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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

#301
post #298
post #241

If ever there was a single shining example of how not to treat your customers, PayPal is it. Every year or two there is another story of a different arcane rule they have in place that is enforced with zero human consideration, oftentimes to deprive people access to their funds. They don't learn from their mistakes, nor acknowledge them in the first place. I can't think of another company that has drummed up such bad…

Curious how detractors would explain PayPal's beyond outrageous success?

Integration with a large number of popular websites?

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

#302
post #298
post #241

If ever there was a single shining example of how not to treat your customers, PayPal is it. Every year or two there is another story of a different arcane rule they have in place that is enforced with zero human consideration, oftentimes to deprive people access to their funds. They don't learn from their mistakes, nor acknowledge them in the first place. I can't think of another company that has drummed up such bad…

Curious how detractors would explain PayPal's beyond outrageous success?

PayPal is the poster child for startups with tons of funding which only way to make money is to take a regulated market and abuse it against said regulations. see: theranos, uber, airbnb, etc

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

#303
post #241

If ever there was a single shining example of how not to treat your customers, PayPal is it. Every year or two there is another story of a different arcane rule they have in place that is enforced with zero human consideration, oftentimes to deprive people access to their funds. They don't learn from their mistakes, nor acknowledge them in the first place. I can't think of another company that has drummed up such bad…

This. It's exactly why, despite handling tons of payments online, I've never even considered using PayPal.

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

#304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used Simple until someone cloned my debit card the day before I moved to California. Getting Simple to send a replacement card to my temporary address was virtually impossible. They make you submit two forms of proof you have a new address, there were like 7 options, and I couldn't provide any of them (bank statement, driver's license, utility bill, voter registration, etc.) I opened a new account at a bank with a…

You should have set up post office address forwarding and had your replacement card sent to your original address so it could have been forwarded.

You know what you need to set up address forwarding? A charge to a debit card with the same billing address. Catch 22.

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

#305
I've had similar bad experiences with venmo. Apparently I had created an account a couple years ago that I forgot about so I created a new one to receive a payment from a friend. A day after I received the money and had it set to transfer to my bank account they closed both of my accounts citing some rule in their terms of service saying one account per lifetime. And now I can't ever have another venmo account. That $500 also never got to me and never got returned to the sender. Just overall a scam of a company.

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

#306

I've had similar bad experiences with venmo. Apparently I had created an account a couple years ago that I forgot about so I created a new one to receive a payment from a friend. A day after I received the money and had it set to transfer to my bank account they closed both of my accounts citing some rule in their terms of service saying one account per lifetime. And now I can't ever have another venmo account. That…

Since Venmo is a subsidiary of PayPal, it's not surprising that the two have similarly anti-consumer policies.

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

#307
post #258
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.

What are some viable alternatives?

I've heard OFX is pretty good for personal transfers between parties of different currencies. Not sure whether you can use it for sending money with the same currency though - I'm just looking at signing up now.

Definitely for accepting credit card payments for merchants, Stripe is a great way to go.

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

#308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? 10% of my clientele pay in bitcoin. Source: independent sysadmin/automation/'devops' consultant.

What kind of clients are those? Just curious as I cannot see fortune 1000 generally even considering such a thing.

Overstock.com accepts bitcoin, are they fortune 1000?

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

#309
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the alternative?

If it helps, Circle is now usable for UK people. I think it's one of the few that makes UK US payments easy. Square Cash is not available in the UK for example. The US has a much larger choice. Unsure about other countries, sorry.

Another vote for circle, too bad they stopped taking bitcoin

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

#310
post #34

If you are in Australia and PayPal every pull anything remotely similar, contact the financial ombudsman. They are extremely good at putting Paypal back in line. In some cases they fine financial institutions who don't resolve quickly enough.

ombudsmans are the best invention, I'm surprised they haven't caught on elsewhere.

They don't even cost money - the charges levied cover the costs I believe.

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