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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. :-)
> 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.
> 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.
> 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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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!
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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 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?
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.
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
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.
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.
>> 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.
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).
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.
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.
> 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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. :/
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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’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).
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.
395 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 212 ms ] threadIn 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.
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.
However this signature can occur totally offline in a non-connected device. Only the resulting signature has to be transmitted to the network.
Irrevocability of transfers can be seen as a benefit or a drawback of course.
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).
[1] https://shop.trezor.io/
[2] https://www.ledgerwallet.com/products/12-ledger-nano-s
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Cold_storage
And as for zero purchase protection, you can use escrow services for significant purchases.
And that gets us back to paypal (which started up as an escrow for ebay afterall) or some equivalent. Bitcoin offers no help here.
The only thing that can end Bitcoin is breaking sec256k1 elliptic curve, and this is unlikely to happen soon.
I might one day soon lodge complaint with data ombudsman if PayPal refuse to handover data stored on me
It'll be interesting to see if there's a follow up.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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. :-)
However, it's likely that minors are not allowed to have "adult" bank accounts like PayPal.
If so, registering is committing fraud and paypal is forced to shut down the account.
Typical case of a children going against the law and the laws fights back and the child doesn't like it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Indeed, I found PayPal simple to use as a merchant outside USA but now there are more alternatives.
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.
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.
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.
Edited to correct to FCA - https://www.fca.org.uk/
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.
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 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.
"In order to prevent fraud, we require a card with the billing address of either your old, or your new address."
We need better systems for IRL hand-shaking.
Aside from Bitcoin is there actually a real alternative?
It would be very tricky to convince a business to pay your invoice in Bitcoin.
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.
FTFY. Zero fees, zero megacorps taking their cut, zero social graphs in the US growing a few extra tuples
If you're transferring to another customer in the same bank then they're free but I've never had that luxury.
Were you referring to bank transfers to same bank customers? Because I've never heard of zero fees for bank transfers
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.
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.
Not something you can just use to pay a stranger.
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.
Plus, not only can you do everything "on desktop", you can do it on web generally; the browser version works great on phones.
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.
https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/banking/wire-transfers-what-...
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.
What we've got are Google Wallet, checks, and a variety of smaller services (Venmo, etc).
Edit: Yes
I don't know of any other companies that do the same but I'll look into world first.
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 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.
Definitely for accepting credit card payments for merchants, Stripe is a great way to go.
I tried removing my debit account coupling but it refuses citing "a pending transaction" (no specific reference given).
The "close my account" button takes me to an error message. I guess I'm spamming all their email addresses I can enumerate until this is resolved.
complaint-response@paypal.com
service@paypal.com
hostmaster@paypal.com
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!
So yes, it is some black hole of support.
Until then, I'll believe it when I see it (extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence).
1. Never use Paypal. For ANY reason.
2. Never. Use. Paypal. For. Any. Reason.
3. See rule #1.
Xoom is PayPal now.
Yeah, no.
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?
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.
Because, reading comprehension is fundamental. You might want to watch a Youtube video about it....
You can't beat it.
Square Cash is not available in the UK for example. The US has a much larger choice. Unsure about other countries, sorry.
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.
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.
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
[0] http://www.citizenvox.org/2012/10/15/opt-out-of-paypal%E2%80...
Edited for minor formatting.
Here are some citations:
"American Express Co., et al. v. Italian Colors Restaurant." Oyez, https://www.oyez.org/cases/2012/12-133. Accessed 29 Apr. 2017.
"AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion." Oyez, https://www.oyez.org/cases/2010/09-893. Accessed 29 Apr. 2017.
"The End of Class Actions?" Arizona Law Review, http://arizonalawreview.org/fitzpatrick/
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
Edited to add the third and fourth citations.
In most countries, arbitration clauses are prohibited in B2C contracts. You can't prohibit consumer from suing you.
Without judgements, this bullshit will continue.
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.
Besides 'a criminal record' and 'signed up for a service a bit before you were eligible' are hardly comparable.
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.
Good day to you, sir.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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]
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_infancy
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicarious_liability
edit: formatting
In some cases they fine financial institutions who don't resolve quickly enough.
They don't even cost money - the charges levied cover the costs I believe.
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).
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.
they are excellent for foreign exchange, however.
http://imgur.com/y6Rpc4G