We got banned from PayPal after 12 years of business • Hacker News Board

Re: We got banned from PayPal after 12 years of business

#271

Post by HenryBemis » Thu, May 09, 2019, 2:43 PM UTC

foggyToads wrote: post #166

HenryBemis wrote: post #117

Literally NO ONE wrote the below: Every Friday go online and withdraw all-but-the-necessary £€$$ to your bank account (transfer wire or via card number). I do get some revenue via PayPal, and the very same day (or the next) I 'download' comes it to my bank account (connected to PayPal via card) and IMMEDIATELY is shipped to another account that has all the controls to make money (relatively) unmovable. I perceive Pay…

How does that protect against them erroneously withdrawing large sums from your account and hitting you with overdraft or repeated NSF fees?

I (always and forever) maintain accounts with NO overdraft. Banks like overdraft. I don't.

If something bounces, then I will handle it within 24h. Again, this is the setup that covers my needs. A different organizations with different needs should have different process/controls to match their liquidity/easy-to-access-cash needs.

Re: We got banned from PayPal after 12 years of business

#272

Post by dkersten » Thu, May 09, 2019, 2:43 PM UTC

brakmic wrote: post #183

freddie_mercury wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like nobody can _stop_ you from murdering another person or demanding a bribe or any number of terrible things. I don't understand the point of your vehement sophistry. Everyone understands how societies work. There are laws. People get punished after the fact for transgressing them. Cryptocurrency is not somehow magically exempt from that reality.

I don't understand your point. Just wanted to talk about technology. But ok, no problem. Have fun.

The person you replied to said that cryptocurrencies are illegal where they are. You said nobody can stop you from accepting cryptocurrencies. Just like nobody can stop you from doing any other illegal thing, like not paying your taxes or taking drugs. Sure, you can do these things and you may even get away with it, but if you get caught, you get fines or jail time or whatnot. If cryptocurrencies are illegal where the person you responded to is, sure they technically can accept cryptocurrencies, but if they get caught, its no different than getting caught doing any other illegal activity. You might say "well, its hard to get caught!" but you could say the same thing about laundering money, evading taxes or buying drugs, yet people get caught doing these things all the time.

Re: We got banned from PayPal after 12 years of business

#273

Post by Silhouette » Thu, May 09, 2019, 2:44 PM UTC

_pmf_ wrote: post #165

HenryBemis wrote: post #117

Literally NO ONE wrote the below: Every Friday go online and withdraw all-but-the-necessary £€$$ to your bank account (transfer wire or via card number). I do get some revenue via PayPal, and the very same day (or the next) I 'download' comes it to my bank account (connected to PayPal via card) and IMMEDIATELY is shipped to another account that has all the controls to make money (relatively) unmovable. I perceive Pay…

Nobody disagrees that this is what you have to do in PayPal's current state. The debate is to whether you should have to do it, or whether, given that it walks and talks like a bank, PayPal should nationally and globally be treated as a bank.

IIRC, PayPal has a banking licence in Europe and as such is regulated by Luxembourg's supervisory authority. It's strange, given the nature of PayPal's services, that it hasn't yet been deemed to be a bank or the equivalent in other places as well though.

Re: We got banned from PayPal after 12 years of business

#274

Post by wccrawford » Thu, May 09, 2019, 2:44 PM UTC

hunter2_ wrote: post #230

ipython wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true, you can sue a company that does business in your state, in your local small claims court. I am not a lawyer, but I have sued out-of-state companies in my home jurisdiction.

Is Uber doing business in a state just by virtue of having customers and contractors in that state? It has offices in various places, but I assume not all states.

I am not a lawyer, but my take is:

Just customers, no, probably not.

Contractors? Yes. Especially contractors that are performing services there.

Re: We got banned from PayPal after 12 years of business

#275

Post by ingenium » Thu, May 09, 2019, 2:46 PM UTC

This same thing happened to my personal Paypal account out of no where one morning. I hadn't used it in over a month. My mother's personal Paypal account (lives in a different state) was also banned at the exact same time. She hadn't used it in months. We still have no idea what triggered it.

Re: We got banned from PayPal after 12 years of business

#276

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 09, 2019, 2:46 PM UTC

novaleaf wrote: post #256

dalore wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't keep your money in paypal, withdraw it to your bank account as soon as you can.

to generalize, you shouldn't keep your money in any 3rd party longer than necessary.

[deleted]

Re: We got banned from PayPal after 12 years of business

#277

Post by dkersten » Thu, May 09, 2019, 2:47 PM UTC

brakmic wrote: post #109

freddie_mercury wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure they can. Accepting Bitcoin for payments is illegal where I live. It is enforced by fines and jail time, just like all other laws.

Which country? Nobody can _stop_ you from accepting cryptocurrency.

These countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_bitcoin_by_country...

Re: We got banned from PayPal after 12 years of business

#278

Post by micmil » Thu, May 09, 2019, 2:47 PM UTC

ru999gol wrote: post #119

55555 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And yes, their decision is always final. Perhaps their decision to close your account is always final, but don't lose all hope after having your funds frozen. I had 25-100k frozen (can't remember how much), and picked up the phone and called them and it was unfrozen within 48 hours. Paypal is god-awful though and should be used as little as possible.

There are lots of horror stories about Paypal, but there is an obvious problem, nobody is going out of their way to write a blog post about how Paypal always worked for them. You can find pretty much the same horror stories about any Bank or credit card company.

No, you cannot. Federal law sets out how all banking must be done. There is always reciprocity. Since PayPal isn't regulated as a bank there is no directly applicable federal law. Instead, it's regulated on a state-by-state basis and the majority of the time you'd be hard pressed to figure out exactly who within your state you would have to file a complaint with. PayPal wants it both ways. It wants to act like a bank when it's good for them, but avoid all of the regulations. It's the worst of both worlds for the customer.

Anecdotally speaking, I know multiple people that have had funds frozen by PayPal after months or years of use. I know exactly nobody that has had a bank account frozen.

Re: We got banned from PayPal after 12 years of business

#279

Post by wccrawford » Thu, May 09, 2019, 2:48 PM UTC

Loughla wrote: post #253

mprev wrote: post #201

Spam company tries to create a content marketing moment with a dog whistle headline but buries the lede that they're a spam company.

Question about the phrase 'dog whistle headline'. I thought a dog whistle in current popular use was a headline or sentence meant to imply something hidden, usually racist/sexist/other-ist. Like the phrase 'those people' or something like that. How is this headline implying anything other than what it says, or is my interpretation of that phrase wrong?

A real "dog whistle" is used to get the attention of the dogs and tell them to do something.

A dog whistle headline would therefore be attempting to round up a bunch of people to fight their fight for them.

And had they been doing good, wholesome things at their company instead of creating spam tools, it probably would have worked. Unfortunately for them, people are starting to learn to dig a little deeper before getting out the pitchforks.

Re: We got banned from PayPal after 12 years of business

#280

Post by 75dvtwin » Thu, May 09, 2019, 2:49 PM UTC

tbarbugli wrote: post #14

Stripe

Stripe is a bad substitute to paypal.

Stripes, wants you them to be the center point of your relation with your customers.

We prefer no-big names, no information collection about my customers, almost a white-label payment processor that we could sub-contract.

We still have some time, and are searching for the right company as billing and payment processor. But we naturally eliminate companies that are VC funded and, or located in high-cost areas (so that eliminates most of the CA/NY/LDN places).