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You are indeed missing something. I am not defending them. But if they are doing something that PayPal hasn’t banned and obviously found acceptable for 12 pre

You are indeed missing something. I am not defending them. But if they are doing something that PayPal hasn’t banned and obviously found acceptable for 12 previous years, it means that all businesses are in immediate danger of being instantly banned without explanation on the whim of any of thousands of PayPal employees. That is a huge problem, and should concern everyone that depends on them for payment processing. If you are subject to the whims and value judgments of individual PayPal employees, rather than policy documents, that is truly scary. Sell something that happens to offend a random employee's moral, political, or religious sensibilities? You might lose your account. What happens if a relative of a PayPal employee decides that you weren't fast enough with customer service, and tells them about it? Can that employee go searching for your account and kill it simply because they have a relative that wasn't impressed with the speed of your customer service? The point is that these companies establish written policies for a reason. If those policies are not being followed, then businesses shouldn't use PayPal - not because they want to defend PBN sellers, but because their own business may be at risk even when they do nothing wrong.

orthecreedence 7y ago
> it means that all businesses are in immediate danger of being instantly banned without explanation on the whim of any of thousands of PayPal employees This has always been the case. Paypal is extremely liberal with funds they seize or what accounts they shut down. At least, that's the image of them I've had for over a decade. Maybe they've since changed...but I wouldn't store any real amount of money in Paypal for any amount of time.
ginsuown 7y ago
Ummm....no. As a software engineer, I can assure you there are not "thousands of PayPal employees" that can just ban businesses at will. I don't even think engineers working on that particular piece of software have any jurisdiction over that. Time and time again people post complaints that PayPal banned them "for no reason", without cause, etc, but invariably when you do your research, they have violated the TOS, and they have often been warned by PayPal many times. They were scamming someone, exploiting return policies and systems, etc. People will conceal those facts, as well as their own actions which led to their consequences.
- downandout 7y ago
  The issue here is that this company did not violate PayPal's TOS, yet they find themselves in this situation. BTW, I had a similar experience with PayPal, though my account was not open for 12 years. I didn't violate any TOS, and had no chargebacks - as in not a single one - and yet my account was effectively ghosted. I was handed a bunch of hoops to jump through, I jumped through them, and then nothing happened. The account sat in that state for so long that PayPal was eventually required by law to turn the money over to the state as abandoned. Only then was I able to get the money back - from the state treasurer (years after the fact). So if your policy documents don't actually govern your policies, then employees are banning businesses based on their personal value judgments. That is problematic for a large number of reasons.
  - ginsuown 7y ago
    > The issue here is that this company did not violate PayPal's TOS Untrue. Often the exact breach is legally prohibited from being publicly shared, but if a company is banned, then a TOS breach has happened. There is an unbelievable amount of red tape and compliance within every process, both digital and human, that occurs with regards to money and transactions. Especially in the fintech space, PayPal internally is bound to governmental regulations and auditing far more strict than any regulations imposed on customers. To suggest that PayPal can just close accounts at whim for any other reason than enforcement of legally binding terms and confiscate customer funds is simply absurd.
    - downandout 7y ago
      First, no company is ever “legally prohibited” from telling you what specific section of the TOS they allege that you violated. Second, with regard to PayPal not closing accounts on a whim, it happens literally everyday. See http://www.paypalsucks.com/ http://www.paypalsucks.com/ and countless other sites like it. Even the BBB lists nearly 8300 complaints against PayPal in the last 3 years - https://www.bbb.org/us/ca/san-jose/profile/payment-processing-services/paypal-inc-1216-210387/complaints https://www.bbb.org/us/ca/san-jose/profile/payment-processin...
drdeca 7y ago
This seems a little bit like saying that companies should be held to similar standards as governments ought to be, with regards to “the rule of law”, and the whole “the law should be publicly stated, and laws shouldn’t apply retroactively” thing. Which is, a claim worth considering? I am not convinced yet. I suppose that the fact that PayPal is a money transfer service, which is necessary for many kinds of businesses, and maybe kind of a monopoly, that could be a reason to treat them as more like a government than some businesses should be treated? Hm.
tutfbhuf 7y ago
> But if they are doing something that PayPal ... obviously found acceptable for ... years, it means that all businesses are in immediate danger of being instantly banned without explanation ... That's no news. Many PP user are fully aware of that fact. There have been similar cases over the years, completely unrelated to PBNs. That's the deal with PP, take it or leave it.

orthecreedence 7y ago

> it means that all businesses are in immediate danger of being instantly banned without explanation on the whim of any of thousands of PayPal employees This has always been the case. Paypal is extremely liberal with funds they seize or what accounts they shut down. At least, that's the image of them I've had for over a decade. Maybe they've since changed...but I wouldn't store any real amount of money in Paypal for any amount of time.

ginsuown 7y ago

Ummm....no. As a software engineer, I can assure you there are not "thousands of PayPal employees" that can just ban businesses at will. I don't even think engineers working on that particular piece of software have any jurisdiction over that. Time and time again people post complaints that PayPal banned them "for no reason", without cause, etc, but invariably when you do your research, they have violated the TOS, and they have often been warned by PayPal many times. They were scamming someone, exploiting return policies and systems, etc. People will conceal those facts, as well as their own actions which led to their consequences.

downandout 7y ago
The issue here is that this company did not violate PayPal's TOS, yet they find themselves in this situation. BTW, I had a similar experience with PayPal, though my account was not open for 12 years. I didn't violate any TOS, and had no chargebacks - as in not a single one - and yet my account was effectively ghosted. I was handed a bunch of hoops to jump through, I jumped through them, and then nothing happened. The account sat in that state for so long that PayPal was eventually required by law to turn the money over to the state as abandoned. Only then was I able to get the money back - from the state treasurer (years after the fact). So if your policy documents don't actually govern your policies, then employees are banning businesses based on their personal value judgments. That is problematic for a large number of reasons.
- ginsuown 7y ago
  > The issue here is that this company did not violate PayPal's TOS Untrue. Often the exact breach is legally prohibited from being publicly shared, but if a company is banned, then a TOS breach has happened. There is an unbelievable amount of red tape and compliance within every process, both digital and human, that occurs with regards to money and transactions. Especially in the fintech space, PayPal internally is bound to governmental regulations and auditing far more strict than any regulations imposed on customers. To suggest that PayPal can just close accounts at whim for any other reason than enforcement of legally binding terms and confiscate customer funds is simply absurd.
  - downandout 7y ago
    First, no company is ever “legally prohibited” from telling you what specific section of the TOS they allege that you violated. Second, with regard to PayPal not closing accounts on a whim, it happens literally everyday. See http://www.paypalsucks.com/ http://www.paypalsucks.com/ and countless other sites like it. Even the BBB lists nearly 8300 complaints against PayPal in the last 3 years - https://www.bbb.org/us/ca/san-jose/profile/payment-processing-services/paypal-inc-1216-210387/complaints https://www.bbb.org/us/ca/san-jose/profile/payment-processin...

drdeca 7y ago

This seems a little bit like saying that companies should be held to similar standards as governments ought to be, with regards to “the rule of law”, and the whole “the law should be publicly stated, and laws shouldn’t apply retroactively” thing. Which is, a claim worth considering? I am not convinced yet. I suppose that the fact that PayPal is a money transfer service, which is necessary for many kinds of businesses, and maybe kind of a monopoly, that could be a reason to treat them as more like a government than some businesses should be treated? Hm.

tutfbhuf 7y ago

> But if they are doing something that PayPal ... obviously found acceptable for ... years, it means that all businesses are in immediate danger of being instantly banned without explanation ... That's no news. Many PP user are fully aware of that fact. There have been similar cases over the years, completely unrelated to PBNs. That's the deal with PP, take it or leave it.