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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

#111
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> but I thought hopefully an article that gets a few thousand readers might do more financial damage

Once upon a time I shared this sentiment about PayPal, but history has shown me that people continue using them anyway. I mean, every person I talk to has personally experienced a PayPal horror story or knows someone who has experienced one first-hand, and they continue using PayPal anyway. Some feel they don't have a choice, others just don't care, but I no longer feel like making noise about the PayPal horror stories is going to have any impact on them, so I encourage you to contact the ombudsman/FCA regardless.

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

#112
It was long obvious to me that PayPal is one of those "good while it lasts" entrprises.

As in, you should factor in from the day one that they might stop working with you at any random moment. They never contributed towards any other image.

(I wonder if you can sue them in locales where they're legally a bank)

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

#114
post #18

Just close your account if you have a PayPal account at all. They limit and freeze funds at random and good luck resolving it. OP, You can refund the funds to the sender less Paypal's 30¢ cut, I believe. That might be the best way to get the money back to your friend, and then they can re-send it to you with something sane like Google Wallet.

Last time they froze my account (the only time actually), it was unfrozen the next day with a quick phone call and the lady was very comprehensive.

Apparently, that's the sort of thing that happens when you register your 10th credit card for the year. I guess I can understand the reason, even though it's annoying.

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

#115

> There are alternatives to PayPal, it’s just become so ingrained in to online life that it can be easy to forget that. This is very true, but I like to think of how predominant MySpace and Hotmail were at one time. Someone will come along and do it better. Stripe, PaymentSpring, heck even Bitcoin are all potential disruptors here. I think the days of PayPal's dominance are numbered.

I had more trouble with stripe, more fraud, less help than I had / have with Paypal

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

#116
post #7
post #3

The day Bitcoin will replace Paypal for online transactions can not come fast enough.

As much as I dislike PayPal, I would never want to trade it for Bitcoin. All it takes is one zero-day exploit for all of my funds to disappear at once without a trace. Any purchase I would make has zero protection and zero recourse for recovering funds if I'm ripped off. No, thanks. I just want something like PayPal, but that is run by people who have empathy and care about providing a good experience.

My Bitcoin funds are stored in cold storage (private key printed on paper and stored in wall safe; good luck in zero-daying _that_).

The only thing that can end Bitcoin is breaking sec256k1 elliptic curve, and this is unlikely to happen soon.

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

#117
post #18

Just close your account if you have a PayPal account at all. They limit and freeze funds at random and good luck resolving it. OP, You can refund the funds to the sender less Paypal's 30¢ cut, I believe. That might be the best way to get the money back to your friend, and then they can re-send it to you with something sane like Google Wallet.

> something sane like a bank transfer

FTFY. Zero fees, zero megacorps taking their cut, zero social graphs in the US growing a few extra tuples

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

#119

I've completely blocked PayPal out of my life. I've been screwed over by them so many ways over the past 15 years it's impossible to count. I refuse to do any business which requires their services.

Same here. Never. Again. It only took once, but that was enough.

I'm actually surprised that people are just discovering how much PayPal sucks as a service this late in the game. They have had verifiable horror stories of seizing people's money and property for well over a decade.

I've skipped purchasing things that I really wanted when the only option for payment was PayPal. I always send a nice message to the seller to let them know exactly why I decided not to purchase their product / service. Surprisingly few respond, so I guess they're doing great with their current setup.

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

#120
post #40

Had the same issue last month after reciving a $3000 bug bounty. PP limited my account I uploaded a copy of my id, bing -> banned. However: After calling them, they told me to create a new account and verify it with the CC and bankaccount (that were in old acc). And as soon everything was verified they trasfered the money to the new account. So apparently it seems not to be that difficult to get your money.

Which number did you call? I'm trying to get $1,500 out of PayPal and I haven't found a way to talk to somebody at PayPal who was able/willing to help me with that (account got blocked, I uploaded all the paperwork, got told that they will hold the money for 180 days but that was more than 1 year ago).

I'd have filed a police report for that much money. This is ridiculous.
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