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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

#211

Post by awinter-py »

tamcap wrote: post #199
VotreReb wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Actually an interesting question.

If the TOS includes the terms (1) you certify that all information provided to us is accurate (2) if you breach the TOS you must stop using the product and (3) you certify that you are over 18.

Then your continued use after age 18 may in fact signify entering a contract, even though you were under 18 when you signed. It also may not. Capacity/consideration/intent to be bound are really tricky in this case.

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

#212

Post by awinter-py »

regularfry wrote: post #210
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…

This isn't true in the UK. Contracts with children are valid (although there are gotchas). Besides which, is signing up for PayPal a contract in the first place?

yes -- I'm not a lawyer but in the united states there's case law ruling that clickwrap / TOS are enforceable contracts in some cases. (subject to standard limitations from UCC, contracts of adhesion, and rules of forming a contract).

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

#213

Post by DanBC »

regularfry wrote: post #210
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…

This isn't true in the UK. Contracts with children are valid (although there are gotchas). Besides which, is signing up for PayPal a contract in the first place?

> Contracts with children are valid (although there are gotchas).

Contracts can't be enforced against children in England. A child is someone under the age of 18.

> Besides which, is signing up for PayPal a contract in the first place?

Yes. Paypal make an offer, the customer accepts that offer. There's mutual obligation: paypal provides a service and the customer pays fees.

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

#214

Post by throwaway91111 »

user5994461 wrote: post #108
iDemonix wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, in my initial outburst of rage to my other half about the situation I just described it as it's like a company turning around and sacking you because you took home an expensive stapler several years ago, it's just a random get out of free card they have stored thanks to their ToS.

Abusive ToS won't stand up in court.

Unless you have $10MM, I doubt you can afford to fight that without settling.

Without judgements, this bullshit will continue.

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

#215

Post by phkahler »

I bet his practice of "share money with friends and family" looks shady. I mean who sends a friend 300 bucks with a 19 dollar fee. If you do a lot of that it probably looks like drug dealing or something. Last time I bummed a few hundred from family or friends: never.

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

#216

Post by CosmicShadow »

kennywinker wrote: post #109
JBReefer wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Venmo ... Oh that's PayPal too. I'm not a fan, but maybe Bitcoin? What about mailed checks, as a backup?

In Canada we have Interact e-transfers. For about $1 you can send money between any two banks via email or sms. The fee is frustrating, especially when you want to pay someone back for lunch or something small, but it is very convenient and basically everybody knows how to use it at this point.

Yeah these are great, they've pretty much made cheques obsolete. Need to pay the cleaning lady or lawn guy? Just email money transfer, no one wants to go to the bank or take a photo of a cheque.

I even get paid for many contracts via this method, but it can be annoying that some banks have lower daily limit, and even more surprisingly my personal daily limit is like twice as high as a business bank account's limit (for certain banks), but it's like $1.50 to send the money and people just do it over the course of 2 days if it's over the limit. Wire transfers are too crazy expensive in Canada as well.

Also easiest way to send money to yourself if your business account is at a different bank and you don't have cheques or want to get robbed carrying cash!

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

#217

Post by welly »

iDemonix wrote: post #179
phr4ts wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except your money. You could probably get it now instead of 6 months time.

Apologies, I've commented a few times on this thread, I've managed to get most of the money, minus fees, back. Whilst there's no option in the modern UI, if you set your account back to use the classic UI, the refund button appears in the transaction details page, I refunded my friend and we're moving away from PP.

Why did you use Paypal rather than a bank transfer in the first place? Is your friend Mat from overseas? If so, can I recommend Transferwise for overseas payments.

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

#218

Post by stan_rogers »

tamcap wrote: post #199
VotreReb wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It also makes you an infant and unable to contract for anything other than legal employment and "necessaries" (except with a next friend). Language may change from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but the upshot is that an account created while underage would not be legally valid, and transactions for anything other than necessaries become revocable pretty much at will.

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

#220

Post by tjalfi »

Zpalmtree wrote: post #153
user5994461 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Abusive ToS won't stand up in court.

Not many people are big enough to sue PayPal, and if they are, they probably aren't using it.

PayPal added a forced arbitration clause in 2012[0]. It seems likely that most PayPal users did not opt out and are now unable to sue PayPal.

[0] http://www.citizenvox.org/2012/10/15/opt-out-of-paypal%E2%80...

Edited for minor formatting.

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