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

111–120 of 160 posts

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

#111

Post by mpeg »

dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #31
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 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.

If I had to guess, I would say the reason is that they're getting a high amount of chargebacks because the website marketing copy promises "14 days money back guaranteed" and even highlights that their competitors don't offer a "refund after usage"

But then, in the FAQs, you can see the refund policy specifies they will only refund if you haven't downloaded any images. I imagine some people sign up to try it, then go refund if the quality is not as expected (textual inversion generators like this can be a bit hit or miss) and find they can't.

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

#112

Post by dvko »

ThePowerOfFuet wrote: post #50

I cannot comprehend why any seller would leave a balance in PayPal instead of enabling autosweep into their bank account daily. Mind blown. FAFO.

I never even knew this was an option, despite relying on them for well over 10 years now for well over half of my business' revenue (with 0 issues whatsoever, fwiw). Just enabled it.

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

#113

Post by posting_mess »

beeboobaa wrote: post #103
posting_mess wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any evidence it appears on balance sheet / they use it as capital for investments? or are you just parroting a line you heard someone say one? Parent comment makes it fairly obvious why they are holding the money, seems entirely sane and reasonable - or do you think PayPal should take on an $80K risk? Would you or your business? (in this very specific context)

You think they're holding it in a 0% interest account? That'd be foolish. And we know the people they steal from aren't getting their due interest.

You have any evidence for that claim or just assuming? Wild to me how you can assert these things with no evidence.

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

#114

Post by ramon156 »

djakaitis wrote: post #72

This guy also had his stuff deleted from Heroku. I get the feeling he might be in the wrong here and isn’t telling the whole story.

They don't just consider your payments high risk based off of some numbers, there's 100% something shady that happened

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

#115

Post by gndk »

jabiko wrote: post #79
CalRobert wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Direct debit would be great if the UX would be better. There are PSPs that make it easier for merchants (GoCardless), but entering the long IBAN is the crucial point.

It would be great if there was a popular app/feature so you could save your IBAN in your phone/browser and just fill it in with one tap. That would skyrocket adoption and let merchants move away from expensive payment service providers.

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

#116

Post by suslik »

is_true wrote: post #89
im3w1l wrote: 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…

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".

It's a shame, really, that we live in a world where a way to show the finger to all these corporate guardrails exists and is easily available - but it cannot get enough traction and receives a strong, and I think unnecessary, cultural pushback. While I do believe the dilapidating state of pax americana to be a tragedy for the humanity at large, crypto will be more of a thing in the increasingly fractured world where government entities would sanction (and perhaps even nuke) each other - and that's a good thing.

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

#117

Post by gndk »

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 )

Yeah, bank transfers are still popular here, especially with older people. Either completely manual with (hopefully) automatic reconciliation through some reference number or with giropay/SOFORT.

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

#118

Post by Timshel »

gndk wrote: post #108
ghusto wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The convenience of PayPal is unmatched Every time I see PayPal, I hit the 'nah, just let me fill in my card details'. I think you're overestimating their worth, and underestimating both your customers and the competition. As someone already pointed out: "Stripe/Google Pay/Amazon Pay" are available, to name just the most recognisable ones. There are others with better fees!

Maybe I'm overestimating and most customers would go through the trouble of manually filling in their payment details, but it's scary to find out :-) Fees are a good point. PayPal's fixed fee (0,35€ per transaction on top of the percentage) is actually kinda painful, since we have relatively low average order value.

> but it's scary to find out :-)

Do you have an exclusivity clause ?

It might be costly but I don’t understand scary.

What I would find scary is the risk that they ban you if you have only one payment processor.

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

#119

Post by gndk »

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.

Its just very convenient due to being basically a one-click payment.

I think the big difference in Germany is that people here tend to have their bank account linked with PayPal, not their credit card (because many people in Germany don't even have one).

Compare that to entering your "up to 34 alphanumeric characters" IBAN bank account number manually while on your phone.

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

#120

Post by epolanski »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #36
epolanski wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Has anybody ever really been completely robbed by PayPal and never gotten their money? On both ends of the spectrum of being an ebay buyer and seller. Once I sold a WoW account, and as soon as the buyer got the account charged back the payment. Another time I bought a piece for my motorbike. Never got anything. Asked for a chargeback. Got nothing. Did not use their service and I am still livid for their lack of tra…

Surely both of these had nothing to do with PayPal? (this is an honest question - I'm not trying to defend PayPal) If the buyer did a charge back on their credit/debit card, PayPal gets charged and passes it on to you. Likewise if you as a seller didn't get the chargeback isn't that on your card company?

I don't remember the details, but I remember you could open a ticket on Paypal for a refund if you didn't get your items.

So when I sold and the person asked for a refund, he got it immediately, even though he received everything.

When I bought and never got anything for months, Paypal refused to even put me in contact with a human for weeks.

So on both times I got screwed.

Post reply on HN