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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

#191

Post by x1798DE »

joshuaheard wrote: post #145

I can't think of a legal reason for this policy. Normally, one must be 18 years old to enter into a contract, so the policy of preventing users under 18 from using the service is rational. However, if a user under 18 turns 18 years old during the contract, the contract is "ratified" and becomes valid and enforceable. It's as if they were 18 years old all along. So, there is no legal reason for Paypal to terminate acc…

> I can't think of a legal reason for this policy. Normally, one must be 18 years old to enter into a contract, so the policy of preventing users under 18 from using the service is rational.

Depending on where you are, I think this is not entirely true. IANAL, but I think that in many/most US states, contracts with minors are not presumptively void, they are voidable at the option of the minor (or their guardian, I imagine). Of course, this is a pretty big downside for their counterparties, so it makes contracts with minors pretty unappealing, obviously.

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

#192

Post by patio11 »

qb45 wrote: post #174
johncolanduoni wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are free in some European countries. I've had friends from elsewhere who were shocked that a wire transfer wasn't free and typical in the US.

Forget fees, I once tried to buy something in the US from some stranger and he refused to give me his account number and accept a wire even if I paid for everything (and the sum was big enough that PP wouldn't be cheaper). The guy literally thought I want his number for some scam. "Only PayPal, please, it's secure, blah blah blah". Talk about culture shock.

It is useful to know that, in the US, if you have sufficient information to send a payment into an account you also have sufficient information to debit it. Americans are, accordingly, leery about giving out account numbers.

Americans are not historically leery about giving out checks but, fun fact, we put all the information needed to empty an account on every check.

Why? Long story; legacy systems rule the world. The industry's main defense is a) surveillance of use of accounts, b) reversing transactions which appear fraudulent, and c) aggressively prosecuting fraudsters where their identity can be readily ascertained.

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

#193

Post by beojan »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #167
oliwarner wrote: post #99

You regularly transfer money with this guy but you're both happy eating transfer fees every time?! Seriously? Wtaf? BACS and Faster Payments (through your banks) are free. You're literally pelting the Devil with your money for getting in the way.

almost no American banks support either, there are extremely limited bank to bank transfer options in the USA. You can do a wire transfer but you are looking at $50+ in fees

The author is British, so I don't see how this is relevant.

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

#194

Post by loeg »

_wmd wrote: post #117
loeg wrote: 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

Not viable in the US, as others have pointed out.

What we've got are Google Wallet, checks, and a variety of smaller services (Venmo, etc).

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

#195

Post by loeg »

abeyer wrote: post #176
greyfox wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in the US wire transfers cost about $30 per transfer, international cost about $50. If you're transferring to another customer in the same bank then they're free but I've never had that luxury. Were you referring to bank transfers to same bank customers? Because I've never heard of zero fees for bank transfers

In the US, e-deposit of checks is a passable option to avoid fees. Many banks will take a check deposit by scan or phone camera now, so you can just have someone write a paper check and send the image immediately and deposit it that way. It's still pretty high-friction, not something you'd typically want to do with a customer, but a reasonable alternative to bank transfer if you don't want to pay the $50.

Google Wallet is significantly lower friction than writing out and mobile-depositing a check, at least in my experience.

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

#196

Post by loeg »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #148
greyfox wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in the US wire transfers cost about $30 per transfer, international cost about $50. If you're transferring to another customer in the same bank then they're free but I've never had that luxury. Were you referring to bank transfers to same bank customers? Because I've never heard of zero fees for bank transfers

I've transferred money between my Union Bank and USAA accounts multiple times for free. Wire transfers will get you, but if you do a regular transfer, it's usually free

Banks will often let you transfer between accounts you control for free. But it usually requires pre-validating control with some random-number-of-cent deposits (which take 3 business days, because ACH sucks).

Not something you can just use to pay a stranger.

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

#197

Post by Riseed »

abeyer wrote: post #176
greyfox wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in the US wire transfers cost about $30 per transfer, international cost about $50. If you're transferring to another customer in the same bank then they're free but I've never had that luxury. Were you referring to bank transfers to same bank customers? Because I've never heard of zero fees for bank transfers

In the US, e-deposit of checks is a passable option to avoid fees. Many banks will take a check deposit by scan or phone camera now, so you can just have someone write a paper check and send the image immediately and deposit it that way. It's still pretty high-friction, not something you'd typically want to do with a customer, but a reasonable alternative to bank transfer if you don't want to pay the $50.

> In the US, e-deposit of checks is a passable option to avoid fees.

My bank (credit union) charges a $2 fee for each check I write, regardless of how or where it's deposited. Yes, it's cheaper than a bank transfer, but checks still aren't fee-free for everyone.

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

#198

Post by sp0rk »

C4K3 wrote: post #169
loeg wrote: 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.

So I've kept off with getting a paypal account, but for many years I've paid for things through paypal, i.e. some webstore that uses paypal as their payment processer. I used to be able to do this without an account, but just a few weeks ago I tried buying something from a store, and the paypal page would simply not let me just enter my credit card information. It required me to either log in or create a new account.…

They have a limit on the amount you can spend overall with any particular credit card without a PayPal account. I want to say it's $2500 or somewhere around there. I ran into this problem a while back and it took some research to figure out why my card with funds was being declined.

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

#199

Post by tamcap »

VotreReb wrote: post #177
ben0x539 wrote: post #31

Also this is a great example of having rules that are bullshit enough that you can basically do anything to anyone and technically be perfectly justified according to some agreement, but also enforcing them arbitrarily enough that anyone who complains about the terms of the agreement will be brushed off as paranoid.

There is nothing 'arbitrary' about this. He committed financial fraud and got caught out when sending in documents.

He did not commit financial fraud. He might have broken a TOS, but bringing up financial fraud is just silly.

Honestly, in many jurisdictions (except for the punishment happy ones) being under certain age, ie. 18 or 17 automatically makes you non-persecutable for a lot of the "soft" offenses. So even if you tried to claim opening a PayPal account is a financial fraud, it would likely never stand up in court.

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

#200

Post by chx »

_wmd wrote: post #117
loeg wrote: 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

transferwise is a pretty cheap option for sending money between different countries.
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