PayPal is updating their polity and it is not going to be a user-friendly one. The update is neatly hidden on their website and only accessible to logged-in users.

If you do nothing, there is what PayPal will have you sign:

1) You cannot sue PayPal, you can only go through arbitration. 2) You cannot be part of any class action claim agains PayPal. 3) You can only fight against PP individually.

To opt-out, you have to submit a written letter, via a postal office.

Full PDF copy of the update available here, in case the links breaks - http://sctz.co/c1

I heard PayPal wants to be likable by their customers. This update is certainly not helping the case.

So, FWIW, specifically about your #1, this change also states that PayPal cannot sue you either. It also states that this arbitration, apparently in either direction, will reside in your county: this will not happen if you choose to sue PayPal, as you will both be dragged to Delaware.

In fact, what you often actually want out of such court actions is to get everyone to agree to arbitration, as it will be faster and cheaper: it ends up being common to use continued presence in court to simply ratchet up the fees until the other guy breaks down and agrees to arbitration.

For a normal person, the result of this would then suck: attempting to sue PayPal will be extremely expensive, will involve having lawyers in Delaware (and possibly having to go there yourself), and, best case, is going to end up in arbitration anyway... bothersome enough to just be prohibitive.

Meanwhile, for a normal person, you are dealing with small amounts of money; the result is that you will likely be attempting to use small claims court anyway, and this policy change continues to let you (and not PayPal!) do this. The limit on small claims court in Delaware is one of the highest in the country: $15,000.

That said, I agree that this is pretty crummy: we have our legal system setup the way it is for a reason (although, in practice, it ends up being often quite broken). I am seriously going to consider opting out of this; but, in the end I believe that I may actually just determine it is beneficial for me and accept it.

Also, the change that prevents you from being part of a class action lawsuit sucks (but, /that/ said, class action lawsuits normally involve individual participants getting a few dollars... it is hardly worth it for most people to bother being part of a class action).

How is this any different form all the other companies that adopted the same Anti-Class action policies in the last few months? Whats so special about Paypal compared to Microsoft, Apple, Google, Steam, etc, that we need this posted 5 times in the last two weeks, and also constantly making it out to be so much worse than everyone else. I know everyone loves hating on Paypal but this is kinda stupid.

Well this is different and unsettling: "Calls to You; Mobile Telephone Numbers. Section 1.10 is being updated to state: By providing PayPal a telephone number (including a mobile telephone number), you agree to receive autodialed and prerecorded message calls at that number..."

Automated phone calls to a number you provide is one of the ways that paypal authenticates your identity. Welcome to the internet, where anyone can be anyone!

That or advertisements.

Paypal is pretty evil, but I can't think of a single successful company, ever, who started spamming their own customer's mobiles

Yeah, my sense the user backlash from unsolicited mobile ad spam would even hurt a giant with such heavy engrained web commerce inertia as PayPal.

Verizon does it to me. They're always trying to get me to take in other deals from 3rd parties or themselves.

Credit card companies do this, which is why I no longer have a Discover Card.

Discover started sending unsolicited marketing messages to your mobile phone!?

Haven't looked into the policies of the other companies, but PayPal has gotten a lot of attention recently when folks on HN were complaining about their accounts being randomly closed/frozen by PayPal.

I don't know about you, but if my account was indeed terminated without reason, thus causing my business financial problems (or maybe even failure), I would want to take legal actions.

Mediation may not be the answer, especially when it is you vs. a giant company.

Mediation is completely different from arbitration. Mediators do not pick winners.

You're right. I meant to say 'arbitration'

Announcement at PayPal: https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&c...

kirillzubovsky's PDF without going through the 'Scoutzie' link-shortener: https://www.dropbox.com/s/65b04pv792mejb9/Amendment%20to%20t...

I find the recent onslaught of changes in policy to be insulting to myself, and your admittance of how you are undeserving of my business. I'm sad it has come to this. I require this account to be closed.

I further require the removal all of data related to myself from all records and systems where permitted by law.

Regards,

Brian G.

> You have successfully closed your account.

I wrote a very nearly identical letter. After closing my account, they continued to send mr marketing spam with a broken unsub link. I had to write another letter requesting to not receive their spam.

That is a $500 CAN-SPAM violation, payable to you, exercisable in real court.

A broken unsubscribe link? Why, that must be an honest mistake by the good folks at PayPal. </sarcasm>

Where did you write this to? I'd like to close my account as well.

If you go into your account options you can close the account in a few short steps.

Keep in mind that the agreement varies by jurisdiction. For example, the Australian user agreement is quite different and has not changed since August.

[1] https://cms.paypal.com/au/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&c...

The currency conversion policy is either going to be awesome or suck depending on what kind of credit card you use with PayPal. Since I have cards that have no foreign transaction fees, I am guessing it will not be beneficial for myself. But it might be better for the majority of PayPal users since they might avoid the 3% foreign transaction fees that most credit card companies charge. Of course, PayPal might just pass those fees directly on to you with no way to avoid it... The lack of detail there is annoying.

PayPal generally has horrible exchange rates, often to the point that a 3% fee with your bank's rates is cheaper.

Look like they intentionally made opt out a pain:

Procedure: You can choose to reject this Agreement to Arbitrate ("opt out") by mailing us a written opt-out notice ("Opt-Out Notice"). For new PayPal users, the Opt-Out Notice must be postmarked no later than 30 Days after the date you accept the User Agreement for the first time. If you are already a current PayPal user and previously accepted the User Agreement prior to the introduction of this Agreement to Arbitrate, the Opt-Out Notice must be postmarked no later than December 1, 2012. You must mail the Opt-Out Notice to PayPal, Inc., Attn: Litigation Department, 2211 North First Street, San Jose, CA 95131.

The Opt-Out Notice must state that you do not agree to this Agreement to Arbitrate and must include your name, address, phone number, and the email address(es) used to log in to the PayPal account(s) to which the opt-out applies. You must sign the Opt-Out Notice for it to be effective. This procedure is the only way you can opt out of the Agreement to Arbitrate. If you opt out of the Agreement to Arbitrate, all other parts of the User Agreement, including all other provisions of Section 14 (Disputes with PayPal), will continue to apply. Opting out of this Agreement to Arbitrate has no effect on any previous, other, or future arbitration agreements that you may have with us.

Please editorialize on your blog, not HN submission titles.

On the other hand, making a blog post just to editorialize title (and capture traffic) would be blogspam, so maybe in this case it's not bad.

Well, the guidelines <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>; used to include an admonition against "gratuitous editorial spin"... but that's been elided. I still think it's a bad habit that nudges discourse in a shallower direction.

It's not blogspam if the post explains why we should opt out. At the time I posted my request, this was only a link to the new policy announcement, without explanation. It's since changed to a linkless submission with the supporting argument. That's better -- almost as good as a blogpost (which would also provide more context on the author's perspective and credibility).

I fear there is no hope even if you opt out - the vast majority of users aren't going to opt-out, which significantly reduces the class size, which will in turn make litigation against Paypal less appealing for most class-action attorneys. It's kind of evil genius.

I find PayPal incredibly convenient to use and prefer it when I see a PayPal button than giving my credit card info yet to another vendor. I trust PayPal more than I trust some random site that just happened to have a belt I wanted to buy.

I don't move a lot of money through PayPal so to be honest, I don't much care. :/

Better yet, don't use Paypal.

As a business you now have several decent options for handling your online Credit Cart or payment processing.

As a consumer most credit cards and banks now make it easy to pay online or pay people directly.

At one time Paypal served a purpose, but the rest of market has largely caught up or passed them.

Can't PayPal just terminate your account if you opt-out?

Actually, it seems there is no explanation as to what happens if you choose to opt out. I imagine they are required o ask you by law, but that's why they are trying hard not to make it very obvious.

The telephone autodialer and SMS thing is... awkward.

Are you suggesting PayPal isn't rolling out awful policies, or are you simply upset that the status quo here is to embrace Stripe? I'm not sure what your intentions are.

I don't know why you would connect someone posting a pro-Stripe/anti-Paypal rant to Thiel having a stake in Y Combinator. Some people love the conspiracy theory, I know, but I'd rather HN not become a place for that kind of people.

because there are motives & affliations: "Stripe's investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator, Sequoia Capital, Peter Thiel, and Elon Musk"

i'd rather have honesty and not ignorance

*source: https://stripe.com/jobs