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I fought the PayPal and I won

jessesingal.substack.com

121–130 of 349 posts

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#121

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…

They are not a "weird" company -- they are a piece-of-shit company

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#122
post #23

> While PayPal is technically a private company that can work with basically whoever it wants for whatever reason, its centralized role as an online payment processor makes this a weirdly potent free speech fight. > He did share correspondence with me where prominent free speech attorneys told him, in an apparent contradiction to my claims, that he had no viable legal recourse to getting his account reinstated. Thoug…

Oh not this old canard again. The US constitutional guarantee of freedom from government interference in speech is just one aspect of the matter . If private companies own every method of articulating your views, and are preventing you from doing so, then you aren't free to speak.

Yes but in this case they're specifically referring to free speech in a legal context.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#124
post #12
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, we can use credit card charge back for such purpose?

You can, but you probably have to call up your bank during business hours, wait on hold for a while, and then get given the runaround for a while. PayPal you just push a button and it's done.

My Bank of America credit card lets me dispute charges online, with a simple series of web forms. Very convenient.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#126

> the contract you “agreed” to means you are legally not allowed to take them to a real court. Your only recourse is arbitration. americans can sign away their rights to sue at their own courts? That seems wrong. For me, as a german, the paypal contract reads that i can escalate a conflict to the EU consumer protection agency or the french regulatory authority for financial institutions (which signs their banking lic…

> americans can sign away their rights to sue at their own courts? That seems wrong.

You still have immediate access to the courts if you are challenging the legality of the contract (i.e. something is actually against the law in the contract or you are claiming the contract is so unjust it should be allowed ). If it's just a dispute under the terms of the agreement, you usually have to do arbitration and then you can go to court. Every time I've done arbitration, the outcome has been pretty fair (which to me, means I won) and even a better experience that US Courts are. US Courts use an adversarial system, so if you don't spend a lot of time in courtrooms (which I don't), it's not a pleasant place to be even when you win.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#127
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…

I just read "Eleven Magic Words" and I'm entirely baffled. Also what a writer, wow.

"It's the functional equivalent of an attorney's XP level", I laughed embarrassingly loud.

Thank you and grandparent for recommendations.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#128
post #64

Quoted post unavailable.

As someone who doesn't follow any of this, having just heard of "sex realism", do trans people generally think they are a different biological sex than what their DNA and gene expression shows? I thought trans was about changing gender, not changing sex.

> I thought trans was about changing gender, not changing sex.

Mostly true, but it's confusing. Historically, sex and gender have been used interchangeably. That is slowly changing. There are a lot of places that refer to "sex" where "biological sex", as you put it, is not what is meant. See e.g. how trans people can still get their "sex" updated on documents that refer to sex and not gender, and how many places described as single-sex are actually closer to single-gender.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#129

how would one do that from within the EU? Is it still sending a certified letter to Omaha?

The EU PayPal entity seems to be PayPal (Europe) S.à.r.l. et Cie, S.C.A. Attention: Legal Department, 22-24 Boulevard Royal, L-2449 Luxembourg.

Legal claims fall under the Luxembourgish laws. I'm not seeing any language in the Dutch terms of service that mention any arbitrage.

Another thing to note is that the European branch of PayPal actually has a banking license. The Dutch national bank lists the permits (though the registration was done in Luxembourg, obviously): https://www.dnb.nl/en/public-register/information-detail/?re...

It looks like the 2007 basic banking license was extended around 2018.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#130

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.

Same! The number of times they claim I'm logging in from a new, unknown device has gone up significantly, even though I'm using the same browser on the same device all the time, and I don't clear cookies between sessions. The most egregious thing to me is that after solving the captcha, you are thrown back to the login form claiming that the password you entered is incorrect - which is impossible, as I just pasted it from my password manager. I'm happy about every web shop adding GiroPay as an alternative payment method in Germany.
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