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I know somebody who worked at Paypal. There was a simple scheme they used to do on a regular basis. Once somebody has accumulated a sufficient amount of money o
by nukeop 9y ago
I know somebody who worked at Paypal. There was a simple scheme they used to do on a regular basis. Once somebody has accumulated a sufficient amount of money on their account, they would freeze their account and tell them to send incredibly detailed documents confirming the sources of all incoming transactions. Completing that request would take the average user a long time, then afterwards Paypal would take a couple of weeks "analyzing" the documents. In the meantime, they were free to handle the frozen assets as they saw fit, such as investing in stocks. After those few weeks, they would (not always) unfreeze the account and pocket the investment profits. If there was anything wrong with the documents, they would extend the period the account was frozen or simply keep the money for themselves in some cases.
- joosters 9y agoI call bullshit. Investing frozen cash into stocks sounds far too complex, and you can imagine so many pitfalls (how the hell do you fudge the accounts for missing cash if the investing loses cash?) Show some evidence, op.
- nukeop 9y agoOf course there's no "evidence". If I had evidence I would go to the courts instead. This is an anecdote. The pitfalls you mention can easily be covered if overall the practice brings profit, since you can cover potential losses with profits from other cases.
- dithering 9y agoIt seems reasonable that they're investing their float. It seems possible they're creating Byzantine regulations in order to increase that float. No evidence, but it doesn't sound complex to me - money is fungible, and all that.
- morganvachon 9y agoI've heard this a few times over the years, I'm not sure if it's urban legend, speculation, or based on something that actually happened. OP claims they worked at Paypal so they may not be willing to go into detail, or it may just be completely made up for Internet points (which so far seems to be backfiring). I came across a video[1] a few days back while looking at electric car hobbyist stuff that makes the same accusations as OP. According to the Youtuber, when he had hundreds of transactions at once via a group buy on an account that he claims has moved millions of dollars through Paypal as a business account, Paypal froze the funds and he suggested to his customers that Paypal did it so they could invest the funds for six months and make a ton of interest. It's a bit tin-foil-hat sounding but it's just plausible enough to make one wonder. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1rYgD8luGw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1rYgD8luGw