5 ms·

Paypal has done this multiple times, here are some incidents. https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/My-Account/Permanent-BAN-limited-account/td-p/1489460 https:/

by febin 8y ago

Paypal has done this multiple times, here are some incidents. https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/My-Account/Permanent-BAN-limited-account/td-p/1489460 https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/My-Account/Permanent-BAN... https://medium.com/@puntofisso/paypal-closed-my-account-with-no-explanation-it-could-happen-to-you-6ff0ba4ea95f https://medium.com/@puntofisso/paypal-closed-my-account-with... https://www.elliott.org/blog/banned-from-palpal-account-limitations/ https://www.elliott.org/blog/banned-from-palpal-account-limi... https://www.success.grownupgeek.com/index.php/2008/04/05/paypal-limited-access/comment-page-3/ https://www.success.grownupgeek.com/index.php/2008/04/05/pay... Completely relying on any third party is a bad idea. We should consider the risks when we signup to any service. Around this month we have seen multiple companies banning accounts without giving valid reasons MailChimp, Patreon, Slack(They had a reason but they didn't notify the users earlier, however they appologized later) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18754860 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18754860 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18715866 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18715866 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18724107 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18724107

jseliger 8y ago
Same thing happened to me years ago: https://jakeseliger.com/2011/12/09/december-2011-links-paypals-bogusness-ribbed-tees-literary-friendships-literary-research-alex-tabarroks-new-book-and-more https://jakeseliger.com/2011/12/09/december-2011-links-paypa.... Why anyone uses Paypal today is beyond me. Why anyone doesn't expect this is really beyond me.
- conanthe 8y ago
  What are the alternatives?
- exogeny 8y ago
  The percentage of links to your blog that you post in your comments is extremely high and extremely notable. Make of that what you will.
  - barry-cotter 8y ago
    It’s almost like he’s written a lot about many things for years and would like to point others to his thoughts and experiences.
  - 300bps 8y ago
    exogeny said... The percentage of links to your blog that you post in your comments is extremely high and extremely notable. Make of that what you will. HN uses rel=nofollow links so he's not posting links as part of some SEO plan. Cursory review of his previous comments shows he links to other sites more often than his own. It makes sense someone would often post links to their own blog though - if they're interested in a topic, they're likely to both comment on and blog about it.
  - softwaredoug 8y ago
    I don’t have a problem to people linking to their blogs as long as it’s relevant and helpful to the conversation.
    - ddingus 8y ago
      I do not either. The alternatives are: Do not make us aware Copy paste, and someone will likely say [citation needed] Paraphrase Etc... Where relevancy is high, links make sense.
  - newnewpdro 8y ago
    Beats users linking to one of the near-web-monopoly sites like twitter or facebook constantly! I'm shocked you're essentially chastising someone for having their own domain and publishing articles on it they then link to. If anything we should be encouraging this behavior.
- jorams 8y ago
  Paypal is practically the only commonly accepted online payment method that doesn't require me to have a credit card. The reason people use Paypal today is that they offer a service without much competition to people who want to pay, so if you want to get paid you're leaving money on the table if you don't accept Paypal. This does of course depend on where your customer base is. Credit cards are universal in the US, not so much internationally.
  - gcb0 8y ago
    people only use paypal because vendors accept paypal. you wouldn't have a paypal account otherwise. and outside of the usa, most bank systems have ways to forward money based on other records. I've implemented a few in south American countries where by accepting CC from one operator you also get an optional printable invoice (boleto) that can be paid on the bank (online or not) and it transfer same day to your account.
    - jorams 8y ago
      > people only use paypal because vendors accept paypal. > you wouldn't have a paypal account otherwise. Sure, if I couldn't use it to pay for anything, I wouldn't have a Paypal account. I don't use Paypal to send money to friends or anything like that, just for (international) online payments. > and outside of the usa, most bank systems have ways to forward money based on other records. Sure, but those aren't generally accepted online, internationally. For example, the vast majority of online payments in the Netherlands are done through iDEAL, but that only works for Dutch banks. Some (generally large) stores support it, but most don't.
  - simonh 8y ago
    In the UK we mostly use debit cards these days, although the term ‘credit card’ seems to generally include debit cards. I haven’t had a credit card for almost a decade. Everytime an online store says credit cards only, it’s taken my debit card.
    - timthorn 8y ago
giancarlostoro 8y ago
> Completely relying on any third party is a bad idea. We should consider the risks when we signup to any service. I agree somewhat but I will note my different viewpoint: completely relying on only one third party is bad. Its usually smarter at least in the case of payments to accept more than one method of payment other than just PayPal. I know theres even third parties that will accept PayPal on your behalf. Now how that might or might not shield your paypal from being banned I am not certain. One I remember is 2checkout but I havent looked at them in years, so I am not sure if they still work with PayPal.
ddtaylor 8y ago
> Completely relying on any third party What other options are there that exist where a regular person could still make a payment?
- ThrowawayR2 8y ago
  Good, old fashioned, non-electronic money orders and cashier's checks, perhaps? Granted, you're still relying on a bank but I can't imagine any bank refusing them for a person without refusing all that person's business entirely.
  - sokoloff 8y ago
    No sympathy for site in question, but cashiers checks and money orders aren’t particularly low-friction for website users/online shoppers.
- arisAlexis 8y ago
  you are kind of asking for it... :) Bitcoin
  - gcb0 8y ago
    you still need a 3rd party to realistically convert USD into BTC. at this point, might as well trade in casino chips. (see gnu taller for a less cassino-like alternative to payments)
    - arisAlexis 8y ago
      this third party is not linked to where you want to send them. anybody can get BTC from fiat conversion and send it wherever they want without censorship. That's what we are talking about right?
      - gcb0 8y ago
        yes, not linked to the destination of the funds, but still very much required.
barry-cotter 8y ago
Well everyone who wants to accept payments on the internet ultimately relies on VisaMasterCard. They will shut you off and get other payment processors to shut you off like happened to SubscribeStar when they set up as a Patreon competitor. https://twitter.com/nickmon1112/status/1076886857445711872?s=21 https://twitter.com/nickmon1112/status/1076886857445711872?s... Long twitter thread on the relation between MasterCard, Visa and Patreon and how the credit card cartel is attempting to minimise political risk. Transcript of a call with the head of Patreon’s Censorship department where they as much as say MasterCard made them do it. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1U0mQjUA0T5INc_GDkwPJ2mfhO7tbaIogisSqqxHw0hc/mobilebasic https://docs.google.com/document/d/1U0mQjUA0T5INc_GDkwPJ2mfh...
- staplers 8y ago
  "What's the point of crypto???" - HN yesterday
- KozmoNau7 8y ago
  There's a whole lot of conspiracy speculation in there, especially the idea of "SPLC's anti-conservative purge". Simply put, being associated with hard-right political figures is seen as problematic by Mastercard, Patreon, Paypal etc., and they are trying to minimize their risk, because they don't want to lose business. They have to do this, due to their obligations to shareholders, boards of directors and advertisers, who are all very concerned about public opinion's influence on their bottom line. If you want to get to the heart of this "voluntary censorship", you have to either improve the public image of hard-right figures, so they're no longer seen as problematic, or break the reputation/bottom line relationship, or outright change the way businesses are run and held accountable, which would probably mean changing some fundamental things about capitalism. Unless you want to abolish capitalism outright, I would suggest lessening the grip of corporations on payment services, and introduce a federal bank and federal payment service for the people. After all, isn't the ability to make and receive payment a public good on the level of water and electricity? Make it for everyone, equally.
  - manigandham 8y ago
    Or... they could just not do anything. They're payment processors and moving legal funds is their purpose. Nobody knows they underpin a lot of these payments and being invisible infrastructure is their advantage. Getting involved makes everything worse as now a larger population knows what's happening. It's a perfect example of the Streisand effect.
myself248 8y ago
Yup, they froze the Neo900 project's funds and caused them to miss a bunch of supplier contract deadlines: https://neo900.org/news/paypal-trouble-delays-project https://neo900.org/news/paypal-trouble-delays-project Basically killed the project. It's still sortof moving, but a shell of what it once was. PayPal's size allows them to dictate terms like "We'll screw you worse than a bank but you can't sue us like a bank", and nobody's been able to take them down yet. One can only hope.
- tgtweak 8y ago
  They've screwed countless group buys by locking the organizers account and freezing funds after "detecting" unusual spending (ie receiving money from a bunch of other users in a short period of time). Same thing happened to a friend organizing a group gift for another mutual fiend. Unethically, PayPal kept receiving funds to the account after they froze it.
  - KozmoNau7 8y ago
    They screwed over Something Awful as well, due to a fundraiser for the victims of hurricane Katrina: https://www.somethingawful.com/news/paypal-fiasco-summary/ https://www.somethingawful.com/news/paypal-fiasco-summary/ They simply froze the donated funds and kept them in limbo while forcing the operater of SA to jump through ridiculous hoops in order to unfreeze the money. Don't use Paypal for any sort of fundraiser. Ideally never use Paypal for anything, ever.
ineedasername 8y ago
"completely relying on a 3rd party..." Okay, agreed it's not ideal, but for payment processing what's the alternative?
- febin 8y ago
  https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/paypal-alternatives https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/paypal-alternatives
- zdkl 8y ago
  GNU Taler is aimed at this. https://taler.net/en/ https://taler.net/en/
  - Eliezer 8y ago
    They say phishing is impossible and don’t immediately explain why? All kinds of alarm bells going off.
  - jammygit 8y ago
    I bet they could use contributors if anyone is bored
- xanipher 8y ago
  Are there no other options? I get that it's difficult if you want international payments, but surely for inter-American payments enough other options are available? (Genuinely curious)
twayback 8y ago
This site was banned probably due to copyright violations: http://attrition.org/errata/plagiarism/thehackernews/ http://attrition.org/errata/plagiarism/thehackernews/

by febin 8y ago

jseliger 8y ago

Same thing happened to me years ago: https://jakeseliger.com/2011/12/09/december-2011-links-paypals-bogusness-ribbed-tees-literary-friendships-literary-research-alex-tabarroks-new-book-and-more https://jakeseliger.com/2011/12/09/december-2011-links-paypa.... Why anyone uses Paypal today is beyond me. Why anyone doesn't expect this is really beyond me.

conanthe 8y ago
What are the alternatives?
exogeny 8y ago
The percentage of links to your blog that you post in your comments is extremely high and extremely notable. Make of that what you will.
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  It’s almost like he’s written a lot about many things for years and would like to point others to his thoughts and experiences.
- 300bps 8y ago
  exogeny said... The percentage of links to your blog that you post in your comments is extremely high and extremely notable. Make of that what you will. HN uses rel=nofollow links so he's not posting links as part of some SEO plan. Cursory review of his previous comments shows he links to other sites more often than his own. It makes sense someone would often post links to their own blog though - if they're interested in a topic, they're likely to both comment on and blog about it.
- softwaredoug 8y ago
  I don’t have a problem to people linking to their blogs as long as it’s relevant and helpful to the conversation.
  - ddingus 8y ago
    I do not either. The alternatives are: Do not make us aware Copy paste, and someone will likely say [citation needed] Paraphrase Etc... Where relevancy is high, links make sense.
- newnewpdro 8y ago
  Beats users linking to one of the near-web-monopoly sites like twitter or facebook constantly! I'm shocked you're essentially chastising someone for having their own domain and publishing articles on it they then link to. If anything we should be encouraging this behavior.
jorams 8y ago
Paypal is practically the only commonly accepted online payment method that doesn't require me to have a credit card. The reason people use Paypal today is that they offer a service without much competition to people who want to pay, so if you want to get paid you're leaving money on the table if you don't accept Paypal. This does of course depend on where your customer base is. Credit cards are universal in the US, not so much internationally.
- gcb0 8y ago
  people only use paypal because vendors accept paypal. you wouldn't have a paypal account otherwise. and outside of the usa, most bank systems have ways to forward money based on other records. I've implemented a few in south American countries where by accepting CC from one operator you also get an optional printable invoice (boleto) that can be paid on the bank (online or not) and it transfer same day to your account.
  - jorams 8y ago
    > people only use paypal because vendors accept paypal. > you wouldn't have a paypal account otherwise. Sure, if I couldn't use it to pay for anything, I wouldn't have a Paypal account. I don't use Paypal to send money to friends or anything like that, just for (international) online payments. > and outside of the usa, most bank systems have ways to forward money based on other records. Sure, but those aren't generally accepted online, internationally. For example, the vast majority of online payments in the Netherlands are done through iDEAL, but that only works for Dutch banks. Some (generally large) stores support it, but most don't.
- simonh 8y ago
  In the UK we mostly use debit cards these days, although the term ‘credit card’ seems to generally include debit cards. I haven’t had a credit card for almost a decade. Everytime an online store says credit cards only, it’s taken my debit card.
  - timthorn 8y ago

giancarlostoro 8y ago

> Completely relying on any third party is a bad idea. We should consider the risks when we signup to any service. I agree somewhat but I will note my different viewpoint: completely relying on only one third party is bad. Its usually smarter at least in the case of payments to accept more than one method of payment other than just PayPal. I know theres even third parties that will accept PayPal on your behalf. Now how that might or might not shield your paypal from being banned I am not certain. One I remember is 2checkout but I havent looked at them in years, so I am not sure if they still work with PayPal.

ddtaylor 8y ago

> Completely relying on any third party What other options are there that exist where a regular person could still make a payment?

ThrowawayR2 8y ago
Good, old fashioned, non-electronic money orders and cashier's checks, perhaps? Granted, you're still relying on a bank but I can't imagine any bank refusing them for a person without refusing all that person's business entirely.
- sokoloff 8y ago
  No sympathy for site in question, but cashiers checks and money orders aren’t particularly low-friction for website users/online shoppers.
arisAlexis 8y ago
you are kind of asking for it... :) Bitcoin
- gcb0 8y ago
  you still need a 3rd party to realistically convert USD into BTC. at this point, might as well trade in casino chips. (see gnu taller for a less cassino-like alternative to payments)
  - arisAlexis 8y ago
    this third party is not linked to where you want to send them. anybody can get BTC from fiat conversion and send it wherever they want without censorship. That's what we are talking about right?
    - gcb0 8y ago
      yes, not linked to the destination of the funds, but still very much required.

barry-cotter 8y ago

Well everyone who wants to accept payments on the internet ultimately relies on VisaMasterCard. They will shut you off and get other payment processors to shut you off like happened to SubscribeStar when they set up as a Patreon competitor. https://twitter.com/nickmon1112/status/1076886857445711872?s=21 https://twitter.com/nickmon1112/status/1076886857445711872?s... Long twitter thread on the relation between MasterCard, Visa and Patreon and how the credit card cartel is attempting to minimise political risk. Transcript of a call with the head of Patreon’s Censorship department where they as much as say MasterCard made them do it. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1U0mQjUA0T5INc_GDkwPJ2mfhO7tbaIogisSqqxHw0hc/mobilebasic https://docs.google.com/document/d/1U0mQjUA0T5INc_GDkwPJ2mfh...

staplers 8y ago
"What's the point of crypto???" - HN yesterday
KozmoNau7 8y ago
There's a whole lot of conspiracy speculation in there, especially the idea of "SPLC's anti-conservative purge". Simply put, being associated with hard-right political figures is seen as problematic by Mastercard, Patreon, Paypal etc., and they are trying to minimize their risk, because they don't want to lose business. They have to do this, due to their obligations to shareholders, boards of directors and advertisers, who are all very concerned about public opinion's influence on their bottom line. If you want to get to the heart of this "voluntary censorship", you have to either improve the public image of hard-right figures, so they're no longer seen as problematic, or break the reputation/bottom line relationship, or outright change the way businesses are run and held accountable, which would probably mean changing some fundamental things about capitalism. Unless you want to abolish capitalism outright, I would suggest lessening the grip of corporations on payment services, and introduce a federal bank and federal payment service for the people. After all, isn't the ability to make and receive payment a public good on the level of water and electricity? Make it for everyone, equally.
- manigandham 8y ago
  Or... they could just not do anything. They're payment processors and moving legal funds is their purpose. Nobody knows they underpin a lot of these payments and being invisible infrastructure is their advantage. Getting involved makes everything worse as now a larger population knows what's happening. It's a perfect example of the Streisand effect.

myself248 8y ago

Yup, they froze the Neo900 project's funds and caused them to miss a bunch of supplier contract deadlines: https://neo900.org/news/paypal-trouble-delays-project https://neo900.org/news/paypal-trouble-delays-project Basically killed the project. It's still sortof moving, but a shell of what it once was. PayPal's size allows them to dictate terms like "We'll screw you worse than a bank but you can't sue us like a bank", and nobody's been able to take them down yet. One can only hope.

tgtweak 8y ago
They've screwed countless group buys by locking the organizers account and freezing funds after "detecting" unusual spending (ie receiving money from a bunch of other users in a short period of time). Same thing happened to a friend organizing a group gift for another mutual fiend. Unethically, PayPal kept receiving funds to the account after they froze it.
- KozmoNau7 8y ago
  They screwed over Something Awful as well, due to a fundraiser for the victims of hurricane Katrina: https://www.somethingawful.com/news/paypal-fiasco-summary/ https://www.somethingawful.com/news/paypal-fiasco-summary/ They simply froze the donated funds and kept them in limbo while forcing the operater of SA to jump through ridiculous hoops in order to unfreeze the money. Don't use Paypal for any sort of fundraiser. Ideally never use Paypal for anything, ever.

ineedasername 8y ago

"completely relying on a 3rd party..." Okay, agreed it's not ideal, but for payment processing what's the alternative?

febin 8y ago
https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/paypal-alternatives https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/paypal-alternatives
zdkl 8y ago
GNU Taler is aimed at this. https://taler.net/en/ https://taler.net/en/
- Eliezer 8y ago
  They say phishing is impossible and don’t immediately explain why? All kinds of alarm bells going off.
- jammygit 8y ago
  I bet they could use contributors if anyone is bored
xanipher 8y ago
Are there no other options? I get that it's difficult if you want international payments, but surely for inter-American payments enough other options are available? (Genuinely curious)

twayback 8y ago

This site was banned probably due to copyright violations: http://attrition.org/errata/plagiarism/thehackernews/ http://attrition.org/errata/plagiarism/thehackernews/