PayPal Redirects Charitable Contributions Without Consent, Lawsuit Says

Post by badminton1 » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 2:28 PM UTC

aleksandrm wrote: post #22

paulmd wrote: post #11

Remember when in the aftermath of Katrina, Paypal seized donations fundraised from Something Awful intended for the Red Cross for "fraud" and then refused to release them even when everyone told them they knew full well what was going on? After they got called onto the mat they finally agreed to release the funds but only to one of their own selected list of charities, all of which had vastly greater overhead expense…

PayPal is a nightmarish company. I've lost ~3000 USD to PayPal when I was doing small business back in early 2000s. Their "buyer first" policy had screwed us big time, even though we have provided all the documentation to contest the bogus claims. PayPal froze our money, and terrorized me for a whole year with collections agencies. It was awful. I am out of 3K dollars, and I have stopped using PayPal since.

Post by conflagration » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 2:34 PM UTC

philipov wrote: post #43

linuxkerneldev wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember that several Xorg developers alleged that Paypal robbed Xorg. I think Xorg never got anything back. https://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-1417033.html I recall reading a bible quote or might have been another religious book. It said, when a powerless man breaks the law, a crime has been committed, but when a powerful man breaks the law, the law was unclear.

Because when you have lots of money, you can afford to use the threat of expensive libel lawsuits to keep people in line. The prospect of dragging someone into litigation is enough of a chilling effect they don't even have to commit to it for it to be effective.

Post by driverdan » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 2:54 PM UTC

bostand wrote: post #34

Paypal is evil, but what are the alternatives? AliPay? WebMoney? Bitcoin??

Post by lttlrck » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 3:23 PM UTC

1_2__3 wrote: post #47

jakobegger wrote: post #19

Why is it, when an established company does something like this, the headline talks about "redirecting contributions", instead of calling it what it is? Why not just say "Paypal Defrauds Donors"?

Fraud is a legal term that presumes a finding in a court of law to be anything other than a nonsense word (that means whatever someone thinks it means). It's absolutely correct in this case for the headline to refer to "redirect" because no court has found that to be fraud (yet) - that's the allegation the lawsuit is making. It's why we don't call murder suspects murderers.

Post by delinka » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 3:45 PM UTC

conflagration wrote: post #53

philipov wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because when you have lots of money, you can afford to use the threat of expensive libel lawsuits to keep people in line. The prospect of dragging someone into litigation is enough of a chilling effect they don't even have to commit to it for it to be effective.

Like a Universal Health Care you could have a "Universal Law Care", a per se legal costs insurance for every natural person. You might have to pay low fares measured in daily rates calculated from your rate of income/wealth for any legal action you take, but nothing that would put your way of life at risk. With automated processes in law becoming more and more of a thing, it would be possible to handle cases faster a…