now, but will shop around first.

Re: If you opened your PayPal account before you were 18, close it

#59

Post by iDemonix »

omfg wrote: post #25

Do people not realize PayPal has phone support? It's not some black hole of support. Just call them up like a normal company... they've been helpful for any odd issues we've had in the past.

I'll completely admit, I didn't use the phone service this time, purely because I've called it before. After a ton of verification, they just want you to use the resolution center. You can arrange for someone senior to call you back, but as they think 180 days for access to your money is acceptable, I'm not sure how long I'd be waiting for a call from someone who likely couldn't help me anyway.

Re: If you opened your PayPal account before you were 18, close it

#60

Post by iDemonix »

jcwayne wrote: post #42
jrnichols wrote: post #4

What an epic failure on PayPal's part. Is there some banking law that I'm unaware of that would cause them to take such drastic actions? It sounds like the OP is definitely above the age of 18 now too, so why would PayPal suddenly decide to yank the rug out from under him? It'll be interesting to see if there's a follow up.

Not sure about UK laws, but my (limited) understanding of US law is that a minor lacks the legal capacity to sign a contract (i.e. agree to TOS). I suspect that's the legal reasoning that's caused PayPal to adopt this policy. PayPal could and should find a better way to handle transitioning people who, out of necessity, lied about their age when they first signed up. Was signing up under false pretenses a form of fra…

I'm pretty sure PayPal have updated their ToS since and I've had to re-agree upon login? Would that not cover me?
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