This article is about Paypal banning VPN providers who are using Paypal to accept payment for providing VPN service. It has nothing to do with people trying to

This article is about Paypal banning VPN providers who are using Paypal to accept payment for providing VPN service. It has nothing to do with people trying to buy things with Paypal over a VPN where Paypal can't log a reasonably trustworthy IP address; in that situation, there's increased likelihood that the paypal account is compromised, but preventing a VPN provider from taking payment using Paypal has no effect on fraud committed via people using their VPN service. They are separate issues. Maybe a few VPN providers are fraudulent, but the major ones aren't. You pay them, you get a VPN. You pay for SmartDNS, you get that service. It's what people do once they have those services that's considered bad by copyright holders, and so they're applying pressure to payment services like Paypal, to get them to stop processing payments for those services. If you look into the campaigns copyright holders are waging, the major one is an attack at funding sources for all kinds of services: file hosting, VPNs, etc. They are attacking those services and their funding, because trying to go after people who use those services—for things copyright holders don't like—has proven largely futile. Again, what this article is NOT about: If you try to pay for things offered on a completely legitimate website and you pay with a completely legitimate credit card, but you're browsing using a VPN, it's likely to get declined. Risk of payment fraud or goods purchased using compromised accounts—via VPN which makes fraud harder to trace—is an issue but it's separate from what the article is talking about, and it's distinct from what people in this thread are complaining about regarding the article. While some people might legitimately complain about bans on payment for services over a VPN (it makes it difficult, if you don't trust your ISP or wifi service, to go VPN-only if you can't buy most things), it's fairly clear that such payment-provider or retailer behavior is motivated at combating fraud. The issue here is entirely about copyright holders being mad and threatening the payment processors of service providers, because service providers are doing things copyright holders don't like, not because the service providers have unacceptable payment-collection risk profiles.