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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

#141
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.

> a different biological sex than what their DNA and gene expression shows

Sex characteristics are expressed primarily via hormones. That is why, for example, a person with an XY chromosome karyotype and complete androgen insensitivity syndrome will appear fully "female" externally.

Hormones are affected by DNA and genes, but can be overridden to alter secondary sex characteristics. Ideally (in most cases), this would be done pre-puberty, but even later in life it is possible to induce a "second puberty" which results in major changes. Further changes, including to primary sex characteristics, can be achieved surgically.

These changes do not need to follow a standard "male" or "female" template. Characteristics can be mixed, matched and/or rejected. Current medical technology has limits, but they are beyond what you might expect.

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

This is a matter of perspective and how one defines things.

An alternative view is that it is about affecting external change to match what the internal state was all along.

More poetically, one could describe it as "the realization that one needn't continue wearing the disguise that society seemed to demand".

Or, if one wants to be shitposty about coming out after having established a career, "New Game+".

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#142
post #118
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Financial Ombudsman Service is one of the few UK organizations that is anyway effective. If only all other regulatory authorities were half as good? One problem I have found with some UK eCommerce sites though is that their payment gateways are often broken with Brave/Chrome and the paypal payment option is an easy way of bypassing this issue.

I once put the word "complaint" on the top of a letter to a UK bank who had made a mistake on a statement. It made all the difference. What had previously been dismissed as unimportant was addressed and they sent me £100 compensation. Just taking that first step towards the Financial Ombudsman was enough.

It's a bit "one weird trick", but you're right that absolutely the best way to get consumer problems addressed in the UK is to use the word "complaint". It starts the clock as complaints typically have to be addressed within certain time limits.

If you don't use the word complaint then companies can argue that they thought you were merely providing feedback or engaging in something other than a complaint.

As soon as you use the word complaint, they can't argue that and it puts you on track to escalate to the ombudsman and the companies know it, and they know you know it.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#143

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…

This story has pushed me over the line, finally triggering me to close my PayPal account. I can't describe the sum total of stimuli that brought me here, it's a gestalt, a gut feeling. Thanks. I feel lighter.

PayPal is excellent for buyers, horrible for sellers. Just don't keep any money in it and don't let them convert currency for you.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#144
post #98
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)

AFAIK banks here charge extra for that.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#145

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've contacted one time PayPal Japan to transfer money to a personal account from PayPal Brazil because it gave me some error. They told me I should contact PayPal Brazil because the recipient account was not verified. On PayPal Brazil, they told me that I could only transfer personal money through Xoom, which is another service from PayPal. But when I tried, Xoom doesn't work with Japan. After I asked PayPal Japan again, they confirmed only business accounts can receive money in Brazil. It took around 3 weeks going back and forth until they could give me a clear statement saying that what I tried to do was impossible. I wondered why the interface was allowing me to chose this kind of transfer in the first place.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#146

> 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…

"The First Amendment does not prohibit private individuals, companies and employers from restricting speech. "

Constitutional rights are also civil rights, which are things companies may not violate.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#147

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 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.

LOL, I kinda had the same issue, but I had to remember the last 4 numbers of some old credit card. Couldn't find it in any email, so yeah ... couldn't use my Paypal anymore.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#148

> For consumers, I suspect that much of the power “arbitration” seems to confer on corporations lies in its opacity This one hundred times. There has been a surprisingly-effective PR scare campaign around arbitration in the U.S. Sure, for sexual harassment, it’s a bad forum. That’s approaching criminal territory. But for civil disputes, it’s straightforward and cheap.

I'd have more faith in arbitration if it was offered as an option instead of being required by the TOS. If it's universally good for me, surely there's no reason to force me to use it?

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#149
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's BS. Had a seller screwing me over who "sold" me a VR headset. He gave me a UPS tracking number which belonged to a package that was delivered to another city, another person, was part 1 of a 3 package delivery and weighted 28kg, pretty heavy weight headset. The only match was the zip code everything else had nothing to do with me. So I complained to Paypal, gave them all the data that showed that the tracking…

Aside: Where do you live that has a postal service where zip codes match in different cities? Sounds like someone misunderstood the point of a postal [zip] code. Or, did I misunderstand?

This is more common than you would think in the U.S. ZIP codes don't always follow geopolitical boundaries. There are two cities in 57717. Some ZIP codes even cross state boundaries; USPS won't state it when you look up ZIP 42223 in their web tool, but part of it covers Tennessee. For example, the Pratt Museum is in Fort Campbell TN but has a Fort Campbell KY mailing address.
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