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US lawmakers urge PayPal to end ban on Palestinians in Occupied Territories
101–110 of 193 posts
Re: US lawmakers urge PayPal to end ban on Palestinians in Occupied Territories
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
> your account is frozen but we won't tell you why If they suspect fraud, they aren't allowed to tell you about it. They also aren't allowed to give you your money back (incase the money is laundered). The only way to get your money back is to get a court to order them to give it back. The process is fairly simple - go to a small claims court, and ask the court to order them to give the money back. They won't contest…
Pretty amazing how nonchalant you’re talking about theft. I guess the approved strategy for legal theft is as follows. 1. Create a payments company that accepts deposits and holds balances (a bank — but don’t call it that) 2. Create a broken AML algorithm that flags X% of deposits as fraud 3. Force the falsely accused to take you to court to get their money back 4. Keep the rest. Most people won’t contest What a grea…
(1) would not be legal without an enormous amount of work.
Re: US lawmakers urge PayPal to end ban on Palestinians in Occupied Territories
#103Given the recent seizure of crypto accounts funnelling money to Hamas and Iran[0], this seems pretty sensible, to funnel more financial activity in the region onto platforms that have good AML/ATF processes. [0]: https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-seizes-30-crypto-wallet...
Exactly. Also related to this...
https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/2023-0...
Re: US lawmakers urge PayPal to end ban on Palestinians in Occupied Territories
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If they suspect fraud, they aren't allowed to tell you about it. That sounds like bullshit. Why would a mere suspicion of fraud, in the absence of a subpoena or court/gag order, mean that they aren't allowed to tell the account holder that they are suspecting fraud?
Correct. Look up the laws on suspicious activity reporting. If they came back and said "oh, we banned you because you made multiple, small transaction to high risk countries", well then you could just not do it next time.
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Re: US lawmakers urge PayPal to end ban on Palestinians in Occupied Territories
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm fine with that as long as the definition of terrorism is objective and not ideological/political. What objective definition of state terrorism applies to Palestine but not the state of Israel?
Hamas keeps sending Qassam and other rockets towards Israel, indiscriminately targeting everything while using human shields to defend launch and command sites in a clear violation of international law. On top of that come suicide bombers targeting civilians, which is clearly and indisputably terrorism, and on top of that they pay off the families of martyrs and terrorists, thereby creating a massive financial incent…
I'll just drop this here, and say nothing more:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/02/israels-apart...
Re: US lawmakers urge PayPal to end ban on Palestinians in Occupied Territories
#106I'm curious why PayPal bans Palestinians. It's not like they want to limit their addressable market. Seems likely related to OFAC, which is tough to google casually https://ofac.treasury.gov/sanctions-programs-and-country-inf... Nothing specific to Palestine on the country programs, but OFAC explains further that our sanctions are much more complicated than country-by-country here: https://ofac.treasury.gov/sanctions…
Preventing additional sources for financing state-sponsored terrorism, what is hard to understand?
Re: US lawmakers urge PayPal to end ban on Palestinians in Occupied Territories
#107I've had absolutely terrible experiences with Palpal. Lawmakers should be urging everyone to use a better service, forget worrying about PayPal's ban. The last straw for me was when they blocked a transaction of a few hundred dollars without any explaination. I was talking to a support rep for well over an hour, repeatedly being told that there is no security team at PayPal that can see why a transaction was blocked…
It's a legally mandated black box. Anti-money-laundering laws in the US make it explicitly illegal to even tell you that they suspect money laundering if they think you might be laundering money. (Source: 11+ years of anti-money-laundering training and quizzes in a Fortune 500 financial services company.)
They are legally required to be vague and/or lie to you if they think you might be laundering money.
Re: US lawmakers urge PayPal to end ban on Palestinians in Occupied Territories
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
> your account is frozen but we won't tell you why If they suspect fraud, they aren't allowed to tell you about it. They also aren't allowed to give you your money back (incase the money is laundered). The only way to get your money back is to get a court to order them to give it back. The process is fairly simple - go to a small claims court, and ask the court to order them to give the money back. They won't contest…
Pretty amazing how nonchalant you’re talking about theft. I guess the approved strategy for legal theft is as follows. 1. Create a payments company that accepts deposits and holds balances (a bank — but don’t call it that) 2. Create a broken AML algorithm that flags X% of deposits as fraud 3. Force the falsely accused to take you to court to get their money back 4. Keep the rest. Most people won’t contest What a grea…
You don't get to keep the money yourself. It sits on your balance sheet as a liability for 7 years, and eventually gets classed as a dormant account and gets paid to the state treasury.
Re: US lawmakers urge PayPal to end ban on Palestinians in Occupied Territories
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If they suspect fraud, they aren't allowed to tell you about it. That sounds like bullshit. Why would a mere suspicion of fraud, in the absence of a subpoena or court/gag order, mean that they aren't allowed to tell the account holder that they are suspecting fraud?
Correct. Look up the laws on suspicious activity reporting. If they came back and said "oh, we banned you because you made multiple, small transaction to high risk countries", well then you could just not do it next time.
Monzo have a very informative article about it, explains what this looks like from the side of the bank. They are literally not allowed to tell you, and also the other interesting thing is that they see how skilled fraudsters are at social engineering - the kind of posts that sometime surface here on HN "my bank/google/paypal blocked my account and they won't help me!" - it's not that every one of them is a scam, but fraudsters are incredibly good at writing those across social media and putting pressure on companies to unblock them.
https://monzo.com/blog/2019/04/04/why-we-block-freeze-close-...
Re: US lawmakers urge PayPal to end ban on Palestinians in Occupied Territories
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
> your account is frozen but we won't tell you why If they suspect fraud, they aren't allowed to tell you about it. They also aren't allowed to give you your money back (incase the money is laundered). The only way to get your money back is to get a court to order them to give it back. The process is fairly simple - go to a small claims court, and ask the court to order them to give the money back. They won't contest…
Pretty amazing how nonchalant you’re talking about theft. I guess the approved strategy for legal theft is as follows. 1. Create a payments company that accepts deposits and holds balances (a bank — but don’t call it that) 2. Create a broken AML algorithm that flags X% of deposits as fraud 3. Force the falsely accused to take you to court to get their money back 4. Keep the rest. Most people won’t contest What a grea…
You assume malice. It's not. They're just covering their asses. They earn magnitudes more on the transaction fees of legitimate purchases than they could ever get from stealing money through that scheme. Not even considering that the frozen money isn't even theirs to use but a liability in their accounting.