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I fought the PayPal and I won

jessesingal.substack.com

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Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#91
post #17

The author of this article is a public defender in the pacific northwest. He sometimes writes for Jesse Singal, but he also has his own substack.[1] Many of his posts provide a unique window into the criminal justice system. If that sounds interesting to you, I strongly recommend reading more of his writing. In my opinion, his greatest hits are Eleven Magic Words [2] and Death of a Client [3]. 1. https://ymeskhout.su…

Only upon reading your comment did I realise that the Substack article I just read was not written by Jesse Singal.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#92

PayPal is such a weird company. I was a loyal customer for 20 years until I wanted to convert my account from business to personal (I closed the business) and the site refused to do so. after months of calls with support, it became clear that no one was able to do this (something locked the flow and no one was able to see what; I guess my account was so ancient, it has some db flags no longer used but still checked b…

I lost access to a PayPal account I had used for years, because one day they decided they needed to know the CVV of a long-expired credit card, and refused to let me log in without it. Surprisingly, customer support was very helpful and let me transfer out the (minimal) balance in the account to another, completely unconnected PayPal business account I happened to have. Which is even more disconcerting, because it me…

I closed my account when they discovered suspicious activity in my account, at least claimed so but apart from locking me out until I prove I am me with photo ID copy and independent sources about my address (bank statement, utility bill, ...), basically collecting more data on me, they did not make any steps tracking down this suspicious activity, not even explaining what it was, they did not report it to the authorities! It was complete unresponsiveness when I asked for details on the event, asking about reference to the case at the authorities, told them that I will report it myself to the authorities (someone doing something to my money!!) and need some info, nothing, complete silence!

My conclusion that they simply lied to my face!

I was around the time when PayPal got some bank like regulatory status in Ireland and might have needed some more data so they forced me to provide through a bullst claim. At least this is the only scenario I find feasible. I had very little money there, after gaining access again (giving them a lot of data on me) there was no sign of any activity there that not belonged to me, nothing.

I decided that their practices are shady and I will never ever trust them!

(I did not report it eventually to the authorities, even the preparation for it took time with little supporting material, and I already had an unrelated matter to tackle, it was simpler leaving them and spread their reputation. PayPal definitely did not bother reporting it as I was never approached or questioned about the suspicious activity in my account ever. It was about 10 years ago btw.)

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#93
Logging into PayPal is now more annoying than logging into my German online banking. Which is telling as that is already a major pain.

Every time I have to solve 2 captchas and fill the log in form twice until I log in.

I’ve switched to using my online banking to pay for stuff over clicking the PayPal button.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#94
I have been locked out of my account by the stupid 2FA made mandatory. I have previously entered my phone number for contact purposes, forgot about it, and once I returned in some years they won't let me sign-in without a code sent to that number (which isn't mine anymore). Apparently I'm not alone caught in this. Luckily I only had about $20 there and don't really need PayPal nowadays.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#96
In the UK, paypal recently generated a lot of adverse publicity for banning the Free Speech Union [0] for, er, free speech [1].

This has now generated such controversy that MPs are proposing amendments in parliament preventing Paypal from blocking accounts on political grounds.

[0] https://freespeechunion.org/about/

[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/09/27/paypal-reins...

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#98
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My co published an App in Germany as recently as 2 years ago and PayPal support was almost unavoidable. It turns out that penetration of credit and debit cards in Germany is significantly behind other parts of the EU and many of them habitually use PayPal for e-commerce payments.

> It turns out that penetration of credit and debit cards in Germany is significantly behind other parts of the EU. Yep. Therefore, we also use PayPal a lot to transfer money to a friend when we're at some place that is cash only and someone doesn't have cash on them. No need to type an IBAN and wait for a day. Also, it's a great backup solution for online purchases if I don't want to share my credit card details or…

> IBAN and wait for a day.

The delay can be skipped in many cases via the IBAN instant payment option. Requires both banks to be participating in the program and trust each other (the delay will happen if additional checks are needed, for example if the transction gets flagged for manual inspection, eg if you write "funny" purpose text, etc)

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#99
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> Nothing suspicious about this at all. This type of low effort comment is generally frowned upon. Perhaps they didn't feel comfortable discussion controversial matters on their main account?

That explanation is directly ruled out by GP's comment: the GP doesn't think this is controversial.
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