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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"

#81
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…

If you are at or above 1% chargeback you are going to get problem at any normal payment processor.

Source: https://www.chargeflow.io/blog/chargeback-threshold-limits

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

#82
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's gone way too far. My bank refuses to cash international checks (no banks in my country do). IRS refuses to do international wires. The result is that the united states government owes me money I can only claim if I actually fly there which is expensive enough and too much of a bother for the sum involved. Like if even the fucking IRS isn't trusted enough to push money through the system then it's a complete joke…

TransferWise (now called Wise) would give you a US account number they could pay you with.

Wise also has their own fair share of related drama like PayPal these days. Service quality has dropped and I've had friends have their funds locked for arbitrary requirements.

Nevermind them changing their US payment details on a dime last year.

Great for moving funds through, but don't keep any money there.

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

#83
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…

> After the 180 days, Paypal will give you the remainder of the money back, so the title is clickbait, they will get back their money.

Not always, they can take it sometimes as "damages"

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

#84

it's better to avoid PayPal anyway, so sorry for you, hope your post will be in the top.

The problem is a lack of "I want to pay you but don't want to give you my credit card" processors out there. That's 99% of the reason I use PayPal (with just one case of using buyer protection because the vendor just forgot about my order for months and didn't respond). Google Pay & Apple Pay helps with this now (and the fact they're implemented as a payment type like VISA and not a processor like PayPal helps a lot…

I don't understand this "I want to pay without giving my card" thing.

Payment gateways process your card, not the app.

"Paying without giving my card" is not what that feature is, but rather "card details are saved so you have a lower barrier to spend more".

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

#85
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 thought just like you for more than 15 years, then I understood why people were so reluctant to have money in paypal.

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

#86
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…

How is that comment from 2008 relevant... I'm confused? This is why I downvoted.

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

#87
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Like the page explains: this is not for big webshops with thousands of orders a day and having small margins on each item. You have to see this way of running a webshop in the context of a small business just starting out.

Each payment is checked on your bank account. You can do that once or multiple times a day, whatever your situation requires. Can be easily done with the current banking apps in Europe. The moment you received payment, you can process/fulfill the open orders and mark them as such. Whether that's clicking a button to send a digital file, or packing the order in a box or envelope and sending it.

This might sound like a lot of work, and programmers probably only see the "this and that can be automated"-side of this webshop, but my clients with small webshops happily send their orders across Europe and laugh out loud when they spend only an hour a day on checking payments and shipping orders. They also don't have thousands of orders a day, of course. But they do have the margins to make it worth their while. And if their business grows, they can easily migrate off this webshop.

They are not afraid to put in a little work now, and know they can automate things later.

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

#88
post #30

Not enough information, no context. PayPal has terms of service and laws they have to comply with. Probably a story here but unlikely PayPal just shut him down and kept his money for no reason .

You can find other examples of this with PayPal, Wise and others online.

Hiding behind KYC/AML laws makes these bans completely opaque in every possible scenario.

Whether or not you think Danny is innocent or not, the point is not even he could know why there's suddenly a problem. There's no recourse.

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

#89
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Know Your Customer, anti-terrorism, anti-drug money laundering, and many other laws have been enacted to keep "the bad guys" from being able to operate efficiently. Unfortunately, and perhaps even sometimes by design, these laws have created all kinds of loopholes that allow financial institutions and governments to prey on innocents, especially those who aren't doing anything illegal but sometimes things that are un…

It's gone way too far. My bank refuses to cash international checks (no banks in my country do). IRS refuses to do international wires. The result is that the united states government owes me money I can only claim if I actually fly there which is expensive enough and too much of a bother for the sum involved. Like if even the fucking IRS isn't trusted enough to push money through the system then it's a complete joke…

The more I get involved with banks the more I understand the crypto bros.

I'm on the same boat as you, my bank wont take the check paypal sent when they limited my account, or they COULD take it but with a 25% commission and 60 days waiting for the "procedure".

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