Also this is a great example of having rules that are bullshit enough that you can basically do anything to anyone and technically be perfectly justified according to some agreement, but also enforcing them arbitrarily enough that anyone who complains about the terms of the agreement will be brushed off as paranoid.
Yeah, in my initial outburst of rage to my other half about the situation I just described it as it's like a company turning around and sacking you because you took home an expensive stapler several years ago, it's just a random get out of free card they have stored thanks to their ToS.
I feel like comments like this only serve to further downplay how abusive selective enforcement is. It can't be so bad if there's in theory a legal remedy available, right?
But whether you prevail in court or not, if you try to go through with that the whole thing is probably going to lose you a lot of time and cause you a shitton of stress, all at the whim of an arbitrary decision made by a company with, relatively speaking, no skin in the game. The power differential is immense. Realistically there's no legal recourse that can ward off the damage to your life that getting into that kind of one-sided slapfight could cause.
That may well be the case but forced arbitration clauses are legal in the US. There have been several recent Supreme Court cases that upheld mandatory arbitration clauses.
Gilles, Myriam and Friedman, Gary (2012) "After Class: Aggregate Litigation in the Wake of "AT&T Mobility v Concepcion"," University of Chicago Law Review: Vol. 79 : Iss. 2 , Article 3.
Available at: http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclrev/vol79/iss2/3
IIUC, those are cases of companies who put arbitration into a contract. That's a bit different then an average Joe hitting "ok" to an email that says the ToS of a website has changed. Arbitration can work for businesses which can negotiate and review contracts they agree too. No one reads or negotiates EULAs.
Srsly. This is the UK so it's well within the limits of small claims. IANAL but the U.K. also has less tolerance of "fine print".
If PayPal closed his account because it was created before he was 18, did they do so because they believe that he didn't have capacity when he signed up? If that is the case then it makes you wonder if any of the TOS apply
well in the UK and other Parts in Europe I'm not sure if this ToS is even legal.
You don't need to full-aged to open an account at a bank. you only need to be legally competent in Europe and as far as I know Paypal is a recognized bank, so they can't just make their own rules via AGB/ToS.
I have heard of people doing something similar in the US with Google, who doesn't bother even contesting but just pays up because it's cheaper than sending a real lawyer. Which is no guarantee for PayPal and the U.K., but still, worth a try.
No, it would be like you're employer sacking you because you have a criminal record for something serious but you had put 'No criminal record' on your CV/resume when you applied.
PayPal had known for a decade that he signed up before he was 18 years old, but did nothing about it. At the time they closed his account, he was well over 18 years old so why would it matter?
Besides 'a criminal record' and 'signed up for a service a bit before you were eligible' are hardly comparable.
Exactly. It's actually not like the ticking "no criminal record", it's like putting down "yes, a minor conviction" and the employer saying "well that's fine" until ten years later they fire you for having a conviction.
It's ridiculous. There has to be an expiry on things like this. And the most ridiculous thing is that they are holding onto those monies.
I'd take them to the small claims court. In the UK we're not going to settle for this shit and if they want to operate here then they need to take their shoes off at the door and show some damn respect. This is a civilised country and we have rules.
Except juveniles can't commit a crime in the united states, so s/a criminal record/no criminal record/ and see how unfair you statements sounds
> No, it would be like you're employer sacking you because you have no criminal record for anything serious but you had put 'No criminal record' on your CV/resume when you applied.
He did not commit financial fraud. He might have broken a TOS, but bringing up financial fraud is just silly.
Honestly, in many jurisdictions (except for the punishment happy ones) being under certain age, ie. 18 or 17 automatically makes you non-persecutable for a lot of the "soft" offenses. So even if you tried to claim opening a PayPal account is a financial fraud, it would likely never stand up in court.
If the TOS includes the terms (1) you certify that all information provided to us is accurate (2) if you breach the TOS you must stop using the product and (3) you certify that you are over 18.
Then your continued use after age 18 may in fact signify entering a contract, even though you were under 18 when you signed. It also may not. Capacity/consideration/intent to be bound are really tricky in this case.
A far better response from PayPal would've been to return the money to Mat, explain the issue to their customer and request that they create a legal account.
If every company assumed that every person with a discretion to their name was an undesirable customer, virtually none of us would be customers of any company.
It also makes you an infant and unable to contract for anything other than legal employment and "necessaries" (except with a next friend). Language may change from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but the upshot is that an account created while underage would not be legally valid, and transactions for anything other than necessaries become revocable pretty much at will.
What?! No it doesn't. Infants are under one year of age. An older teenager has much more legal, financial, and criminal self-determination and responsibility than an infant does.
There's all kinds of weird and different rules/laws from country to country.
For example in my country (Germany):
"Minors between 14 and 18 years are sentenced by juvenile justice. An adult between 18 and 21 years may still be sentenced by juvenile justice if considered mentally immature." [0]
This also means if the prosecution opens a court case against an individual that was less than 14 years of age at the time the crime was committed the criminal must be immediately dismissed although charges under private law can still be brought up (suing for damages etc.) and the parents can also possibly be sued for not supervising their children properly. [1]
Infant literally means someone younger than a year old though. The juvenile justice system that applies to teenagers is completely different, and does not apply to infants. Infants cannot be held liable for their actions at all because their brain isn't developed enough to know right from wrong, or really even what they're doing.
If ever there was a single shining example of how not to treat your customers, PayPal is it. Every year or two there is another story of a different arcane rule they have in place that is enforced with zero human consideration, oftentimes to deprive people access to their funds. They don't learn from their mistakes, nor acknowledge them in the first place. I can't think of another company that has drummed up such bad will in me (probably not even United.)
Learn from their mistakes? I think the biggest lesson has been that you can scam a small percentage of users out of their money, without any real impact. There's been so many stories about paypal stealing people's money, but their core business is still going strong.
PayPal is the poster child for startups with tons of funding which only way to make money is to take a regulated market and abuse it against said regulations. see: theranos, uber, airbnb, etc
CC, debit transfer, Stripe, Bitcoin or Monero are some internationally available options.
There are are probably local debit-card based payment processors available to you as well; iDeal is one such system that is very popular in the Netherlands, it lets you pay with any Dutch debit account just as easily as with PayPal. It's a system in that there are a bunch of companies offering access to it. AFAIK processing costs are around ~€0.10, irrespective of transaction size at least for transactions under €1000.
Because I haven't seen it suggested yet- give Square Cash a try. Transfers appear in your bank instantly and it's dead simple. Dropped paypal last year and haven't looked back.
You should definitely try steams bitcoin integration before you dismiss the possibility. Grab a bitcoin wallet on your phone, go buy $5 worth of bitcoin, and then use that $5 of bitcoin to buy $5 of steam credit.
It's a considerably smoother user flow than using a credit card, and it's just as fast. I think you'll be surprised and impressed.
First, given the track record of manufacturers with android security updates, I wouldn't install a bitcoin wallet on my phone.
Then, there is the problem with "buy $5 worth of bitcoin". Last time I checked, this was everything but trivial, at least here in Europe.
And finally, the last purchase I made with bitcoins on steam took more than 12 hours to get validated. I used the standard bitcoin fee of the bitcoin-qt client but it seems to be far from enough nowadays.
>And finally, the last purchase I made with bitcoins on steam took more than 12 hours to get validated. I used the standard bitcoin fee of the bitcoin-qt client but it seems to be far from enough nowadays.
So you know what the problem is, but you pretend that it's not your problem. If you use any modern bitcoin wallet, android or not, it'll automatically append a reasonable fee, and validate in about 2 seconds.
Just close your account if you have a PayPal account at all. They limit and freeze funds at random and good luck resolving it.
OP, You can refund the funds to the sender less Paypal's 30¢ cut, I believe. That might be the best way to get the money back to your friend, and then they can re-send it to you with something sane like Google Wallet.
Seconded. Paypal froze my account with $2K for no apparent reason. They did not reply to numerous emails. Their "upload documents to verify your identity" form literally did not work. They've deliberately made it easy to get your money frozen and deliberately made it difficult to rescue it. At every opportunity I insist to people not to use Paypal and I will use any alternative - including snail mailing checks - whenever possible.
We do business in several countries, and the US is the most backward - by far - for banking services. It's laughable that using a bit of posted paper (even if conveniently generated and sent by your bank) is even an option, let alone the recommended one.
I used Simple until someone cloned my debit card the day before I moved to California. Getting Simple to send a replacement card to my temporary address was virtually impossible. They make you submit two forms of proof you have a new address, there were like 7 options, and I couldn't provide any of them (bank statement, driver's license, utility bill, voter registration, etc.)
I opened a new account at a bank with a physical branch and walked out with a debit card. I don't plan on using an online bank ever again.
At the risk of sounding nitpicky, this isn't the only way. You can go into a post office and grab a yellow "change of address" card. Fill it out, sign it, and drop it in the letter box. Forwarding usually kicks in two business days later.
It's actually hidden in the new UI, there was no button that would let me do it, I managed to go back to settings and re-enable the classic UI, then in the view transaction details page I found the missing refund button.
I would be tempted to have my friend now send some small amount and then take PayPal to whatever the UK equivalent of small claims court is. PayPal would then have to spend money and time to deal with you.
The beauty there is you don't have to win, to win. A £5 dispute costs them more than you, when you get to control the venue.
I did think about contacting the financial ombudsman or similar to recoup the fees or something, but I thought hopefully an article that gets a few thousand readers might do more financial damage than a hushed away small claims court ruling.
> but I thought hopefully an article that gets a few thousand readers might do more financial damage
Once upon a time I shared this sentiment about PayPal, but history has shown me that people continue using them anyway. I mean, every person I talk to has personally experienced a PayPal horror story or knows someone who has experienced one first-hand, and they continue using PayPal anyway. Some feel they don't have a choice, others just don't care, but I no longer feel like making noise about the PayPal horror stories is going to have any impact on them, so I encourage you to contact the ombudsman/FCA regardless.
Contact the FCA in any case, I used to work for a bank and believe they charge the organisation per complaint whether upheld or not so can cost them time and money.
So I've kept off with getting a paypal account, but for many years I've paid for things through paypal, i.e. some webstore that uses paypal as their payment processer. I used to be able to do this without an account, but just a few weeks ago I tried buying something from a store, and the paypal page would simply not let me just enter my credit card information. It required me to either log in or create a new account.
I can't remember the last time I paid for something with paypal, so I don't know how long it's been like this, but it is certainly annoying that they're forcing people to use their service.
They have a limit on the amount you can spend overall with any particular credit card without a PayPal account. I want to say it's $2500 or somewhere around there. I ran into this problem a while back and it took some research to figure out why my card with funds was being declined.
Oh really? When I think about it, it is the same credit card I've used to pay for everything for many years. Next time I'll try to pay with my backup card and see if the UI is any different. Thanks for the tip.
Last time they froze my account (the only time actually), it was unfrozen the next day with a quick phone call and the lady was very comprehensive.
Apparently, that's the sort of thing that happens when you register your 10th credit card for the year. I guess I can understand the reason, even though it's annoying.
It's a major problem how dependent most online payment processing is on PayPal (or directly credit cards if you're "lucky", and occasionally Amazon's payment processing).
Aside from Bitcoin is there actually a real alternative?
OP & I were referring to companies paying (service) providers in Bitcoin; so if I deliver a content management system or 50000 routers to Walmart, can they pay me in Bitcoin?
I've heard OFX is pretty good for personal transfers between parties of different currencies. Not sure whether you can use it for sending money with the same currency though - I'm just looking at signing up now.
Definitely for accepting credit card payments for merchants, Stripe is a great way to go.
Forget fees, I once tried to buy something in the US from some stranger and he refused to give me his account number and accept a wire even if I paid for everything (and the sum was big enough that PP wouldn't be cheaper). The guy literally thought I want his number for some scam. "Only PayPal, please, it's secure, blah blah blah". Talk about culture shock.
It is useful to know that, in the US, if you have sufficient information to send a payment into an account you also have sufficient information to debit it. Americans are, accordingly, leery about giving out account numbers.
Americans are not historically leery about giving out checks but, fun fact, we put all the information needed to empty an account on every check.
Why? Long story; legacy systems rule the world. The industry's main defense is a) surveillance of use of accounts, b) reversing transactions which appear fraudulent, and c) aggressively prosecuting fraudsters where their identity can be readily ascertained.
The same is true in the UK, a direct debit instruction can be setup on an account using just the name, number and sort code, but it doesn't make us more wary, much in the same way that supplying one's home address is enough to take out lines of credit in that person's name
As far as I know, the ability to use direct debits is not given to everyone. You can't just start making direct debits just because you have a bank account.
My guess is that it's the same as elsewhere in the EU: Your bank will reverse the charge if you ask it to, the risk stays almost entirely with the payee/the payee's bank.
>> It is useful to know that, in the US, if you have sufficient information to send a payment into an account you also have sufficient information to debit it.
Wait, what? The only thing needed to send a payment is a target account number. So, if banks in US consider that enough info to DEBIT the account then something went terribly wrong there. In Europe, to take money out of the account you need to either
- go to the bank, and show your photo ID to prove that you're you.
- login to online transaction system and prove your identity by knowing the login password and one-time SMS password.
That's why many charity institutions simply put their account number on their website and ask for donations - there's zero risk someone will debit their account.
In the US, e-deposit of checks is a passable option to avoid fees.
Many banks will take a check deposit by scan or phone camera now, so you can just have someone write a paper check and send the image immediately and deposit it that way.
It's still pretty high-friction, not something you'd typically want to do with a customer, but a reasonable alternative to bank transfer if you don't want to pay the $50.
> In the US, e-deposit of checks is a passable option to avoid fees.
My bank (credit union) charges a $2 fee for each check I write, regardless of how or where it's deposited. Yes, it's cheaper than a bank transfer, but checks still aren't fee-free for everyone.
Weird, I knew some of the big corp banks did this for their lower tier accounts, but every credit union I've used has had free checking even on the basic no minimum balance accounts. TIL
Last i checked the android app refuses to run on hardware without nfc, even for the features that don't require it. Maybe it's an option if you have the right phone, or if it lets you do payments on desktop. (haven't tried the latter)
Good to know...I thought that the classic Wallet app went away entirely, as I recall being forced to "upgrade" it to Android Pay when it came out, and in the process lost the features I actually used, so didn't pay much attention after that.
I've transferred money between my Union Bank and USAA accounts multiple times for free. Wire transfers will get you, but if you do a regular transfer, it's usually free
Banks will often let you transfer between accounts you control for free. But it usually requires pre-validating control with some random-number-of-cent deposits (which take 3 business days, because ACH sucks).
Uk here - I can transfer amounts under 10k in under 2 hours without any fee, to any other uk bank. If I want to send more, it's about 20 pounds, and completed in a day. I can TransferWise money anywhere in Europe (not tested the US) for far less than those prices too.
Denmark here. November 21 2014 instant clearing 365/24/7 between danish banks via the Danish Central Bank was started. I can transfer money from bank A and have it be there on my account with bank B when I alt-tab over and refresh the browser with netbank B. Oh and its free(although a few banks have started charging a minor DKK 1 or DKK 10 fee for initiating the transfer, not mine though).
A wire takes place in real time, whereas an ACH goes into a batch which is cleared later, like a paper check.
If you want the funds transferred instantly and with certainty, use a wire and pay the fee for the real-time service.
If not, use an ACH (cheap or free). But be aware the funds won't show up for a day or two. And possibly never, if, for example, the sender's account has insufficient funds or doesn't exist.
yeah :( I've been putting off expunging it because it's still really useful, but I can also not help but think that it's only a matter of time till the make me regret using it
World First and any number of money transfer companies. I am not sure why there seems to be a constant mention of Transferwise on HN. They are not even close to the only companies doing what they do. It almost feels like they monitor HN to find an opportunity to recommend it. I don't have anything against them but it is odd how they are the only company that seems to get mentioned in stories like these.
They might but I am just a customer here. I have an account with VBCE Online, an FX company and yet I use Transferwise most of the time because it's cheaper thanks to the use of the middle rate. This, as far as I am aware, is pretty unique. Care to show me another such service? I ran the numbers https://www.reddit.com/r/hungary/comments/4kcp28/what_is_the... here.
They are pretty clear on what it costs to send money, I spent a few seconds clicking around on World First and couldn't find the information that Transferwise has on the very opening page: if you send 1000 CAD then the receiver gets... The only thing I found on World First was "The interbank rate [...] is not our offered rate or an indication of price. Call us to find out more." Why would anyone need to call ? It's a horribly inefficient way to use my time.
Also it's really, really easy to use here in Canada where they make you log into your ebank with your credentials -- horrible security? well, that's what sofort does too -- and that's it. I never have used a simpler setup.
In other ways it is simple: when wiring money into Hungary I do not even need to bother with IBAN, local bank account numbers just work. That's how everyone banks there so no problems for the receiver to get hold of the magic numbers -- or for me to convert theirs.
So why we shouldn't recommend a system that is both ridiculously easy to use and cheaper than any alternatives at the same time? Yes, pick two out of easy, cheap and fast applies as in Transferwise is slower -- but it usually takes less than a week and SWIFT also takes a few business days and so I never really had a problem or complaint with the speed. If I had any complaints I wish it had a feature where you entered how much money the receiver gets and it calculates how much should you send.
I can't think of a legal reason for this policy. Normally, one must be 18 years old to enter into a contract, so the policy of preventing users under 18 from using the service is rational. However, if a user under 18 turns 18 years old during the contract, the contract is "ratified" and becomes valid and enforceable. It's as if they were 18 years old all along. So, there is no legal reason for Paypal to terminate accounts for people who enter into the contract under 18 yet turn 18 during the contract period.
> I can't think of a legal reason for this policy. Normally, one must be 18 years old to enter into a contract, so the policy of preventing users under 18 from using the service is rational.
Depending on where you are, I think this is not entirely true. IANAL, but I think that in many/most US states, contracts with minors are not presumptively void, they are voidable at the option of the minor (or their guardian, I imagine). Of course, this is a pretty big downside for their counterparties, so it makes contracts with minors pretty unappealing, obviously.
This isn't true in the UK. Contracts with children are valid (although there are gotchas). Besides which, is signing up for PayPal a contract in the first place?
yes -- I'm not a lawyer but in the united states there's case law ruling that clickwrap / TOS are enforceable contracts in some cases. (subject to standard limitations from UCC, contracts of adhesion, and rules of forming a contract).
Apologies, I've commented a few times on this thread, I've managed to get most of the money, minus fees, back. Whilst there's no option in the modern UI, if you set your account back to use the classic UI, the refund button appears in the transaction details page, I refunded my friend and we're moving away from PP.
Why did you use Paypal rather than a bank transfer in the first place? Is your friend Mat from overseas? If so, can I recommend Transferwise for overseas payments.
I don't know about "fantastic", those fees are astronomical by any measure (3% where my bank would be free and an extra 3% on top of that for currency exchange spead where the bank is less than half) but it's often the only available alternative.
For transfers between "friends and family," there aren't any fees, which probably drives a non-negligible number of account creations. That said, if PayPal thinks your transaction is not between "friends and family" (despite being marked so), they won't hesitate to freeze those funds while they investigate. A couple years ago, I used to send my portion of rent to my roommate via PayPal, and they froze the funds once on him. Surprisingly, he was able to get them unfrozen pretty quickly.
That free transfer system in combination with being a "safer" payment option offered by some merchants makes PayPal pretty attractive to the average customer. And -- most of the horror stories come from merchants, not customers. Even though I try to avoid PayPal on principle, it's hard for me to convince my friends to care.
Yep. I was primarily thinking about friends / family here, thanks for clarifying that they are free. Just used one for an international transfer of cash into family member's bank; the turnaround was significantly quicker than using my bank, essentially delivering same day availability of funds in the bank.
It ended up being cheaper than using my bank also.
"I can't think of a legal reason for this policy."
Wouldn't it be that you committed financial fraud? Paypal initially allowed you to send/receive payments purely based on the fact that you stated you were an age you were not.
The Paypal signup form does not let you signup unless the DOB given, shows you're over the age of 18.
This guy lied about his age and then had the audacity to write a blog post about how bad Paypal is.
He shows he's willing to lie and also willing to commit financial fraud (as that is what it's considered.) - I for one, am very glad someone like him HAS been banned from Paypal.
Everyone is welcome to their own opinion, but I find it odd that you'd be 'very glad' someone like me has been banned from PayPal? As the top comment points out, surely it would have been fine once I turned 18 anyway. To be honest, I can't even remember much about setting the account up, it's changed primary emails 3 times and I actually did think today I'm sure originally it was tied to a family email from our first internet connection, and my parents used it - anyway, it's not the point.
All this aside, I've now sorted my personal accounts, I've had a ton of messages now from people that are closing up theirs for good, or at least restarting their accounts to protect themselves - so I'm glad I've been banned too.
I'm not sure you're being serious. Do you carefully read the EULA or TOS of everything you pay for, line by line? Do you consult a lawyer about how to parse the legalese? If not, you've almost certainly also committed fraud of the same degree.
Unless you can prove that "it literally stop[ped] you from signing up" in 2007, then you have no credibility.
I remember signing up to PayPal in 2003 at the age of 14 without lying about my age. I did a lot of the things OP did, web dev, hosting costs, etc.
These days, I only use PP (all fresh accounts, for anyone at PayPal reading this with your ban hammer out, put it away won't you?) when I have to, and even then, through gritted teeth.
It's an arbitrary distinction. I don't think many people would have an issue with anyone saying they were 18 to get an online account. This isn't the same as lying with the intent to cause harm.
It would have been simpler for everyone if PayPal had given him an option to agree to new TOS now they've picked the discrepancy.
Anyway, children can have bank accounts and own real estate and shares. Having a PayPal account at the age of 17 is less offensive than farting in an elevator.
Had the same issue last month after reciving a $3000 bug bounty. PP limited my account I uploaded a copy of my id, bing -> banned.
However: After calling them, they told me to create a new account and verify it with the CC and bankaccount (that were in old acc). And as soon everything was verified they trasfered the money to the new account.
So apparently it seems not to be that difficult to get your money.
I'm trying to get $1,500 out of PayPal and I haven't found a way to talk to somebody at PayPal who was able/willing to help me with that (account got blocked, I uploaded all the paperwork, got told that they will hold the money for 180 days but that was more than 1 year ago).
Had the same experience, except when I opened the new account, they would not verify my bank account, because it was still used on the old one. That was the point where I have had enough and stopped using them.
I only ever use Paypal as a wrapper around credit card transactions for merchants I trust enough to purchase from, but not necessarily enough to handle my credit card information directly. I can't say I've ever had a problem using them that way.
I'd worry about debit card fraud, not credit card fraud. I think the credit industry's managed to trick people into treating credit card numbers like very sensitive information whereas in reality they're not for consumers; they only are for the companies.
Having a CC number canceled and a new one issued can be a hassle. That's why I still want my CC info to be kept secret and safe. I'm not really worried about CC fraud otherwise.
I use it this way for debit card transactions. I never receive money through PayPal, I don't keep money in my "wallet" there, and my bank account is not linked. Although I made my account when I was 15 or 16, I should be alright. The worst that could happen is I might be unable to pay for a few things.
Now that I think about it, I'm not sure an account is even necessary for my use-case. Maybe I can get away with just deleting it.
For a lot of people that is a pain. The old PAN is blocked and things that depend on it (and you might have forgotten about) cannot draw money from it anymore.
Square Cash is absolutely fantastic, and extraordinarily easy to use. The mobile app is great. You can even send money to someone who doesn't even have a Square Cash account yet, by simply emailing them, cc'ing cash@square.com, and putting the dollar amount in the Subject: line. That's it.
Square is just as bad as PayPal, IME. Lots of arbitrary rules, clients unable to pay me, funds withheld for no good reason, etc. I'll stick with bank transfers (ACH) or Bitcoin, personally.
What is the threat model you envision with giving Facebook your credit card number? Transactions are reversible by calling up your credit card company, and Facebook, for what little reputation it has, still has more of a reputation to uphold and more internal security controls than the local diner where you physically hand your card to a waiter and let them take it out of your sight.
Facebook is an ad company. Credit card companies collect and sell purchase history. Giving them your cc number explicitly links your purchase history to your facebook account. Realistically they've probably already made the jump using your name and DOB, but at least they had to work for it...
If you're paying for things through Facebook they don't need to contact your credit card company to get a list of payments they've facilitated, for obvious reasons.
Given that the best minds of this generation are working on making advertising more efficient, would it be surprising that such information would help Facebook?
1. Banking industry has some legal requirements. More than Facebook does, for sure.
2. I If you want my purchase history, you can subpoena a bank for it. Whereas I wouldn't be surprised with "App Permissions" to allow to view 'previous purchases'. 90% of people wouldn't know/care.
3. I don't want, nor need every account under the sun hooked up to a SPOF. In this case, it's Fb. That also applies to Google as well.
4. "If you're not paying, you're the product." adage applies. If you want my banking details, you can bloody pay me for that.
5. And, you need not apply if you're: transgender, gay, member of Antifa, or other groups Facebook is discriminating against or has active people causing "reporting storms" to disconnect you from your account. Read about "God" page recently disabled over a "quit funding war and start finding social services" comment. That earned them a 30 day ban, most likely automated.
> There are alternatives to PayPal, it’s just become so ingrained in to online life that it can be easy to forget that.
This is very true, but I like to think of how predominant MySpace and Hotmail were at one time. Someone will come along and do it better. Stripe, PaymentSpring, heck even Bitcoin are all potential disruptors here.
I think the days of PayPal's dominance are numbered.
100% agree. For Americans I don't find a reason to use PayPal and for other countries they can use Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies without dealing with the risk of freezing your account.
Indeed, I found PayPal simple to use as a merchant outside USA but now there are more alternatives.
So in this case where a friend's deposit is being held for ransom, could that friend simply chargeback or file a fraud claim against PayPal? After all, PayPal has stolen their money which was intended for another person (the author in this case).
I've had similar bad experiences with venmo. Apparently I had created an account a couple years ago that I forgot about so I created a new one to receive a payment from a friend. A day after I received the money and had it set to transfer to my bank account they closed both of my accounts citing some rule in their terms of service saying one account per lifetime. And now I can't ever have another venmo account. That $500 also never got to me and never got returned to the sender. Just overall a scam of a company.
They stopped "doing business" with me out of the blue.
I call them up and asked why and they said I need a subpoena to get the reason.
I call them back saying I have a retainer so what do I do to get the reason with my retainer on hand?
Seeing I was serious, the operator told me the reason as if he's letting me on a secret. The reason being I'm associated to somebody that owe them money.
Yeah seriously. Their reason for not doing business with me was that I know somebody that owe them money but they won't tell me who.
I asked if they can remove all my info. The dude told me it's secured because paypal use SSL. I wanted to to tell him that SSL is for connection encryption not data encryption but at this point I'm done with this bullshit ordeal.
2 months later paypal got hacked.
I only use paypal to buy chinese clothing over ebay since I'm a small guy and it's hard to get clothing in USA with my size.
If you are in Australia and PayPal every pull anything remotely similar, contact the financial ombudsman. They are extremely good at putting Paypal back in line.
In some cases they fine financial institutions who don't resolve quickly enough.
> will now just have to move to my credit cards directly
One of the reasons I like paypal is that it provides a great amount of control over who I pay and when and how much. I can login and reasonably easy see all of my MRC subscriptions, and cancel them as appropriate. Technically possible with credit cards directly, but not as nice.
Best of both worlds right now is privacy.com for me, they generate credit card #s on the fly and provide that same level of vision and control into where the money is going with exactly 100% less bullshit and 100% less scumbag tactics.
If you're moving payments away from paypal (and you should) I would suggest considering moving them to privacy.com instead of directly.
I've not heard of privacy.com, but I'll definitely take a look. This post has been useful for a lot of people, and it's been great to find a load of new useful services.
Privacy.com does not load. After a quick search, I think you meant abine.com?
Thanks for sharing, anyway. I'll definitely give a try on their service. Hope it works for non-US cards too, but I find it unlikely. But $3 per month for virtual cards seems too good to be true. I'll take a closer read on the tos once I get to a desktop (unrelated, but am I the only one who can't stand to do a thing on mobile devices?)
Off topic, but just three days ago I finally ditched my smartphone and bought a $39 feature phone. I feel liberated. I still keep a cheap Android phone at home to use some 2FA apps, but it doesn't go with me when I go out.
PayPal told me I was 'violating sanctions against Iran' - an accusation I think I will never understand because I mostly used PayPal to buy stuff from HumbleBundle at the time.. - and upon showing them id they froze my account because I was < 18. It's been years since, and my account is still frozen, although I've attempted to get it back a couple of times.
As someone who uses PayPal on a multiple times per week basis and who has never had any issues, this type of story (as well as the general sentiments of many of the comments) makes me worry that my time will come soon enough.
Can anyone recommend a service like PayPal that would be good for online transactions between individuals, but that also allows for credit card use? Fees are to be expected, it's just that I have t been able to find another service that will allow CC. I'm really hopeful that Google wallet will begin to allow CC use sometime soon.
In Canada we have Interact e-transfers. For about $1 you can send money between any two banks via email or sms. The fee is frustrating, especially when you want to pay someone back for lunch or something small, but it is very convenient and basically everybody knows how to use it at this point.
Yeah these are great, they've pretty much made cheques obsolete. Need to pay the cleaning lady or lawn guy? Just email money transfer, no one wants to go to the bank or take a photo of a cheque.
I even get paid for many contracts via this method, but it can be annoying that some banks have lower daily limit, and even more surprisingly my personal daily limit is like twice as high as a business bank account's limit (for certain banks), but it's like $1.50 to send the money and people just do it over the course of 2 days if it's over the limit. Wire transfers are too crazy expensive in Canada as well.
Also easiest way to send money to yourself if your business account is at a different bank and you don't have cheques or want to get robbed carrying cash!
someone who asks you for that $5 back, is always that person that will borrow $500 from you and never pay back, why spend a dollar for such a small amount.
How do you explain Bitcoin and actually how to use it to a normal person. It's a niche "currency" and not something you could expect your typical non-tech person to use. You might as well tell someone to pay you in put options or bearer bonds.
One major problem I see is how to handle the case when person submitting money later denies making the payment (always an option when you pay with credit card and I guess quite plausible if everything takes places online). Unless the payment service holds the money in escrow for quite a while, they might end up in quite difficult situation having sent the money forward, but not getting the payment from credit card company.
PayPal seems to manage this, but on the other hand they don't hesitate to block the accounts for whatever reason. Sometimes I wonder if this behavior is the reason they have survived in this business.
You are a programmer in PayPal. The manager tells you to program "close accounts that are created when under 18". And the programmer cannot complys.
When I say to my manager that this thing won't work etc he imlies that I'm smartsass jerk. Thus I no longer argue with him. I don't suggest anything to him anymore. I do exactly what he says. Probably this is the same case with PayPal too.
I was able to find out the month by phoning PayPal and asking. However this may not be an option for those who do not want to raise their head above the parapet.
To be explicit for anyone who gets confused with date-based math: your "joined in" year minus the year of your birth needs to be at least 19 to be safe. If it shows 18, you may have been 17 instead of 18 when you joined.
What an epic failure on PayPal's part. Is there some banking law that I'm unaware of that would cause them to take such drastic actions? It sounds like the OP is definitely above the age of 18 now too, so why would PayPal suddenly decide to yank the rug out from under him?
It'll be interesting to see if there's a follow up.
I'm 26 now, almost 27. I think it was the "We'll contact you within 180 days" thing that pissed me off the most, because it's just such a crap, random number that I likely agreed to in their ToS.
As a partial update, after spending 30 minutes clicking every page of the dashboard, it was obvious that money was stuck, and my friend couldn't dispute it as it was sent as a gift, as it wasn't payment for work. Luckily, if you head back to your settings and flick back to the old web UI whilst it's still available, the refund button shows up in the view transaction details page, and it let me refund it. I lost the £20 or so in fees, but at least I can pay some unexpected bills more easily now.
It's not random. It's the standard period for holding funds of a terminated merchant account with virtually any bank or credit card processor in the world. That's because it's the maximum chargeback period for most credit cards. If they release funds before that date, someone who paid you in the past could reverse that payment, and PayPal would have no funds of yours to cover it, leaving them on the hook for your loss.
If they're saying you can't agree to the ToS when you're under 18, should they be able to hold on to the monies for 180 days because that's what the ToS said when you agreed to them?
Minors can enter contracts, and they are binding upon the minor until and unless the minor voids the contract. As he's no longer a minor, he would not be able to void it now, so he's bound by its terms.
> Is there some banking law that I'm unaware of that would cause them to take such drastic actions?
I'd say there are at least 3, don't even need to read the article.
If we really want to search all regulations. We should be about to find at dozens to justify the action, without too much issue.
I have learnt 3 things from my time on the other side:
1) When you dig deeper, for 90% of complaints, the actions were justified.
2) A percentage of these, ranging from little to quite sizeable depending on the issue, is assimilable to complete fraud.
3) There are tons of regulations in finance. From annoying rules per good/country to anti-money laundering, including plain theft and anti-terrorism supporting scheme.
4) Companies do what they do because of regulations, the regulations themselves are there because the world is a mess.
Not sure about UK laws, but my (limited) understanding of US law is that a minor lacks the legal capacity to sign a contract (i.e. agree to TOS). I suspect that's the legal reasoning that's caused PayPal to adopt this policy.
PayPal could and should find a better way to handle transitioning people who, out of necessity, lied about their age when they first signed up. Was signing up under false pretenses a form of fraud? Probably, but it's a form of fraud that's essentially benign and is so pervasive, online and off, that it's just stupid to treat it as such.
Terms of service, and conditions, are part of a contract they are not a contract in and of itself.
You signed the contract when you started your account. Which, is why they want you to start a new account so that you will sign a new contract with them.
> Not sure about UK laws, but my (limited) understanding of US law is that a minor lacks the legal capacity to sign a contract (i.e. agree to TOS).
Usually in the US, minors can form contracts just fine, but such contracts are, prior to execution, generally voidable at will by the minor. As a result, people prefer not to enter into contracts with minors except in situations where voidability doesn't create a significant risk for the other party.
OTOH, there is not a lot of reason for a the fact that the other party was a minor when entering the contract to be a problem after the party reaches majority, so while it may be a technical past ToS violation, it doesn't make sense to make a big deal about it if you didn't catch it while they were a minor. It's just creating bad customer (and public) relations to no benefit.
True, but in some areas and under many circumstances, 17 can be considered an adult. It's not like the OP was 12 and trying to circumvent COPPA or something like that.
It seems like PayPal went bananas applying a peculiar policy. They want to be a bank, but you can be 12 and still have a bank account.
Perhaps PayPal should/could just ask the OP to get a signed permission slip from the parents to cover this. :-)
They had Paypal Student before, where your account would be linked to your parent's account. But they shut that down recently, with no way to reactivate or unlink the account, and you're unable to reuse your email when making another account.
I had a Student account, and when I turned 18 they seemed surprised that I would want to disconnect it from my parents' account and turn it into a regular PayPal account. (I had some back-and-forth with their support, who eventually explained that my parents had to cancel my account so I could sign up for a regular account with the same email address.) This seems like the sort of thing you'd at least have a KB article about, if not an automated process, given that every single user of the service is going to want to do this eventually.
PayPal is unfortunately still pretty central to eBay & I'm a payment geek so I've made a new account. Glad I didn't have any funds frozen though, that must suck.
eBay is the biggest heartache for me, I do a lot with older cars and motorcycles, so buying/selling parts is routine for me and will be a pain to sort out.
While it’s good that the author got their money back at least, if it was invalid for the author to have an account for 10 years it was also presumably invalid for PayPal to take any transaction fees during that period. Might be an interesting avenue for small claims.
While it’s good that the author got their money back at least
Did you miss the following? It was toward the bottom, but it was in BOLD:
My only hope is that within 6 months, I will get a mystery email from PayPal letting me know that they might be willing to let me have my money.
Or is the submitter also the author? In which case, yes, he does post elsewhere here that he reversed the payment into his account. (Less fees, of course!) If so, it's unfortunate he didn't update the article itself with this new information.
I've completely blocked PayPal out of my life. I've been screwed over by them so many ways over the past 15 years it's impossible to count. I refuse to do any business which requires their services.
Same here. Never. Again. It only took once, but that was enough.
I'm actually surprised that people are just discovering how much PayPal sucks as a service this late in the game. They have had verifiable horror stories of seizing people's money and property for well over a decade.
I've skipped purchasing things that I really wanted when the only option for payment was PayPal. I always send a nice message to the seller to let them know exactly why I decided not to purchase their product / service. Surprisingly few respond, so I guess they're doing great with their current setup.
Snarkly I will mention that this is the same company that 'HN darling' Elon Musk was part of prior to his current life. Everything that everyone hates about paypal existed back then.
I also find this interesting. Musk's startup history is often cited as evidence of his serial success, but it's hardly mentioned that the startup that earned his fortune is widely detested as a "necessary evil".
almost no American banks support either, there are extremely limited bank to bank transfer options in the USA. You can do a wire transfer but you are looking at $50+ in fees
This exact same thing happened to me, though I was thankfully allowed to withdraw my money and open a new account with the same bank details.
Call your local PayPal support hotline and explain to them what happened, I was immediately escalated to higher level support who had me provide details of why the money was in my account, which they verified and then unlocked the withdrawal and bank accounts. Still had to make a new account, but that's a small price to pay!
I was tempted to call, but I just managed to refund the money (sans fees) to my friend and we'll use something else now. I'm not going to call or contact them at all, I'm no longer interested in using their services. I'm just going to unlink my account from everything and spread some well-deserved hate within a useful PSA.
What you've likely observed is the "overheated discussion detector" algorithm kicking in: this submission has received a relatively large number of comments in a short period of time. If you have a concern or questions, I recommend contacting the mods via the Contact link in the footer.
Do people not realize PayPal has phone support? It's not some black hole of support. Just call them up like a normal company... they've been helpful for any odd issues we've had in the past.
The phone support is absolutely terrible. After spending 15 minutes on hold, you get connected with script readers with indecipherable foreign accents, and if they can't help you because it's not on their script (yes, I know how to use a web site, here's why the steps you gave me won't work), they advise you to open a case in the Resolution Center just to get you off the phone -- where I have one pending now for over six months (I paid an eBay seller who didn't ship me my item and whose account got banned by eBay shortly after I purchased it, so I can't open a claim on eBay to get a refund -- as a buyer, the UI for opening an eBay claim is completely inaccessible if a seller's account is banned. PayPal insists it's an eBay problem and I should talk to eBay, eBay insists it is a PayPal problem and that I should talk to PayPal; it's deadlocked). If you mention the word "eBay" at all to PayPal on the phone, they immediately transfer you to eBay (and vice versa). Classic game of "pass the buck." At one point, I managed to stump the PayPal script reader (my unique situation wasn't on the script), so they just transferred me to another T1 agent. There's zero recordkeeping at all (likely no ticketing system), so nobody knows anything at all about my case so it's like I'm talking to them for the first time any time I'm talking to a new person.
They definitely have a ticketing system, and they do have support that knows what they're doing. Maybe it's just business support or something? We haven't run into issues like this when we call.
I'm using the normal customer service number 1 (888) 221-1161 that you get just by Googling for it. If you know some other way to get actual support, please do share. I want my money back!
Until then, I'll believe it when I see it (extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence).
I'll completely admit, I didn't use the phone service this time, purely because I've called it before. After a ton of verification, they just want you to use the resolution center. You can arrange for someone senior to call you back, but as they think 180 days for access to your money is acceptable, I'm not sure how long I'd be waiting for a call from someone who likely couldn't help me anyway.
Also, in Europe you can just do a SEPA wire transfer. It's free with all reasonable banks, can be done from the online banking interface and takes only one business day.
I'm 30s and living in SEA, opening PayPal with CitiBank card and provided proofs (scan of ID and bank statements) then they immediately closed my account. They just stated that my info wasn't met their standards. So fine, I don't use PayPal otherwise.
If you opened your PayPal account at all, close it now and open another for the next payment. Rumor has it that PP cares much more about not pissing off new customers than the old ones.
This works pretty well for me ever since my first account had been locked for bullshit reasons when I needed it most, of course with the money locked inside. Thankfully it was almost nothing, but thank you PP for reminding me to never keep anything of value in there.
Granted, I only use PP when I absolutely must, which is no more than maybe once a year, so setting and tearing down these accounts is no big deal. I traditionally select "poor customer service" and "worry about security" as the reason I quit :)
I too started a paypal account when I was underage with mother's permission, help, and her checking account attached so I could sell thrift store finds on ebay. I've been with them over 10 years and never used another payment service. Uhg.
As much as I dislike PayPal, I would never want to trade it for Bitcoin. All it takes is one zero-day exploit for all of my funds to disappear at once without a trace. Any purchase I would make has zero protection and zero recourse for recovering funds if I'm ripped off. No, thanks. I just want something like PayPal, but that is run by people who have empathy and care about providing a good experience.
It's not as easy as you think to just have bitcoins stolen from you, especially if you know what you're doing. You're more likely to just forget your password or something.
And as for zero purchase protection, you can use escrow services for significant purchases.
I don't use bitcoin, so I might be missing something, but don't you have to transfer funds from the cold wallet to your device at some point, and doesn't that mean that any malware waiting on your device could just grab the whole thing at that exact moment?
In any case, even if you could secure the wallet, it still doesn't address the fact that once the funds are sent, they're not recoverable; I think it's unreasonable to expect a payment system with no rollback mechanism to go mainstream.
It should be possible to generate a transaction on a secure system and only move that to the networked system.
The transaction data would only be useful for the specific transaction, it couldn't be used to move funds to addresses not in the transaction or to move additional funds between the addresses, etc.
It'd be a glorious pain in the ass to do it, but it is possible.
> don't you have to transfer funds from the cold wallet to your device at some point
You can use a hardware wallet. I do. All of the cryptography takes place on the hardware wallet device, and there is only a small, well-defined interface between the wallet device and the computer.
I use a Trezor[1], and like it. A Ledger Nano S[2] is also good (a bit more button-clicking required on the device, but improved Ethereum support - it integrates with Mist with no additional setup required).
The value of Bitcoin is based on the collective faith of the network. With a 0day that faith is destroyed and those cold storage Bitcoins hit $0 just like any fiat currency.
They closed my account (Ireland) in 2011, many phonecalls emails later they won't tell me why, I looked around back then and discovered bitcoin @4$, in hindsight my little bitcoin pile and PayPal induced curiosity was a positive, portion of the coins I haven't spent by now are worth into 6 figures now, so thank you shitpal
I might one day soon lodge complaint with data ombudsman if PayPal refuse to handover data stored on me
Six figures as in at least $100,000? Start the ombudsman process on Monday? And set a timer for turning it over to a lawyer. They can send a nastygram that'll should get it the proper attention. This is larceny if it's willful. Don't wait.
> I’m not really sure what half a year of holding on to my money will help PayPal achieve?
If they have a pile of similar money (likely, by the stories we hear), then they earn interest, and may (IANAA) be able to point to that cash as an "asset" in situations where they need to show assets.
No, that's illegal. A financial institution cannot represent customers' assets as its own. Those are not company assets, they're liabilities (because they're not owned, they're owed).
Seriously vote with your money and just close it. I just did. More and more big companies think they can treat customers however they like. Paypal just seems to be a frontrunner. I just voted and closed Paypal. At least in Germany we got many other options.
Paypal just cancelled my PP CC because I was late with payment twice. They autocancel it. I have looked into why I was late and realized that PP failed to process my payment. I asked them how come a failure on their end causes this but tey never replied.
Is there a way to find the precise age of your paypal account retroactively? It says mine was created the year of my 18th birthday, and I'm sure I did it all above-board, but it'd be nice to have it confirmed.
Update: It looks like you can get some day/month number if you check your account limits at https://www.paypal.com/de/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_lift-limits if you still have any, and combine them with the year it actually displays in the account settings. Makes me feel better at least.
Yeah, looks like my mail backlog for that account falls a few years short. I guess I didn't know about IMAP back then, or had weird ideas about data retention. :/
I close and reopen a PayPal account for every individual PayPal transaction I (rarely) need to make. It's a hassle, but I see no alternative if I don't want the account-based "features".
Thanks for the heads up! I normally only use PayPal for purchases, but I looked up my email logs and realized I did create it when I was 17. it was easy enough to close my account and open another.
I wish I'd known prior so I could have done the same, I've spent all day having to try and transfer accounts for hosting and so on. At least it'll help others avoid the same, takes away some of PayPal's 'get out of jail free' cards and maybe convinces a few people to stop funding them!
I signed up for PayPal (and eBay) on my 18th birthday, before I even got dressed and went downstairs to eat breakfast.
I'm still worried that they might want to block me though, because I have more than one account. PayPal accounts must be linked to a bank account in the same country. So I now have different PayPal accounts in the UK, US, New Zealand, Korea, and Taiwan.
My parents had always been helping me buy things online. I lived in the middle of nowhere, so online shopping was my only way to buy things I wanted. The freedom to do this by myself without asking them every time was a huge step for me, coming of age. If you're American, I guess it's like driving a car for you. (I still can't drive).
Yeah. Paypal are plain street robbers. Not only they charge like you a church, but they have awful support considered that you trust them with your money. Unfortunately as a freelancer I had to use them, but I moved asap to a bank solution. Today that so many fintech startups are there, there is no reason to use them.
It was long obvious to me that PayPal is one of those "good while it lasts" entrprises.
As in, you should factor in from the day one that they might stop working with you at any random moment. They never contributed towards any other image.
(I wonder if you can sue them in locales where they're legally a bank)
Banks really aren't that much better. My employer is based in the US, and it took around 3 weeks for their bank to setup the wire transfer to pay me here in Europe.
As such they sent my first pay cheque via Paypal. As it was a large amount my account was limited, but after uploading the documents and a quick phone call (their phone support are a lot better than their email and chat support), my funds were unfrozen.
I've managed to recoup most of the money (minus fees, after 30 minutes of digging and switching to the classic UI), I'm not interested in using PayPal anymore. The good thing about it being on HN/Medium and getting some views is hopefully I'll save a few people the same hassle.
Hopefully between virtual credit card providers, invoicing providers for b2c like klarna, cryptochains, challenger banks like monzo... one of them will land PayPal in hot water, it's about damn time, they are one of the most toxic companies online.
But all the security risks and complications are still borne by someone, presumably the company doing the transaction.
Both users need to trust that company, so they don't gain anything by the use of bitcoin. They in fact lose money because of the extra transaction fee, and possibly more in conversion fees/inefficiencies.
Oh and there's privacy loss too from putting it on the blockchain.
The only 'benefit' is that there's a sticker saying "now with bitcoin!". No party involved gains anything.
Right. The company would take the place of paypal and users would be aware that their transactions are being executed via an instantaneous bitcoin purchase and sale.
PayPal's customer contract forces arbitration. Although you can opt out within 30 days after sign-up. That has to be done by paper mail, to make it maximally inconvenient.
In the image of the email you got from them it looks like they are telling you to create a new account. You can't do that and have them xfer over the money to the new account?
Can we shorten this to if you have a paypal account close it? Who wants to send money to a company that may or may not actually let you access your own money?
I would really like to see amount of customers who have no problems with PP against customers who had. That would be the best, objective and simple analysis.
At this point I cannot hold any sympathy for people in tech getting screwed over by PayPal.
We have all read the horror stories and, if you're still using them, you've got no one else to blame but yourself. At which point you will write your own horror story with the faint hope that it goes viral and forces PayPal to make things right.
This is specially true for someone who, like OP, immediately liquidises the asset. Pick a digital currency, any currency.
Why does anybody use paypal anymore? Go buy litecoin or ethereum. You can then send anybody anywhere money in an instant. If you afraid of volatility not going your way, buy bitcoin -- its more stable.
Sure, cryptocurrency is not stable in value yet... but its getting better -- fast.
The reality is as PayPal is one of the oldest payment companies, their vast feature coverage covers so much more use cases. It probably has the most extensive international support out of any payment processor, it can be used for programmatic payouts and handles 1099 forms or other tax forms by default.
It also means they have a lot of legacy APIs, complicated overlapping features. However one thing they should be fixing, but they aren't, is their terrible customer service. Their product should work for all their customers, and if it doesn't, they should be bearing the cost of making it work with decent customer service.
I wanted to end the article with 'Fuck PayPal' but I felt it was implied by that point.
I've spent my entire Saturday so far logging in to things and updating them to use credit cards. Unfortunately there is one thing so far I'm struggling to use without PayPal, but I've contacted them and will hopefully resolve that one.
What's even more annoying is I could use the PayPal account of my other half for now, but she thinks she opened hers around 16/17 too so I'm not taking that risk.
I bet his practice of "share money with friends and family" looks shady. I mean who sends a friend 300 bucks with a 19 dollar fee. If you do a lot of that it probably looks like drug dealing or something. Last time I bummed a few hundred from family or friends: never.
I do. I.e. my wife's sister helped my then-girlfriend-now-wife to pay for part of her living expenses when she studied. Now we, as a way of paying it forward help out her younger brother at college in similar fashion. And because sometimes I had to send him money across country border, it would look quite similar to "300 bucks with 19 dollar fee".
> I’m not really sure what half a year of holding on to my money will help PayPal achieve
It doesn't help them. If it were possible they would complete every transaction with minimal fuss.
The reason transferring money is so difficult is due to governments who wish to prevent capital flight, "laundering", etc. Paypal fought against this intensely early on.
My traditional bank has fewer restrictions on money movement and far better customer service when further verification is needed than Paypal. They have to comply with the same regulations.
PayPal does sometimes hold funds for those reasons, but they also hold them for their own, unrelated reasons. Is there something about this case that looks OFAC (or similar) related?
