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"PayPal took $80k from me and banned me"

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Re: "PayPal took $80k from me and banned me"

#61

Post by noirscape »

MrThoughtful wrote: post #7

I thought the finance industry is highly regulated? Can a company really "hold any funds in your account for up to 180 days" just willy-nilly? And what does this mean: Fun bonus, they hold $80,000 I won't get back. Has anybody ever really been completely robbed by PayPal and never gotten their money?

It technically is. A bank iirc cannot do the sort of black box of terminations PayPal likes to do with its customers.

The problem is that PayPal isn't legally considered a bank in the US but a payment processor, which gives them a lot more freedom to run their service in the way they're infamous for.

In the EU, they are a bank, which permits you much more rights but you have to drag them kicking and screaming to enforce your rights. (Among other things, they're homed in Luxembourg and basically employ all the competent financial lawyers in that country, making it basically impossible to get legal representation without getting rejected on a conflict of interest basis.)

Re: "PayPal took $80k from me and banned me"

#62

Post by beeboobaa »

mpeg wrote: post #22

Ok so I know a bit about this as I had the same exact thing happen to me in the past. The reason this probably happened is that their business was getting a high % of chargebacks from paying customers, paypal is not a specialist payment provider that wants to handle what they consider high-risk business like that, so they block your account and hold your funds for 180 days and during that time keep processing chargeb…

An $80k interest free loan sounds pretty nice

Re: "PayPal took $80k from me and banned me"

#63

Post by dewey »

madsbuch wrote: post #11
MrThoughtful wrote: post #7

I thought the finance industry is highly regulated? Can a company really "hold any funds in your account for up to 180 days" just willy-nilly? And what does this mean: Fun bonus, they hold $80,000 I won't get back. Has anybody ever really been completely robbed by PayPal and never gotten their money?

I thought it was common knowledge at this point that there is this risk using PayPal and it was generally not recommended for anything but hobby use. PayPal has been seen using several jurisdictions, eg. Luxembourg, France, Germany. When maltreated customer try to sue and get their funds back, they will ping-pong people around in different orgs across these jurisdictions. In the end you would need several very persis…

Paypal only being for hobby projects is a bit of an exaggeration if you see almost every e-commerce store at least in Germany supporting it.

Re: "PayPal took $80k from me and banned me"

#64

Post by mcv »

rmholt wrote: post #48
mpeg wrote: post #22

Ok so I know a bit about this as I had the same exact thing happen to me in the past. The reason this probably happened is that their business was getting a high % of chargebacks from paying customers, paypal is not a specialist payment provider that wants to handle what they consider high-risk business like that, so they block your account and hold your funds for 180 days and during that time keep processing chargeb…

Not critiquing you but the approach - that's abysmal UX. If PayPal blocks your account with no feedback, that's incredibly anxiety inducing. And in an environment like finance, good communication of the status of the account should be the difference between an "oh okay that's fair" and a lawsuit for theft.

Not only anxiety inducing, it can actively deny the customer the thing they paid for. I've heard of events that had to be cancelled because PayPal didn't want to release the money. PayPal making the chargebacks a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Re: "PayPal took $80k from me and banned me"

#65

Post by kalleboo »

SilverBirch wrote: post #13

One of the things that fascinates me about silicon valley is that there's this very clear playbook that goes along the lines of: We're going to 'disrupt' X industry with technology. And disrupt often has a veneer of technological progress, but really is primarily just regulatory arbitrage. Paypal: We're going to be a bank, but we're not going to adhere to banking regulations. Crypto: We're going to be a stock exchang…

> Paypal: We're going to be a bank, but we're not going to adhere to banking regulations

There is nothing in banking regulations that stops what PayPal is doing here. Any credit card processor will not hesitate in putting a hold on your payouts if they want to investigate your business. Heck one of our credit card processors wouldn't even pay out before 90 days as standard.

Re: "PayPal took $80k from me and banned me"

#66

Post by [deleted] »

geek_at wrote: post #32
mpeg wrote: post #22

Ok so I know a bit about this as I had the same exact thing happen to me in the past. The reason this probably happened is that their business was getting a high % of chargebacks from paying customers, paypal is not a specialist payment provider that wants to handle what they consider high-risk business like that, so they block your account and hold your funds for 180 days and during that time keep processing chargeb…

does that mean if a group of people don't like you they can chargeback-bomb you and get you banned?

[deleted]

Re: "PayPal took $80k from me and banned me"

#67

Post by dkjaudyeqooe »

emmet wrote: post #47
dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It says they'll release it in 180 days, don't know why he figures he won't get it. What's missing here is a description of what he was doing to generate that money. Maybe he was completely legit, but we don't know anything. Does he perhaps have a reason to think he won't get his money? Maybe he was getting a lot of chargebacks or some other negative metric. https://www.headshotpro.com/ seems to be his business.

Literally every time these things come up it's because the person was doing something dodgy and refuse to admit it.

Why shouldn't the question be asked? Just because someone claims something it doesn't mean we should accept it at face value.

Doesn't mean they're doing something dodgy but there may be more to the story.

If we dig deeper we may learn something useful. If this guy wants unquestioning sympathy he should look to his loved ones, not the internet.

Re: "PayPal took $80k from me and banned me"

#68

Post by jsjohnst »

MrThoughtful wrote: post #7

I thought the finance industry is highly regulated? Can a company really "hold any funds in your account for up to 180 days" just willy-nilly? And what does this mean: Fun bonus, they hold $80,000 I won't get back. Has anybody ever really been completely robbed by PayPal and never gotten their money?

> Has anybody ever really been completely robbed by PayPal and never gotten their money?

Yes, speaking from experience. It’s been 22 years now and policies / laws have changed, so circumstances would certainly be different if it happened today.

Re: "PayPal took $80k from me and banned me"

#69

Post by aeyes »

CalRobert wrote: post #58
gndk wrote: post #44

I have nightmares about this. The comments here saying that PayPal is just for hobby projects and should be avoided are living in a different reality. For me (e-commerce business, mainly in Germany), PayPal makes up around 70-80% of revenue and isn't easily replacable. I'm sure some customers would whip out their creditcard (if they even have one) or enter their long IBAN bank account numbers for direct debit, but ma…

Not sure what your sector is but how is Paypal easier than paddle, stripe, chargebee, etc? Actually, how do people buy stuff in Germany? I'm in the Netherlands and everything uses iDeal, which was annoying at first but now I like it. I use a credit card otherwise. When I was in Ireland I used a debit card which functioned like a credit card.

They are probably selling on eBay where it is (or used to be) very tightly integrated. In Germany eBay used to be very popular and that's how PayPal got so popular, it is one of PayPal's most established markets.

Re: "PayPal took $80k from me and banned me"

#70

Post by byyll »

rambambram wrote: post #60
gndk wrote: post #44

I have nightmares about this. The comments here saying that PayPal is just for hobby projects and should be avoided are living in a different reality. For me (e-commerce business, mainly in Germany), PayPal makes up around 70-80% of revenue and isn't easily replacable. I'm sure some customers would whip out their creditcard (if they even have one) or enter their long IBAN bank account numbers for direct debit, but ma…

I hope they add your long IBAN bank account number, instead of their own. ;) All jokes aside, I've good experience inside the whole EU with receiving money for (digital) goods. Just from one simple bank account to the next, inside EU. I think it is a really overlooked paying method. We even built an 'internet friendly' website/webshop system around that fact ( https://www.heyhomepage.com/?link=16 )

How does your system detect that an order is paid if it goes directly to the bank account of your clients?
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