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We got banned from PayPal after 12 years of business

blog.niteo.co

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

#501

Post by Lowkeyloki »

beambot wrote: post #452
Lowkeyloki wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but as long as there are rules, somebody is going to find a loophole or a way to game the system. I'd personally be more concerned with Google improving their product or with society's increasing reliance on a single company's service and our unwillingness to consume information critically. PBNs are garbagey, but trying to put them all down is unrealistic. And even if they could be stopped, it would only be a b…

Seems like limiting their payment processing was a pretty effective step.

I disagree as the article clearly states they have other payment processors and were already moving away from PayPal.

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

#502

Post by Lowkeyloki »

dwaltrip wrote: post #457
Lowkeyloki wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but as long as there are rules, somebody is going to find a loophole or a way to game the system. I'd personally be more concerned with Google improving their product or with society's increasing reliance on a single company's service and our unwillingness to consume information critically. PBNs are garbagey, but trying to put them all down is unrealistic. And even if they could be stopped, it would only be a b…

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

I don't see how that's relevant to this particular problem.

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

#503

Post by commoner »

aerovistae wrote: post #203
HenryBemis wrote: post #117

Literally NO ONE wrote the below: Every Friday go online and withdraw all-but-the-necessary £€$$ to your bank account (transfer wire or via card number). I do get some revenue via PayPal, and the very same day (or the next) I 'download' comes it to my bank account (connected to PayPal via card) and IMMEDIATELY is shipped to another account that has all the controls to make money (relatively) unmovable. I perceive Pay…

I find this comment’s format profoundly confusing and have no idea what the intended meaning is. The first sentence is throwing me off so much.

The comment is in the format of the "Nobody:" meme, which can be unintuitive and isn't well-suited for a forum like HN:

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/nobody

The first line ("Literally NO ONE wrote the below:") introduces a hot take.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/origin-and-mea...

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

#504

Post by dwaltrip »

Lowkeyloki wrote: post #502
dwaltrip wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

I don't see how that's relevant to this particular problem.

I read your comment as suggesting that certain actions aren't a good use of time or that they shouldn't be done because they don't fully solve the problem.

I understand the dissatisfaction with half-measures. But I would argue as long as the actions have a meaningful impact and there isn't a promising alternative, it is still worthwhile.

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

#505

Post by TornTongues »

jake_morrison wrote: post #73

PayPal blocked us after 10 years due to a a Kafkaesque problem, where they decided that our Hong Kong company was both a Chinese company and not a Chinese company: https://www.cogini.com/blog/paypal-know-your-customer-failur...

Thank you for sharing this story, I have added it and Niteo to my growing list of PayPal (and other financial service) bans: https://gitgud.io/TornTongues/torntongues/#paypal (contributions welcome). Kafkaesque indeed...

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

#506

Post by CodeWriter23 »

HenryBemis wrote: post #500
Pyxl101 wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have someone's bank account number, you can pretty much take money out of it. By default there is no real authorization process by which the account holder is asked to allow the withdrawal. There is just the assumption that people aren't going to commit fraud, or people who commit fraud will be caught. I'm not an expert on this, but I believe there are ways to set up business accounts where money can't be take…

It is more difficult than you describe it. To set up a monthly payment the bank verifies the request (e.g. if you sign such direct debit for the gym or your electricity bill). Every ebamli I ever used has a page with all these direct debit setups and alerts you when a new one is made to bring your attention to it. These also have limits. And a decent bank would scrutinize the direct debit. A gym or Vodafone will fly…

You can just print a check with the account and routing number.

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

#507

Post by apostacy »

convolvatron wrote: post #392
astura wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What I want, is to give a merchant a credit card number, pre load that number with $30, have them charge it, and then be completely done with it. This especially makes sense for low stakes low cost recurring monthly payments. I should just be able to stop paying a $5/month fax service that I never use, and have them terminate my service. Banks would never let you do that. Services that used to let you do that have b…

what I* want is an exchange on the order of 'fooco is asking for $53.28, is that ok?' the minor annoyance for recurring payments is totally worth not having to actively be on guard for random people withdrawing from my account. why is this so hard? i suppose its because of some perverse incentives that I dont understand.

Me too, but I think that the big financial institutions are strongly against that.

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

#508

Post by codezero »

downandout wrote: post #498
codezero wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty easy to no longer support someone who is banned. The negative press is usually OK because like in this case, and in many others I've seen on HN, the one complaining is usually in clear violation of stated policy. It's completely reasonable to disagree with and complain about that policy, but they rarely do so explicitly, it drums up more support when the policy violation isn't made a highlight.

What specific violation of stated policy are you referring to?

I wasn’t being specific. When I said that policy, I mean the policy the company invoked to justify the ban, which the customer may not know.

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

#509

Post by drdeca »

downandout wrote: post #461
dwaltrip wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just googled PBN. It looks like it is a black-hat, completely inauthentic SEO tactic that has no legitimate value. Why on Earth or you defending them? Am I missing something?

You are indeed missing something. I am not defending them. But if they are doing something that PayPal hasn’t banned and obviously found acceptable for 12 previous years, it means that all businesses are in immediate danger of being instantly banned without explanation on the whim of any of thousands of PayPal employees. That is a huge problem, and should concern everyone that depends on them for payment processing.…

This seems a little bit like saying that companies should be held to similar standards as governments ought to be, with regards to “the rule of law”, and the whole “the law should be publicly stated, and laws shouldn’t apply retroactively” thing.

Which is, a claim worth considering? I am not convinced yet.

I suppose that the fact that PayPal is a money transfer service, which is necessary for many kinds of businesses, and maybe kind of a monopoly, that could be a reason to treat them as more like a government than some businesses should be treated?

Hm.

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

#510

Post by freddie_mercury »

chii wrote: post #291
freddie_mercury wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure they can. Accepting Bitcoin for payments is illegal where I live. It is enforced by fines and jail time, just like all other laws.

How do they actually enforce it? Presumably, displaying a bitcoin address isn't illegal, and you are not in control of who sends you coins.

> Presumably, displaying a bitcoin address isn't illegal, and you are not in control of who sends you coins.

Both parts of your statement are naive and wrong.

Soliciting payment in any currency other than the national currency is illegal. No one is going to be fooled by claims of "oh I just put our corporate bitcoin address up for...uh...personal aesthetics; we weren't actually suggesting customers can pay us that way".

In any case, where is the documentation for the annual audit? When the tax department looks at the corporate bank statements, what do you think they'll see?

I own a company here, we are required by law to hire an external auditing agency. Do you think the auditing agency is going to, what?, just lie to the government for me when it is obvious to them I'm accepting payments in bitcoin since there is no documentation for local currency payments?

The tax departments come to our office every year and goes over the books. They are looking for tax evasion, money laundering, and so on. But it would be pretty trivial to spot if someone is getting paid in Bitcoin.

I'm trying to imagine how you think the conversation would go when they audit the company Bitcoin account, "Oh, gee, some bitcoin got transferred to the company account. Dunno how THAT happened! Ha ha. Guess it was just a DONATION! We were definitely NOT breaking the law! Don't look at our invoicing system that shows we marked that as a payment received for order #81351."

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