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PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade”

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Re: PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade”

#181

Post by Silhouette »

scarface74 wrote: post #154
Silhouette wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I agree with them. Tech is far too unregulated today, and this causes massive damage to our societies. But regulations should always be reasonable and proportionate, and expecting a social network to police all human communication via their system for vaguely specified bad content does not seem to clear that bar.

Yet the representatives who are going to pass laws are the same people who grilled Zuckerberg for Twitter’s practices. Do you really trust their competence? All the laws being passed and all we got was shitty pop ups on every website saying “we use cookies”. Of course we also got the DMCA....

The government system in the US is essentially dysfunctional, as far as I can tell from outside. Fortunately, not everywhere is like that. All politicians are politicians, but some are more politician than others.

Re: PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade”

#182

Post by athms »

imnotjames wrote: post #123
_Microft wrote: post #7

Per [0], a possible answer to this seems to be that an arms dealer had connections to a company called Tardigrade Ltd. and all transactions with firms like these are prohibited which is why the word "Tardigrade" made it into PayPal's filter. As long as companies like PayPal have issues like that, or with moderation in case of Youtube, Twitter or Facebook, I'd claim neither of these companies have actually solved scal…

PayPal gets a list of banned strings from the Office of Foreign Asset controls. If any match those strings it's flagged for a review. This is more or less legally required for any company that moves money in the United States of America. You will probably find the same issues with the same terms on any other banking for financial body. Technically, these aren't being blocked. They're being audited. The payments will…

>This is more or less legally required for any company that moves money in the United States of America. You will probably find the same issues with the same terms on any other banking for financial body.

No you won't because names are not unique. Banks and credit unions tend to have sophisticated data analysis, unlike the knuckleheads at PayPal.

When I heard about this nonsense years ago, I put some of the banned words in the memo area of checks and transferred money between two credit union accounts. They went through. I did the same thing using electronic transfers between accounts. Again, they went through without any problem.

https://imgur.com/a/RnpRm

A person put the words "James Kang" in a donation to the Red Cross that stated he was testing these banned words and PayPal, in their infinite stupidity, froze the transaction.

Re: PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade”

#183

Post by the_pwner224 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #62
Mistri wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps part of the reason was the ease of access for minors. I'm now over 18, but when PayPal got popular, my friends and I were under 18 so we weren't allowed to purchase stuff (like video games) online since we didn't have our own credit/debit cards. PayPal used to not verify your age so it was perfect for this type of stuff.

PayPal was the first free electronic way to send and receive money to people in the US, to my knowledge. Which is a sad indictment of the US’s infrastructure. Even today, so many people use Venmo, which is still PayPal. Apple Cash seems to work well, but still involves an unnecessary middleman like PayPal. Zelle is the only half decent solution, that doesn’t involves third parties.

Zelle is also a third party, just well integrated into the banks' UIs. I had a Zelle payment blocked recently and ended up seeing a lot of stuff on the internet / reddit about Zelle doing similar stuff as the other companies when it comes to blocking payments as well as customer service & having money disappear in some cases.

Re: PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade”

#184

Post by athms »

LordAtlas wrote: post #168
adrr wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes they would, the fines are up to 250,000 per incident. If you share a name with someone on the AML list, good luck opening up a financial account anywhere and if you do manage to get an account, being able to fund the account from another source.

Is there any way to access this list so I don't end up naming any product, service or company with something on there?

https://www.treasury.gov/ofac/downloads/sdnlist.pdf

Or you can do searches.

https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov

Re: PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade”

#185

Post by feu »

OnWriting wrote: post #2

Anyone care to guess as to why? At face value it seems like a very odd word to censor, I have absolutely no clue what the motivation might be.

"The sanctions also include two Cyprus-based companies and one Hong Kong-based company – Moonstorm Enterprises LTD, Tardigrade Limited, and Business Diversity Limited.The Department of the Treasury claimed that the companies are “owned or controlled by, or acting or purporting to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, Tesic”." - https://balkaninsight.com/2019/12/10/us-expands-sanctions-ag...

Re: PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade”

#186

Post by lotsofpulp »

the_pwner224 wrote: post #183
lotsofpulp wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PayPal was the first free electronic way to send and receive money to people in the US, to my knowledge. Which is a sad indictment of the US’s infrastructure. Even today, so many people use Venmo, which is still PayPal. Apple Cash seems to work well, but still involves an unnecessary middleman like PayPal. Zelle is the only half decent solution, that doesn’t involves third parties.

Zelle is also a third party, just well integrated into the banks' UIs. I had a Zelle payment blocked recently and ended up seeing a lot of stuff on the internet / reddit about Zelle doing similar stuff as the other companies when it comes to blocking payments as well as customer service & having money disappear in some cases.

Zelle is the brand name for Early Warning Services, which used to be called clearXchange, and is owned by the biggest banks themselves. When I write there is no middleman or third party, I mean that the money goes from the sender's account to the recipient's account. With PayPal/Venmo/Apple Cash/etc, the money goes from the sender's account, to Paypal/Venmo/Apple/etc's account, and then to the recipient.

Also, with Zelle, you never need to give anyone your bank account number, and you are never authorizing anyone to reach into your account and take money via ACH, like you are with Paypal/Venmo/Apple Cash/etc. It’s also instant.

https://www.earlywarning.com/about

>Early Warning Services, LLC, is a fintech company owned by seven of the country’s largest banks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelle_(payment_service)

>Zelle is a United States–based digital payments network owned by Early Warning Services, a private financial services company owned by the banks Bank of America, BB&T, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, PNC Bank, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo.[1][2][3] The Zelle service enables individuals to electronically transfer money from their bank account to another registered user's bank account (within the United States) using a mobile device or the website of a participating banking institution.[1][3]

Re: PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade”

#187

Post by bdcravens »

Marsymars wrote: post #164
floatingatoll wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope an arms dealer names themself eBay Arms. I’m against arms dealers and PayPal and this would destroy PayPal.

FYI Paypal's been spun off from eBay since 2015 and its agreement to serve as eBay's default payment processor was set to expire this year.

eBay is in the process of migrating sellers to use eBay's internal payment processing (beta users last years, others gradually - my eBay stored moved to it in July)

https://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/service-and-payments/ma...

Re: PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade”

#188

Post by Defenestresque »

imnotjames wrote: post #123
_Microft wrote: post #7

Per [0], a possible answer to this seems to be that an arms dealer had connections to a company called Tardigrade Ltd. and all transactions with firms like these are prohibited which is why the word "Tardigrade" made it into PayPal's filter. As long as companies like PayPal have issues like that, or with moderation in case of Youtube, Twitter or Facebook, I'd claim neither of these companies have actually solved scal…

PayPal gets a list of banned strings from the Office of Foreign Asset controls. If any match those strings it's flagged for a review. This is more or less legally required for any company that moves money in the United States of America. You will probably find the same issues with the same terms on any other banking for financial body. Technically, these aren't being blocked. They're being audited. The payments will…

>Technically, these aren't being blocked. They're being audited. The payments will still go through.

They buyers are literally getting a message saying "This transaction cannot be completed because it violates the PayPal User Agreement" [0]

[0] https://twitter.com/ArchieMcPhee/status/1304437732584771584

Re: PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade”

#189

Post by baybal2 »

_Microft wrote: post #7

Per [0], a possible answer to this seems to be that an arms dealer had connections to a company called Tardigrade Ltd. and all transactions with firms like these are prohibited which is why the word "Tardigrade" made it into PayPal's filter. As long as companies like PayPal have issues like that, or with moderation in case of Youtube, Twitter or Facebook, I'd claim neither of these companies have actually solved scal…

From a 2019 Worldcheck copy, and OFAC SDN https://www.treasury.gov/ofac/downloads/sdnlist.txt

> TARDIGRADE LIMITED, Dimitriados 1, Limassol 4004, Cyprus; Registration Number C378737 (Cyprus) [GLOMAG] (Linked To: TESIC, Slobodan).

> TESIC, Slobodan (a.k.a. SLOBODAN, Tezic), Serbia; DOB 21 Dec 1958; POB Kiseljak, Bosnia and Herzegovina; nationality Serbia; citizen Serbia; Gender Male; Passport 009511357 (Serbia) expires 27 Oct 2020; alt. Passport 007671811 (Serbia) expires 05 Aug 2019 (individual) [GLOMAG].

> [GLOMAG]: Executive Order 13818 - Global Magnitsky;

Re: PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade”

#190

Post by athms »

URSpider94 wrote: post #156
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

evidently not given the downvotes, but then I don't understand, if their terms of service say we pay out unless the payment would be of type X and then they keep from paying out on payments of type Y they have violated their terms of service and thus would be open to being sued.

PayPal can pretty much always refuse to process any given transaction. They are not keeping anyone’s money, they are just refusing to accept a transaction request. There’s no money to “pay out.”

>They are not keeping anyone’s money, they are just refusing to accept a transaction request.

Wrong. Assets under U.S. jurisdiction that are owned by or being transferred to persons or organizations on the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List must be frozen. Furthermore, the Department of Treasury has a right to seize these funds without due process.

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