i did suggest you ask this question at Quora too
I made $200K and PayPal locked my account
131–140 of 298 posts
Re: I made $200K and PayPal locked my account
#132It boggles my mind how PayPal can again and again get away with this. The ability of PayPal to be a bank and yet avoid being one legally is interesting. If you hold somebody else's money you are a bank, whether you call yourself that way or not.
Have you read any of the comments here before writing your own? What is PayPal getting away with? How would another bank have acted differently? What regulation do you think applies to banks but not to PayPal in this situation? They are all beholden to the PATRIOT Act, and to the IRS; PayPal is also beholden to 50 different states' Money Transmitter licensing regulations. None of them want to be a conduit for interna…
I could ask you same about reading comments...
If I am not mistaken a significant percentage of them seem to agree with me and suggest sweeping funds to an actual bank periodically.
I apologize if I somehow offended you, but I stand by my statement.
Re: I made $200K and PayPal locked my account
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
legal confidentiality means... IANAL, but I don't believe you have attorney-client privilege until you formally hire the lawyer. So if you are calling ten lawyers and getting advice, there is no guarantee of privilege.
Pretty sure that's not correct. It would destroy the potential for candid consultations to determine whether a case should be taken. From the attorney's perspective, the inability to guarantee privilege might cause them to incorrectly advise a client on their potential to help.
Yes. I remember OJ Simpson's first lawyer refused the case. Didn't talk about the conversation and wasn't compelled to. But it was clear he refused the case because of the conversation.
Re: I made $200K and PayPal locked my account
#134Re: I made $200K and PayPal locked my account
#135I think there is a problem here. If you are saying you do not how how you made it then there might be truly something wrong with your account. It is rare for any open source project that is a js widget essentially to pull in 200k in six months. I think there is a bit more information at work here and you are leaving it out. I think what Paypal did was justified while they investigate what is going on.
When I said, I didn't know how I was referring to the fact that I never expected that.
I started turn.js as a weekend hack with html5. Then, I showed it on HN and asked for a Job. Later, I went to some tech company, I didn't get forward for whatever reasons. Turn.js was initially MIT licensed, and I had literally no money. However, some people were making 30k or more selling my javascript on some marketplaces, so I decided to stop and get back my credits. I created a commercial license, and everything started to change. I never enjoyed my money, I came to the U.S. because I needed a degree...
Re: I made $200K and PayPal locked my account
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you read any of the comments here before writing your own? What is PayPal getting away with? How would another bank have acted differently? What regulation do you think applies to banks but not to PayPal in this situation? They are all beholden to the PATRIOT Act, and to the IRS; PayPal is also beholden to 50 different states' Money Transmitter licensing regulations. None of them want to be a conduit for interna…
I could ask you same about reading comments... If I am not mistaken a significant percentage of them seem to agree with me and suggest sweeping funds to an actual bank periodically. I apologize if I somehow offended you, but I stand by my statement.
[deleted]
Re: I made $200K and PayPal locked my account
#137When you say you're an international student, do you mean you're in the US on an F-1 visa? If yes, you might be in violation of your visa terms. If you have not researched this, please start reading at http://www.justanswer.com/immigration-law/330cd-holding-f-1-...
Wow, that's just...mind-numbingly awful. If that's true, the Emmanuel just forfeits all that money? I suspect that a good lawyer will be able to recover most of it for him, especially since his presence in the US was not material to the earning of that income .
What part is mind-numbingly awful? It's pretty standard for countries to give out student visas with the proviso that the student cannot accept employment, or can only work up to (say) 15~20 hours a week after getting a special permit.
As far as visa regulations in developed countries go, this one sounds fairly reasonable to me.
> I suspect that a good lawyer will be able to recover most of it for him, especially since his presence in the US was not material to the earning of that income.
I'd be very surprised if this argument were accepted, given that presumably a lot of OP's income came from US sources (if OP was temporarily in the US, AND was being paid from non-US sources, AND the total sum was not as high as 200 grand, then arguably the case would be in a gray area [1]). Otherwise, it would be too easy to enter the US on a tourist visa and work from home, coding or teaching $foo via Skype, but good luck explaining that to the immigration authorities on entry.
However, it's not clear whether OP was actually in the US when they were selling the licenses.
[1] http://www.nationofimmigrators.com/employment-based-immigrat...
Re: I made $200K and PayPal locked my account
#138I've been testing turn.js v3 for personal projects and am seriously considering buying it for production use in a business; it's the only thing out there for dynamically-rendered flipbooks. Sorry to hear about your troubles. At that level of revenue, I'd seriously consider charging using something like Stripe or Braintree. Your target audience (developers) won't consider typing a CC number as such a huge inconvenienc…
Thanks for your feedback.
Re: I made $200K and PayPal locked my account
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
IANAL (which is why the OP should definitely talk to one). If the work that generated the income was done while he was physically in the US, then the immigration folks will definitely have an opinion on if it was legal under his visa terms. This may or may not have an impact on any potential legal remedies that are available wrt Paypal.
IANAL, and the OP should talk to one. I'm working legally in the US (TN-1), but my wife is here without permission to work (TD-1) (and is not working). When I discussed her options with my immigration lawyer, like maybe should could remote-work for a company back home, my lawyer said (informally) that any work or any income, while in the US, was subject to immigration law. In fact, I was told US immigration's opinion…
The other night there was something on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp) about a Canadian guy visiting his wife/girlfriend in the US.
US Customs took his aside and was't going to let him pass (no surprise) but let him through but told him he could pass but he couldn't work in the US not even housework, not a joke.
Re: I made $200K and PayPal locked my account
#140Hey Emmanuel - Saumil Mehta here from LocBox, we spoke a few months ago on the phone.
I would urge you to simply hire an excellent immigration lawyer to figure out your options w.r.t. the F-1 before you move forward. I have a San Francisco-based firm that I can refer you to if you like. They are (somewhat) expensive but they do deliver good results and they are not a big faceless firm - fast, efficient, get on the phone quickly.
Email me if you want to talk more. FWIW, I dealt with our dysfunctional immigration system for a decade - once having to forfeit a well-paying internship after forgetting to file a dumb piece of paperwork - so I do understand the pain of getting the shaft after busting ass, primarily because of immigration reasons.
Anyhow, hope this helps.