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Paypal prides itself on being the safest payment solution online, they have easy integrations with Shopify. I don't breach their terms or perform any fraud so h

Paypal prides itself on being the safest payment solution online, they have easy integrations with Shopify. I don't breach their terms or perform any fraud so had no reason to suspect I'd be treated like a criminal and given inconsistency and lies by a multi billion dollar corporation I've paid thousands of dollars in fees too!

stingraycharles 10y ago
That isn't really an answer to the question OP was raising, although I do sympathise with you. Having said that, Paypal is known to be very evil, and because of this I do expect people whom are still using Paypal consider this behaviour a calculated risk, rather than a surprise.
- makemoniesonlin 10y ago
  'who', not 'whom'
  - stingraycharles 10y ago
    Thanks -- as an ESL'er, this is one of the more tricky aspects of the language to me.
sandworm101 10y ago
Paypal also has a reputation for unpredictability and politically-motivated action against users. The rise of cryptocurrencies in recent years was largely a result of how paypal and credit card companies reacted to US government "requests" (ie the blacklisting of wikileaks and vpn providers). Nobody can stop or confiscate a bitcoin transaction. Given the regs that paypal thinks it must abide, specifically the many vague US antiterror rules, anyone getting into bed with them runs massive risk. The internet is full of stories exactly like this. The only hope is to rally enough of social media, or a tv show, that a human being at paypal takes pitty in you.
pgaddict 10y ago
The fact that PayPal claims to be the safest payment solution is pretty irrelevant, especially if it's meant to be safest for the buyers and you're the seller. This is not the first story of PayPal freezing accounts with substantial amounts of money and not talking to the account owner. Also, their ToS are pretty clear that they can do whatever they want, based on their beliefs, and there are no explicit limits how long they can keep your funds, or even obligations to talk to you. It might work differently in the EU, where they are registered as a bank (and so are regulated as a bank), but in US that's not the case IIRC. The behavior is not all that unexpected - it's easier and cheaper to loose a customer receiving a lot of complaints than to inspect each of the complaints. So while I understand this is pretty damaging and dislike what PayPal does, I'm surprised that people are surprised.
- 99129371891 10y ago
  Corporations still manage to maintain the illusion of decency and customer service. Their real behavior is surprising to a) people who were lucky and have never encountered it and b) people who suffer from some corporate equivalent of Gell-Mann amnesia. I belong to the second category. Also, it becomes harder to avoid such companies at all, for example cell phone operators in Europe universally view their "customers" as billable addresses; some find it cheaper to settle billing disputes in court (and lose a great percentage of the cases) than to maintain a "customer" service. With mobile the solution is to go prepaid.
  - jseliger 10y ago
    Corporations still manage to maintain the illusion of decency and customer service I'm baffled by this. Paypal does not. 28 days ago I wrote this comment on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13624393 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13624393. I'm sure that in the future I'll be reading another Paypal horror story from someone like you, who somehow thought, "It won't happen to me!"
    - tajen 10y ago
      Same here. Most people tend to downplay risks "because they're big", but there are alternatives and it's worth missing a few opportunities for a lower risk. E.g., I don't go to USA conferences because of the TSA risk, people find it funny, yet I keep hearing horror story after horror story. For Paypal, though, people take the risk unknowingly because they aren't aware of Paypal's reputation, which is more understandable.
pharrlax 10y ago
>Paypal prides itself on being the safest payment solution online Sure, and bottom-shelf plastic-bottle vodka says "PREMIUM QUALITY" on the label
nitwit005 10y ago
The company has been successfully sued over "improper account holds" (See Zepeda v. PayPal) and the internet is utterly jam packed full of stories like yours. I don't see why people find it surprising at this point.

stingraycharles 10y ago

That isn't really an answer to the question OP was raising, although I do sympathise with you. Having said that, Paypal is known to be very evil, and because of this I do expect people whom are still using Paypal consider this behaviour a calculated risk, rather than a surprise.

makemoniesonlin 10y ago
'who', not 'whom'
- stingraycharles 10y ago
  Thanks -- as an ESL'er, this is one of the more tricky aspects of the language to me.

sandworm101 10y ago

Paypal also has a reputation for unpredictability and politically-motivated action against users. The rise of cryptocurrencies in recent years was largely a result of how paypal and credit card companies reacted to US government "requests" (ie the blacklisting of wikileaks and vpn providers). Nobody can stop or confiscate a bitcoin transaction. Given the regs that paypal thinks it must abide, specifically the many vague US antiterror rules, anyone getting into bed with them runs massive risk. The internet is full of stories exactly like this. The only hope is to rally enough of social media, or a tv show, that a human being at paypal takes pitty in you.

pgaddict 10y ago

The fact that PayPal claims to be the safest payment solution is pretty irrelevant, especially if it's meant to be safest for the buyers and you're the seller. This is not the first story of PayPal freezing accounts with substantial amounts of money and not talking to the account owner. Also, their ToS are pretty clear that they can do whatever they want, based on their beliefs, and there are no explicit limits how long they can keep your funds, or even obligations to talk to you. It might work differently in the EU, where they are registered as a bank (and so are regulated as a bank), but in US that's not the case IIRC. The behavior is not all that unexpected - it's easier and cheaper to loose a customer receiving a lot of complaints than to inspect each of the complaints. So while I understand this is pretty damaging and dislike what PayPal does, I'm surprised that people are surprised.

99129371891 10y ago
Corporations still manage to maintain the illusion of decency and customer service. Their real behavior is surprising to a) people who were lucky and have never encountered it and b) people who suffer from some corporate equivalent of Gell-Mann amnesia. I belong to the second category. Also, it becomes harder to avoid such companies at all, for example cell phone operators in Europe universally view their "customers" as billable addresses; some find it cheaper to settle billing disputes in court (and lose a great percentage of the cases) than to maintain a "customer" service. With mobile the solution is to go prepaid.
- jseliger 10y ago
  Corporations still manage to maintain the illusion of decency and customer service I'm baffled by this. Paypal does not. 28 days ago I wrote this comment on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13624393 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13624393. I'm sure that in the future I'll be reading another Paypal horror story from someone like you, who somehow thought, "It won't happen to me!"
  - tajen 10y ago
    Same here. Most people tend to downplay risks "because they're big", but there are alternatives and it's worth missing a few opportunities for a lower risk. E.g., I don't go to USA conferences because of the TSA risk, people find it funny, yet I keep hearing horror story after horror story. For Paypal, though, people take the risk unknowingly because they aren't aware of Paypal's reputation, which is more understandable.

pharrlax 10y ago

>Paypal prides itself on being the safest payment solution online Sure, and bottom-shelf plastic-bottle vodka says "PREMIUM QUALITY" on the label

nitwit005 10y ago

The company has been successfully sued over "improper account holds" (See Zepeda v. PayPal) and the internet is utterly jam packed full of stories like yours. I don't see why people find it surprising at this point.