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We got banned from PayPal after 12 years of business

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Re: We got banned from PayPal after 12 years of business

#31

Post by dsauss »

Only after having a law firm, who we knew through an advisor contact, send PayPal’s legal department a letter did they release our PayPal balance funds back to us.

We were banned without explanation after being a customer for 8+ years and had our PayPal balance (not yet transferred to a bank) frozen.

We left a high balance with PayPal because at the time the interest rate they provided was high.

No explanation was given at any point and the whole process took about 3 months to get our own funds back that we needed to operate the business.

Re: We got banned from PayPal after 12 years of business

#32

Post by exabrial »

The lack of customer service in the Silicon Valley is a pervasive problem.

* Cody Don on YouTube teaches the masses about science and regularly gets banned. His videos are rated G to PG. Despite millions of viewers and dollars of Revenue, there is nobody he can call.

* Uber charged $1500 to my debut card a few months ago. There's literally nobody you can call about it.

* Lose your Instagram/Twitter/Gmail? Too bad, because it's free, you're treated as cattle.

* Oh then there's the paying customers too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17431609

Re: We got banned from PayPal after 12 years of business

#33

Post by nakodari »

Not surprised at all. We got banned too without any warning a few years ago. I wrote about my story here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11944701

Lots of people would simply think "It won't happen to me" and move on. But this is just another example that if it can happen to people using Paypal for years, it can happen to you too. It's better to offer other payment channels to customers so you can diversify. And if possible, move away from Paypal entirely.

Re: We got banned from PayPal after 12 years of business

#34

Post by hyperknot »

oftenwrong wrote: post #15
chmod775 wrote: post #4

I've been preaching this since forever. Don't rely on PayPal. They're less professional than a kid selling juice next to the road. There are no grace periods with PayPal to give you time to move to another service. There is never more than a generic reason and stonewalling when they terminate you. And yes, their decision is always final. They'll happily terminate your only source of income on a friday afternoon, free…

What alternative would you recommend? Specifically, I am interested in a method of paying independent contractors.

Local bank transfer to Transferwise Borderless Accounts.

Re: We got banned from PayPal after 12 years of business

#35

Post by 55555 »

chmod775 wrote: post #4

I've been preaching this since forever. Don't rely on PayPal. They're less professional than a kid selling juice next to the road. There are no grace periods with PayPal to give you time to move to another service. There is never more than a generic reason and stonewalling when they terminate you. And yes, their decision is always final. They'll happily terminate your only source of income on a friday afternoon, free…

> And yes, their decision is always final.

Perhaps their decision to close your account is always final, but don't lose all hope after having your funds frozen. I had 25-100k frozen (can't remember how much), and picked up the phone and called them and it was unfrozen within 48 hours.

Paypal is god-awful though and should be used as little as possible.

Re: We got banned from PayPal after 12 years of business

#36

Post by Fnoord »

mavdi wrote: post #20
brakmic wrote: post #10

This and similar behavior is what ultimately drives people toward decentralized solutions, like Bitcoin for example.

HN is traditionally anti crypto, but just want to point out that literally no one in this world can stop you accepting Bitcoin payments. That's the true power of decentralization.

> anti crypto

That word, "crypto" alone is cringeworthy. HN is very much pro cryptography...

Re: We got banned from PayPal after 12 years of business

#37

Post by Fnoord »

I knew someone who worked as CS rep in 2014 at PayPal, in Ireland. He told me that if people make too many claims, they'd just close the account.

In my nearly 20 years of usage of PayPal, I've a 100% success rate on all of my claims (a few, I suppose about 4 or so). I guess my buy:claim ratio is in good standing.

Re: We got banned from PayPal after 12 years of business

#38

Post by isostatic »

dsauss wrote: post #31

Only after having a law firm, who we knew through an advisor contact, send PayPal’s legal department a letter did they release our PayPal balance funds back to us. We were banned without explanation after being a customer for 8+ years and had our PayPal balance (not yet transferred to a bank) frozen. We left a high balance with PayPal because at the time the interest rate they provided was high. No explanation was gi…

> We left a high balance with PayPal because at the time the interest rate they provided was high.

Why can they afford to pay such a high interest? Because they can ban you whenever they feel like it.

If an offer's too good to be true etc.

Re: We got banned from PayPal after 12 years of business

#39

Post by adwww »

merb wrote: post #21
muttech wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did we read the same article? "After calling their support twice, explaining the situation and asking for a reason, we have received nothing but “the decision is final, and we will not provide more information”."

in european you can report them if they won't give a good reason, for canceling your contract. You can even complain at your national bank authority. https://eba.europa.eu/consumer-corner/how-to-complain since they are a official bank in europe they would need to give correct info.

You could also make a subject access request under GDPR to see what data they have on you.

Re: We got banned from PayPal after 12 years of business

#40

Post by viraptor »

LeonM wrote: post #22

Even though I absolutely agree that you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket, it is ultimately the market that could drive you towards a dependency situation. I have had a couple of customers for which I set up both PP and another PSP (such as stripe). Then it turned out that about 90% of their transactions came from PP. So even if I set up 10 different PSPs for them, if PP bans them, they will still be out of b…

That doesn't necessarily follow. It shows that users prefer PayPal, but not that they wouldn't use alternatives if PayPal's not available. If they really want to know the answer, they could do an A/B test with missing PayPal and see how many people drop out without it.

Also, was PP the default/first payment option by any chance?

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