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PayPal blocked us after 10 years due to a a Kafkaesque problem, where they decided that our Hong Kong company was both a Chinese company and not a Chinese compa

PayPal blocked us after 10 years due to a a Kafkaesque problem, where they decided that our Hong Kong company was both a Chinese company and not a Chinese company: https://www.cogini.com/blog/paypal-know-your-customer-failure/ https://www.cogini.com/blog/paypal-know-your-customer-failur...

jzwinck 7y ago
Hong Kong is part of China and also not part of China. So it makes perfect sense that a Hong Kong company is both Chinese and not Chinese.
- Laforet 7y ago
  The city state has its own currency, monetary policy and legal system, enough for the department of state to treat HK as an independent entity as far as trade is concerned. Given the vast amount of money and good flowing through through HK I find it hard to believe any established payment processor would lack familiarity with the status of Hong Kong. It looks more like a (poorly) made up excuse to ban undesirable users.
  - penagwin 7y ago
    I have to agree. With the amount of money involved internationally with HK I highly doubt Paypal would just decide to shut down an account because of that. If that was the really the case there would have been a LOT of other accounts shutdown. This sounds more like an excuse from Paypal, who I fear talking bad about in case they decide to ban me too :P
  - gpm 7y ago
    If you read the actual blogpost, it was more likely an administrative mistake earlier in the process that was then difficult to undo, and no one really giving a fuck on paypal's side. Attribute things to incompetence before malice and all that, especially when attributing it to malice requires thinking they made a fairly odd decision to outright lie to customers about why you are ceasing doing business with them.
    - crooked-v 7y ago
      Sufficiently prolonged incompetence, when the resources are available to easily correct it, is malice.
      - gpm 7y ago
        It isn't a > (poorly) made up excuse to ban undesirable users. I suppose I'm not interested in debating the definition of malice as it relates to actions by a large corporation...
- astrodust 7y ago
  It's also not not China as in Republic of China as in Taiwan. This is worse than Schrödinger's cat.
alasdair_ 7y ago
I ad a similar issue when parts of Ukraine were invaded by Russia and my Ukranian developers were suddenly "Russian" developers.
- gdy 7y ago
  Could you possibly elaborate on this? What kind of problem have you had?
  - efrafa 7y ago
    US has embargo on Crymea
  - alasdair_ 7y ago
    Sure. My payment provider told me I could no longer work with my developers, basically. I was using odesk.com at the time and they basically banned me from interacting with the deva.
    - gdy 7y ago
      I see. Were they the Crimea or in the the Eastern Ukraine?
      - alasdair_ 7y ago
        Stevastopol
        gdy 7y ago
        Thanks!
rak00n 7y ago
> "They don't care, because it's a numbers game to them." This sounds so similar to all other large tech companies, specially Google. Somewhere along the line all these tech companies lost user focus.
- dreamcompiler 7y ago
  Google has spectacular user focus on the users that pay them (i.e. advertisers).
  - qbaqbaqba 7y ago
    Not really. Perhaps the huge ones, but if you are small, medium or even a big one they don't care.
    - misterprime 7y ago
      As demonstrated by a $50k+/mo account who's Google reps only recommend one-size-fits-all strategy and can't be bothered to listen to feedback that such a strategy only works with advertising to end customers and not B2B advertising. The account rep is just a marketing vector for Google to their paying customers.
TornTongues 7y ago
Thank you for sharing this story, I have added it and Niteo to my growing list of PayPal (and other financial service) bans: https://gitgud.io/TornTongues/torntongues/#paypal https://gitgud.io/TornTongues/torntongues/#paypal (contributions welcome). Kafkaesque indeed...

jzwinck 7y ago

Hong Kong is part of China and also not part of China. So it makes perfect sense that a Hong Kong company is both Chinese and not Chinese.

Laforet 7y ago
The city state has its own currency, monetary policy and legal system, enough for the department of state to treat HK as an independent entity as far as trade is concerned. Given the vast amount of money and good flowing through through HK I find it hard to believe any established payment processor would lack familiarity with the status of Hong Kong. It looks more like a (poorly) made up excuse to ban undesirable users.
- penagwin 7y ago
  I have to agree. With the amount of money involved internationally with HK I highly doubt Paypal would just decide to shut down an account because of that. If that was the really the case there would have been a LOT of other accounts shutdown. This sounds more like an excuse from Paypal, who I fear talking bad about in case they decide to ban me too :P
- gpm 7y ago
  If you read the actual blogpost, it was more likely an administrative mistake earlier in the process that was then difficult to undo, and no one really giving a fuck on paypal's side. Attribute things to incompetence before malice and all that, especially when attributing it to malice requires thinking they made a fairly odd decision to outright lie to customers about why you are ceasing doing business with them.
  - crooked-v 7y ago
    Sufficiently prolonged incompetence, when the resources are available to easily correct it, is malice.
    - gpm 7y ago
      It isn't a > (poorly) made up excuse to ban undesirable users. I suppose I'm not interested in debating the definition of malice as it relates to actions by a large corporation...
astrodust 7y ago
It's also not not China as in Republic of China as in Taiwan. This is worse than Schrödinger's cat.

alasdair_ 7y ago

I ad a similar issue when parts of Ukraine were invaded by Russia and my Ukranian developers were suddenly "Russian" developers.

gdy 7y ago
Could you possibly elaborate on this? What kind of problem have you had?
- efrafa 7y ago
  US has embargo on Crymea
- alasdair_ 7y ago
  Sure. My payment provider told me I could no longer work with my developers, basically. I was using odesk.com at the time and they basically banned me from interacting with the deva.
  - gdy 7y ago
    I see. Were they the Crimea or in the the Eastern Ukraine?
    - alasdair_ 7y ago
      Stevastopol
      - gdy 7y ago
        Thanks!

rak00n 7y ago

> "They don't care, because it's a numbers game to them." This sounds so similar to all other large tech companies, specially Google. Somewhere along the line all these tech companies lost user focus.

dreamcompiler 7y ago
Google has spectacular user focus on the users that pay them (i.e. advertisers).
- qbaqbaqba 7y ago
  Not really. Perhaps the huge ones, but if you are small, medium or even a big one they don't care.
  - misterprime 7y ago
    As demonstrated by a $50k+/mo account who's Google reps only recommend one-size-fits-all strategy and can't be bothered to listen to feedback that such a strategy only works with advertising to end customers and not B2B advertising. The account rep is just a marketing vector for Google to their paying customers.

TornTongues 7y ago

Thank you for sharing this story, I have added it and Niteo to my growing list of PayPal (and other financial service) bans: https://gitgud.io/TornTongues/torntongues/#paypal https://gitgud.io/TornTongues/torntongues/#paypal (contributions welcome). Kafkaesque indeed...