Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 160 posts

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

#71

Post by Crosseye_Jack »

Symbiote wrote: post #53
Crosseye_Jack wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is one of the practical reasons why credit card processors generally don't take porn sites as customers Yup “buyer’s remorse” kicks in rather quickly when asked “Honey, what’s this transaction for xxx?” once the statement arrives.

Does anyone know if this happens in Europe, where stronger authentication is generally required for online purchases? Last year I asked my bank to chargeback a transaction, where I didn't recognize the merchant or the amount. They said it was paid in-person with a PIN, and unlikely to be fraudulent unless I'd lost my card. (It was genuine.) Normally when I purchase on my card I have to authorize the transaction with…

Can't speak for the rest of Europe, but in the UK tech speaking the bank still needs to prove that you still made the transaction even though you say you didn't. While SCA does helps in their claim not every transaction uses SCA. In my experience its less than 10% of my normal transactions, but some companies (my old phone provider being one) required SCA on every transaction I made with them. Strangely enough, when I purchase something via the standard checkout process on Amazon I don't get a SCA prompt, but every time I setup a subscribe and save purchase I need to approve the transaction even though its the same card as my "normal" purchases with them, but I guess that's because I'm creating a automated repetitive charge on S&S orders.

Also when I have seen cases in the news (this has been quite a while ago, so don't have sources to hand) where the bank have just told the customer "We know it was a legit payment, claim denied" but when pushed for copies of their proof its later turned out they didn't have any and were basically just saying that to get the customer off the phone.

EDIT: Trying to think back to my last few "NSFW" transactions, I think some sites did require SCA but iirc my last SubscribeStar.Adult (think patreon but for NSFW creators) subscription didn't, but that might be because it was just adding a new creator to my existing payments.

EDIT 2: For Chip and Pin, while the bank can say "Well the purchase was made with a pin, so you must have auth it", it doesn't prove that your card wasn't pick pocketed and the pin shoulder surfed from the last transaction/cash machine withdrawal.

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

#73

Post by is_true »

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…

It happened to me a while ago and while chatting with support they had my birth date wrong and thought I was underage. When I told them that they just deleted the support thread.

I had only ONE charge back, in 2015 I think.

I would understand if they would try to cooperate or ask for more info to prove things. But they have too much power and it's easier to just limit accounts.

In times of high interest rates it's even better.

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

#74

Post by droopyEyelids »

mcv wrote: post #64
rmholt wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your example is where naive business hits the wall of reality.

Collecting money for events is the archetypal high risk credit card processing business.

You get to spend all the money in advance, while the processor holds your chargeback liability that will only come due after your cash flow dries up

Every processor mentions this in their t&c. Events require special underwriting.

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

#75

Post by ClumsyPilot »

piltdownman wrote: post #54
geek_at wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Exactly this. If you want to kill a competitors iOS app it's a well-known blackhat route, and testified to here before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=343060 In this case a competitor used fake accounts and stolen credit cards to buy a competing app to get it delisted - Apple's apparent policy once the chargeback total hits some arbitrary figure. Edit: Immediately downvoted for no reason. Catching these sort of…

People want to believe free market has no bad actors, when they are actually inherent in the system

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

#76

Post by gambiting »

reisse wrote: post #57
geek_at wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's more complicated. In theory, you should not be able to chargeback any transaction at will, you need to provide a reason for it. But because US banking is stuck in between of 90s and 00s, to pay with the card online it's enough to know what's printed on the one side of it, maybe two sides. Therefore, "fraud" can always be used as a chargeback reason ("Oh, it wasn't me, someone taken a photo of my card! I definite…

To add to that - it's crazy(but also kinda cool?) that in US you can request an instant chargeback and the bank just does it no questions asked. I tried a chargeback on my British Credit card recently because the goods I ordered were never delivered, but it still took 60 days for the claim to be processed .

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

#77

Post by dkjaudyeqooe »

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…

> The convenience of PayPal is unmatched.

I use Paypal because:

- I don't have to enter or reveal card details

- I will not get rejected by the website because they can't identify me sufficiently

- It gets around the fact that I have US cards but I live in Europe, which tends to be disqualifying for most websites.

- I can ship to an address other than my card address without problems

- I can get a refund via Paypal within 90 or 180 days with much much less effort than doing a change back via my bank.

Always keep in mind that you're benefiting from these things as much as the buyers are, in that they give you revenue, you can always not use Paypal and reduce your risk, but then you lose revenue. You'll also suffer from more fraud using other payment methods, etc.

Such is business.

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

#78

Post by dkjaudyeqooe »

nness wrote: post #55
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 wonder if this might be a case of PayPal in the US vs. Europe — at least with regards to charge-backs. It seems that the burden of proof in the EU is much higher before an issuer will allow a charge-back — at least anecdotally, the credit cards I've used require you to prove that you tried to resolve the issue with the merchant first, prior to charge-back. Even then, charge-backs would negatively impact your accoun…

In my experience with Paypal that's not the case.

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

#79

Post by jabiko »

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.

> Actually, how do people buy stuff in Germany?

Most of the options I observed are either PayPal, direct debit, Giropay, collect on delivery or credit card.

I absolutely prefer direct debit. Just enter your name and IBAN and you are done. No 3rd party websites, no fuzz.

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

#80

Post by pyb »

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…

But Danny will have a $80k gaping hole in his cash flow for half a year. Some businesses would not survive this
Post reply on HN