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Venmo and Paypal Are Stalling Urgent Efforts to Bail People Out of Jail

165 points by aspenmayer 6y ago

kevinsundar 6y ago
So "Covid Bail Out NYC" used Paypal and Venmo (presumably only their respective p2p transfer options, not their organization/business options) to collect funds. And they're complaining that Paypal or Venmo isn't willing to disable automated fraud protections for a payment method thats only meant to be for individual to individual transfers?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
aaron425 6y ago
I'm not entirely sure I agree with the "stalling" portion of the title for this article. Vice could argue that they're slow to react, but transfer limits have been a thing for these kinds of apps forever, including CashApp which doesn't seem to be mentioned here.
- bdcravens 6y ago
  It's only "stalling" if they are uniquely doing this for this organization, which doesn't seem to be the case.
  - close04 6y ago
    Being able to do something about this, especially in these extraordinary circumstances, and still not doing it is a sign of acting in bad faith. More so when the issue lies with your intentionally crippled (as in "not just an oversight") implementation. Stalling is perhaps too soft a word. On the other hand PayPal is more than willing to blame COVID19 for delays in issues that should officially be resolved faster and that are causing losses to others. So they're willing to use the "extraordinary circumstances" excuse when and only when it suits them. Another sign that they are acting in bad faith.
vikramkr 6y ago
You could look at this as these organizations making a mistake by using Venmo and expecting them to try and re-engineertheir platform to help them, or as venmo making a mistake by failing to capitalize on this moment and ending any chance of them becoming the payments backbone of small dollar donations, while also creating the PR disaster of PayPal's notorious tendency to freeze accounts/mess things up with broken systems and poor customer service blowing up into a high profile failure. PayPal has started getting a pretty bad reputation, and while I think this site is likely to lean into the "they shouldn't have chosen venmo" angle, do remember that PayPal has a reputation for fraud systems screwing up.
- close04 6y ago
  "Re-engineering" is vastly overstating what they should do. PayPal has a reputation for systems screwing up almost exclusively in their favor, mostly by hanging on to money for far longer than they should. Hence the unwillingness to "re-engineer" anything even past the point when you can assume it's anything but acting in bad faith.
- PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
  I have never seen any statistical data on PayPal's screw ups. All I ever see are anecdotes about a terrible thing that happened to someone or someone they know. PayPal is huge. It's not suprising that there would be some horror stories. What matters is how frequent they are given the number of accounts and/or transactions, and I've never come across any actual data on this. I suspect it doesn't exist.
  - jjnoakes 6y ago
    What matters to me is how the screw ups are handled. If I can make a few phone calls, verify some ai-flagged transaction is legit, and clear things up in a few days max, then the occasional screw up is just a fact of life. If I have to talk to a brick wall for months or years and have my money frozen for paper thin reasons and the side who made the mistake takes no responsibility, then it doesn't really matter how rare it is. I'm not touching that business.
bdcravens 6y ago
The article's title is clickbait (no fault to the submitter). These are withdrawal limit and/or fraud detection issues that would apply equally to other organizations using Venmo or Paypal. I suspect this isn't just a matter of these companies clicking a checkbox; many of these limits are likely required by their banking partners or regulations.
- tyingq 6y ago
  Sometimes they use "partners" or "regulations" as scapegoats. For example, PayPal's implementation of OFAC blacklisting is a braindead loose string match on ANY field that therefore has a huge false positive rate. Compliance with OFAC is mandatory. Doing it in a stupid way is not.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    PayPal has been shady long enough to lose the benefit of the doubt.
pjc50 6y ago
Bail security is yet another part of the US system that needs to be removed for all but the most serious crimes.
- bdcravens 6y ago
  In Houston there was an outcry when the county was going to let a large number out of jail to alleviate COVID concerns. The narrative about "dangerous criminals on the streets!" was ridiculous, since they were only letting out those who were there because they couldn't bail out; they were no more dangerous than those who had bailed out for the same crimes, the only difference was if they could afford the bail.
  - the-dude 6y ago
    So they were actually releasing dangerous criminals on to the streets. I fail to see how the claim is ridiculous.
    - jschwartzi 6y ago
      In the United States our justice system applies the principal of "Innocent until proven guilty." In other words, when you are merely accused of a crime you are presumed to not be a criminal. The state has to actually prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you, the accused, committed the crime. People in Jail are not criminals until they are put on trial, convicted, and sentenced at which point they are convicts and go to prison.
      - the-dude 6y ago
        Right, they are suspect. But this was not the point the parent was making. He was comparing the paying group to the non-paying group. If you release more, you have more suspect dangerous criminals on the streets.
        close04 6y ago
        Wait, "dangerous" or "suspected dangerous"? Because most of the people in jail (not to be confused with prison/penitentiary) are not there for anything dangerous to begin with. A policeman decided they they should be locked up and that policeman doesn't need any particularly good reason for it.
thelittleone 6y ago
Having worked in fraud protection for several very large banks I totally understand the need for automation and case reviews. However PayPal stands out for me as THE worst company in finance. One colleague has over $25k that has been held pending company verification for AML reasons. This has been ongoing for over 1.5 years every time he completes the requirement PayPal issues additional requirements. And the according to email replies he received, the department responsible for such case reviews has been on leave for 3 months due to COVID. What does PayPal do with money that is frozen? Are they allowed to gain from it? I now always advocate strongly against using Paypal.
- notyourwork 6y ago
  A much smaller scale but same problem. I for a holiday years ago received an iPod from two different relatives. My parents bought me one earlier that year so although appreciated I didn't want to offend family and try to ask for a receipt or return them. Therefore I opted for selling them via eBay. As an eBay small volume seller with 100% positive rating, I posted 2 iPods, sold and shipped to payer. My account funds were frozen and paypal requested proof of purchase. At this point as a poor high school student I was flabbergasted they could withhold my money for no reason. I reached out to both relatives, explained what happened and told them about the receipt paypal requested. Both send me a copy of the receipt which I supplied. Paypal rejected the receipts (I forget the reason) and told me they were not going to release the funds. I determined they could only hold it for 6 months (I don't remember the legal reasons here). Therefore, I parked my account paypal account, 6 months later took my money and never looked back.
  - csomar 6y ago
    It's easy to bash PayPal but they probably implemented that after too many people used the platform to sell stolen goods. The receipt was probably in your relatives name's; which means you did not buy it. This is actually a good use case for Gift cards.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
thoraway1010 6y ago
Couple of quick things. Can you even use venmo to send money to people to write checks on behalf of third parties? I thought there was lots of restrictions on that type of activity in general and limits in these person to person platforms in particular. Are these folks setup as approved businesses with venmo / paypal / stripe etc? I've had good luck moving large volumes if you are a legit large business not violating TOS. Note that accepting money to write checks for third parties is almost always a violation.
MintelIE 6y ago
I think a big issue is that Paypal and Venmo don't want to come under scrutiny for aiding domestic terrorists.
- aspenmayer 6y ago
  Doesn’t withholding bail money indirectly help the police by keeping legitimate protesters off the streets? So I guess PayPal fails even if they succeed by profiting off of an unjust cash bail system.
- kstrauser 6y ago
  Which ones were convicted? I hadn't seen that story yet.
CPLX 6y ago
The accounts in question are essentially acting as money transmitters, intermediaries between the people with money and the court/jail they are trying to get the money to. I don't think there's a financial institution the country that is going to allow that without restrictions, for reasons that should be obvious.
- thejynxed 6y ago
  Well yes, besides it running afoul of laws governing anti-mafia/cartel dealings, the risk of fraud is very high.
lucb1e 6y ago
I hadn't heard of Venmo before so perhaps I'm missing something, but Wikipedia says it's a subsidiary of PayPal, so this is really "paypal and paypal are stalling"? The post seems to talk about them as if they're independent.
- cosmie 6y ago
  You're not missing anything. Paypal slurped up Venmo as part of their Braintree acquisition several years ago. Braintree still exists as it's own distinct offering, but the branding was updated to clearly show it as part of Paypal[1]. Venmo is also operated under its own brand as an independent/distinct product offering, and unlike Braintree it never had its branding updated to tie it to the Paypal portfolio. The only place you'll find a reference to Paypal are places like their legalese such as the website footer[2], where they note they're a service of Paypal and Paypal is the actual provider of all money transmission activities within Venmo. So they're spoken about independently because from the consumer standpoint they are (independent apps, independent accounts, different capabilities/limitations, etc). But they're having the same issues because the root cause is part of the same shared money transmission systems/policies. [1] See the header logo https://www.braintreepayments.com/ https://www.braintreepayments.com/ [2] https://venmo.com/ https://venmo.com/
metrokoi 6y ago
>But because of constant security freezes and transfer limits imposed by PayPal and its mobile payment service Venmo, the group is only able to bail out around five people— $20,000 worth of cash bail—per week. Quite the incendiary headline for an issue of bandwidth. These payment processing companies were never designed for so many and so large transfer amounts. Vice and others expect these companies to snap their fingers and change something that otherwise would take months or years of development. Quite puzzling, especially since Venmo and PayPal are supporting these groups bailing people out, the only complaint is Venmo and PayPal are not doing it fast enough.
MrRadar 6y ago
This is far from new. I still avoid Paypal as much as possible from how they screwed over the Something Awful Hurricane Katrina fundraiser back in 2005.
vmception 6y ago
Thats just dumb because the people directing energy to these efforts are not organized and are reactionary. There literally exist people in this world that believe "doing something" is more important than planning, and that is the kind of person involved with these efforts here. Is it even worth writing a solution here? Whats the best way to reach that group? I can imagine they just told their supporters to venmo them, instead of actually ACH or wire transfer to their organization's bank account - assuming they even have one set up under an entity or foundation. Imagine being so unprepared that you don't even know the regulations creating the problem and misdirect that angst to Venmopal.
- sadsadsadsad 6y ago
  ha, glad to see at least one sane person here. i don't think your average HN bubble-boy realizes how unorganized these folks are.
- egypturnash 6y ago
  Dude, these protests are barely two weeks old. You want people to go set up an LLC or something before they get together to bail out the folks the cops arrested after doing tricks like “closing all the exits to the city twenty minutes before announcing a curfew”? Yes, a lot of this sort of thing is being done on an ad hoc basis. Never mind that there may be hidden class issues, you need a certain amount of money and privilege to set up DBAs (as well as time, which, again, people may not necessarily have because who the hell anticipated any of this past month), and part of the reason these protests are happening is decades of systemic economic suppression of Black people. But go ahead, keep blaming the victims because they’re reacting to a problem that popped up as quickly as possible, and running into problems with rigid systems that have a long history of dealing badly with accounts that suddenly explode in popularity.
  - vmception 6y ago
    > Whats the best way to reach that group? > Whats the best way to reach that group? > Whats the best way to reach that group? Read what you want to read. Yes, there are a lot of anti-patterns and class-correlated knowledge gaps. I know how to setup a new LLC and bank account within 48 hours, and it would cost me around $125 - $450 dollars, I would probably also have one on the shelf with a bank account to repurpose already for any purpose. There would be no lawyer involved. A 501(c)3 exemption is an election that takes longer for the IRS to process. But you can proceed as if it would be accepted, or think about how to classify the incoming money later to rationalize a lower/non-existent tax burden. If they went the charity route, there is more than a 501(c)3 approval necessary to accept from many donors. I am surprised nobody else in their circle has directed that energy that way. The problems they are reacting to are not bound to one socioeconomic class.
heavyset_go 6y ago
Never use PayPal to raise funds or donations for charity, they are notorious for freezing funds and never giving them to their intended recipients. This was the case 15 years ago and it's still the case today.
ValentineC 6y ago
PayPal's customer service is atrocious, especially if one falls between the gaps and gets asked to do some weird KYC. Some months ago, they asked me to provide charity information for my personal account, and subsequently limited my receiving/sending privileges. Phone calls to them trying to sort this out have always ended up at some call centre in the Philippines, where the agents can only tell their users that the account limitation is "for their safety". That account of mine is still limited. They've also limited the personal account of a friend of mine (who was interestingly enough ex-PayPal) before, also asking for charity information.
strbean 6y ago
For all their anti-fraud measures, they still couldn't figure out that those 3 simultaneous $500 transactions with a West African gold mining company weren't actually initiated by me, and need 3 weeks to resolve it. Anyone using PayPal today just hasn't learned their lesson yet.
- Wingman4l7 6y ago
  Or has no other choice. :/ They're the major (and possibly sole) payment provider for eBay sellers.
  - strbean 6y ago
    True. Many online swapping communities also standardize around PayPal. It seems like eBay is dominated nowadays by people drop-shipping products from Amazon etc. with a markup, though.
    - Wingman4l7 6y ago
      It really depends; eBay is a huge marketplace. There are several professional electronics recyclers / refurbishers on there, I'm sure there's a healthy contingent of collectibles sellers, games, etc. I'd love to see the numbers though; maybe it's like Amazon -- AWS : retail :: drop-shippers : unique sellers.
at_a_remove 6y ago
It's funny, I typically get downvotes wherever I go for suggesting that I want companies like this to be a dumb pipe for my transactions. Everything is political, I was told. Ah, now the downsides of everything being political become apparent -- when it goes against them.
- bitwize 6y ago
  It's almost as if... politics has right and wrong answers!
corobo 6y ago
Alternate title: Urgent Efforts to Bail People Out of Jail Used Paypal, Again. Can we stop using PayPal for this sort of thing? Every time there’s a news story about PP locking accounts for fraud checks. Every time. At a certain point it’s just PayPal’s policy to lock charitable accounts, it’s on you if you use them anyway.

165 points by aspenmayer 6y ago

So "Covid Bail Out NYC" used Paypal and Venmo (presumably only their respective p2p transfer options, not their organization/business options) to collect funds. And they're complaining that Paypal or Venmo isn't willing to disable automated fraud protections for a payment method thats only meant to be for individual to individual transfers?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

aaron425 6y ago

I'm not entirely sure I agree with the "stalling" portion of the title for this article. Vice could argue that they're slow to react, but transfer limits have been a thing for these kinds of apps forever, including CashApp which doesn't seem to be mentioned here.

bdcravens 6y ago
It's only "stalling" if they are uniquely doing this for this organization, which doesn't seem to be the case.
- close04 6y ago
  Being able to do something about this, especially in these extraordinary circumstances, and still not doing it is a sign of acting in bad faith. More so when the issue lies with your intentionally crippled (as in "not just an oversight") implementation. Stalling is perhaps too soft a word. On the other hand PayPal is more than willing to blame COVID19 for delays in issues that should officially be resolved faster and that are causing losses to others. So they're willing to use the "extraordinary circumstances" excuse when and only when it suits them. Another sign that they are acting in bad faith.

vikramkr 6y ago

You could look at this as these organizations making a mistake by using Venmo and expecting them to try and re-engineertheir platform to help them, or as venmo making a mistake by failing to capitalize on this moment and ending any chance of them becoming the payments backbone of small dollar donations, while also creating the PR disaster of PayPal's notorious tendency to freeze accounts/mess things up with broken systems and poor customer service blowing up into a high profile failure. PayPal has started getting a pretty bad reputation, and while I think this site is likely to lean into the "they shouldn't have chosen venmo" angle, do remember that PayPal has a reputation for fraud systems screwing up.

close04 6y ago
"Re-engineering" is vastly overstating what they should do. PayPal has a reputation for systems screwing up almost exclusively in their favor, mostly by hanging on to money for far longer than they should. Hence the unwillingness to "re-engineer" anything even past the point when you can assume it's anything but acting in bad faith.
PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
I have never seen any statistical data on PayPal's screw ups. All I ever see are anecdotes about a terrible thing that happened to someone or someone they know. PayPal is huge. It's not suprising that there would be some horror stories. What matters is how frequent they are given the number of accounts and/or transactions, and I've never come across any actual data on this. I suspect it doesn't exist.
- jjnoakes 6y ago
  What matters to me is how the screw ups are handled. If I can make a few phone calls, verify some ai-flagged transaction is legit, and clear things up in a few days max, then the occasional screw up is just a fact of life. If I have to talk to a brick wall for months or years and have my money frozen for paper thin reasons and the side who made the mistake takes no responsibility, then it doesn't really matter how rare it is. I'm not touching that business.

bdcravens 6y ago

The article's title is clickbait (no fault to the submitter). These are withdrawal limit and/or fraud detection issues that would apply equally to other organizations using Venmo or Paypal. I suspect this isn't just a matter of these companies clicking a checkbox; many of these limits are likely required by their banking partners or regulations.

tyingq 6y ago
Sometimes they use "partners" or "regulations" as scapegoats. For example, PayPal's implementation of OFAC blacklisting is a braindead loose string match on ANY field that therefore has a huge false positive rate. Compliance with OFAC is mandatory. Doing it in a stupid way is not.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  PayPal has been shady long enough to lose the benefit of the doubt.

pjc50 6y ago

Bail security is yet another part of the US system that needs to be removed for all but the most serious crimes.

bdcravens 6y ago
In Houston there was an outcry when the county was going to let a large number out of jail to alleviate COVID concerns. The narrative about "dangerous criminals on the streets!" was ridiculous, since they were only letting out those who were there because they couldn't bail out; they were no more dangerous than those who had bailed out for the same crimes, the only difference was if they could afford the bail.
- the-dude 6y ago
  So they were actually releasing dangerous criminals on to the streets. I fail to see how the claim is ridiculous.
  - jschwartzi 6y ago
    In the United States our justice system applies the principal of "Innocent until proven guilty." In other words, when you are merely accused of a crime you are presumed to not be a criminal. The state has to actually prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you, the accused, committed the crime. People in Jail are not criminals until they are put on trial, convicted, and sentenced at which point they are convicts and go to prison.
    - the-dude 6y ago
      Right, they are suspect. But this was not the point the parent was making. He was comparing the paying group to the non-paying group. If you release more, you have more suspect dangerous criminals on the streets.
      - close04 6y ago
        Wait, "dangerous" or "suspected dangerous"? Because most of the people in jail (not to be confused with prison/penitentiary) are not there for anything dangerous to begin with. A policeman decided they they should be locked up and that policeman doesn't need any particularly good reason for it.

thelittleone 6y ago

Having worked in fraud protection for several very large banks I totally understand the need for automation and case reviews. However PayPal stands out for me as THE worst company in finance. One colleague has over $25k that has been held pending company verification for AML reasons. This has been ongoing for over 1.5 years every time he completes the requirement PayPal issues additional requirements. And the according to email replies he received, the department responsible for such case reviews has been on leave for 3 months due to COVID. What does PayPal do with money that is frozen? Are they allowed to gain from it? I now always advocate strongly against using Paypal.

notyourwork 6y ago
A much smaller scale but same problem. I for a holiday years ago received an iPod from two different relatives. My parents bought me one earlier that year so although appreciated I didn't want to offend family and try to ask for a receipt or return them. Therefore I opted for selling them via eBay. As an eBay small volume seller with 100% positive rating, I posted 2 iPods, sold and shipped to payer. My account funds were frozen and paypal requested proof of purchase. At this point as a poor high school student I was flabbergasted they could withhold my money for no reason. I reached out to both relatives, explained what happened and told them about the receipt paypal requested. Both send me a copy of the receipt which I supplied. Paypal rejected the receipts (I forget the reason) and told me they were not going to release the funds. I determined they could only hold it for 6 months (I don't remember the legal reasons here). Therefore, I parked my account paypal account, 6 months later took my money and never looked back.
- csomar 6y ago
  It's easy to bash PayPal but they probably implemented that after too many people used the platform to sell stolen goods. The receipt was probably in your relatives name's; which means you did not buy it. This is actually a good use case for Gift cards.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago

thoraway1010 6y ago

Couple of quick things. Can you even use venmo to send money to people to write checks on behalf of third parties? I thought there was lots of restrictions on that type of activity in general and limits in these person to person platforms in particular. Are these folks setup as approved businesses with venmo / paypal / stripe etc? I've had good luck moving large volumes if you are a legit large business not violating TOS. Note that accepting money to write checks for third parties is almost always a violation.

MintelIE 6y ago

I think a big issue is that Paypal and Venmo don't want to come under scrutiny for aiding domestic terrorists.

aspenmayer 6y ago
Doesn’t withholding bail money indirectly help the police by keeping legitimate protesters off the streets? So I guess PayPal fails even if they succeed by profiting off of an unjust cash bail system.
kstrauser 6y ago
Which ones were convicted? I hadn't seen that story yet.

CPLX 6y ago

The accounts in question are essentially acting as money transmitters, intermediaries between the people with money and the court/jail they are trying to get the money to. I don't think there's a financial institution the country that is going to allow that without restrictions, for reasons that should be obvious.

thejynxed 6y ago
Well yes, besides it running afoul of laws governing anti-mafia/cartel dealings, the risk of fraud is very high.

lucb1e 6y ago

I hadn't heard of Venmo before so perhaps I'm missing something, but Wikipedia says it's a subsidiary of PayPal, so this is really "paypal and paypal are stalling"? The post seems to talk about them as if they're independent.

cosmie 6y ago
You're not missing anything. Paypal slurped up Venmo as part of their Braintree acquisition several years ago. Braintree still exists as it's own distinct offering, but the branding was updated to clearly show it as part of Paypal[1]. Venmo is also operated under its own brand as an independent/distinct product offering, and unlike Braintree it never had its branding updated to tie it to the Paypal portfolio. The only place you'll find a reference to Paypal are places like their legalese such as the website footer[2], where they note they're a service of Paypal and Paypal is the actual provider of all money transmission activities within Venmo. So they're spoken about independently because from the consumer standpoint they are (independent apps, independent accounts, different capabilities/limitations, etc). But they're having the same issues because the root cause is part of the same shared money transmission systems/policies. [1] See the header logo https://www.braintreepayments.com/ https://www.braintreepayments.com/ [2] https://venmo.com/ https://venmo.com/

metrokoi 6y ago

>But because of constant security freezes and transfer limits imposed by PayPal and its mobile payment service Venmo, the group is only able to bail out around five people— $20,000 worth of cash bail—per week. Quite the incendiary headline for an issue of bandwidth. These payment processing companies were never designed for so many and so large transfer amounts. Vice and others expect these companies to snap their fingers and change something that otherwise would take months or years of development. Quite puzzling, especially since Venmo and PayPal are supporting these groups bailing people out, the only complaint is Venmo and PayPal are not doing it fast enough.

MrRadar 6y ago

This is far from new. I still avoid Paypal as much as possible from how they screwed over the Something Awful Hurricane Katrina fundraiser back in 2005.

vmception 6y ago

Thats just dumb because the people directing energy to these efforts are not organized and are reactionary. There literally exist people in this world that believe "doing something" is more important than planning, and that is the kind of person involved with these efforts here. Is it even worth writing a solution here? Whats the best way to reach that group? I can imagine they just told their supporters to venmo them, instead of actually ACH or wire transfer to their organization's bank account - assuming they even have one set up under an entity or foundation. Imagine being so unprepared that you don't even know the regulations creating the problem and misdirect that angst to Venmopal.

sadsadsadsad 6y ago
ha, glad to see at least one sane person here. i don't think your average HN bubble-boy realizes how unorganized these folks are.
egypturnash 6y ago
Dude, these protests are barely two weeks old. You want people to go set up an LLC or something before they get together to bail out the folks the cops arrested after doing tricks like “closing all the exits to the city twenty minutes before announcing a curfew”? Yes, a lot of this sort of thing is being done on an ad hoc basis. Never mind that there may be hidden class issues, you need a certain amount of money and privilege to set up DBAs (as well as time, which, again, people may not necessarily have because who the hell anticipated any of this past month), and part of the reason these protests are happening is decades of systemic economic suppression of Black people. But go ahead, keep blaming the victims because they’re reacting to a problem that popped up as quickly as possible, and running into problems with rigid systems that have a long history of dealing badly with accounts that suddenly explode in popularity.
- vmception 6y ago
  > Whats the best way to reach that group? > Whats the best way to reach that group? > Whats the best way to reach that group? Read what you want to read. Yes, there are a lot of anti-patterns and class-correlated knowledge gaps. I know how to setup a new LLC and bank account within 48 hours, and it would cost me around $125 - $450 dollars, I would probably also have one on the shelf with a bank account to repurpose already for any purpose. There would be no lawyer involved. A 501(c)3 exemption is an election that takes longer for the IRS to process. But you can proceed as if it would be accepted, or think about how to classify the incoming money later to rationalize a lower/non-existent tax burden. If they went the charity route, there is more than a 501(c)3 approval necessary to accept from many donors. I am surprised nobody else in their circle has directed that energy that way. The problems they are reacting to are not bound to one socioeconomic class.

heavyset_go 6y ago

Never use PayPal to raise funds or donations for charity, they are notorious for freezing funds and never giving them to their intended recipients. This was the case 15 years ago and it's still the case today.

ValentineC 6y ago

PayPal's customer service is atrocious, especially if one falls between the gaps and gets asked to do some weird KYC. Some months ago, they asked me to provide charity information for my personal account, and subsequently limited my receiving/sending privileges. Phone calls to them trying to sort this out have always ended up at some call centre in the Philippines, where the agents can only tell their users that the account limitation is "for their safety". That account of mine is still limited. They've also limited the personal account of a friend of mine (who was interestingly enough ex-PayPal) before, also asking for charity information.

strbean 6y ago

For all their anti-fraud measures, they still couldn't figure out that those 3 simultaneous $500 transactions with a West African gold mining company weren't actually initiated by me, and need 3 weeks to resolve it. Anyone using PayPal today just hasn't learned their lesson yet.

Wingman4l7 6y ago
Or has no other choice. :/ They're the major (and possibly sole) payment provider for eBay sellers.
- strbean 6y ago
  True. Many online swapping communities also standardize around PayPal. It seems like eBay is dominated nowadays by people drop-shipping products from Amazon etc. with a markup, though.
  - Wingman4l7 6y ago
    It really depends; eBay is a huge marketplace. There are several professional electronics recyclers / refurbishers on there, I'm sure there's a healthy contingent of collectibles sellers, games, etc. I'd love to see the numbers though; maybe it's like Amazon -- AWS : retail :: drop-shippers : unique sellers.

at_a_remove 6y ago

It's funny, I typically get downvotes wherever I go for suggesting that I want companies like this to be a dumb pipe for my transactions. Everything is political, I was told. Ah, now the downsides of everything being political become apparent -- when it goes against them.

bitwize 6y ago
It's almost as if... politics has right and wrong answers!

corobo 6y ago

Alternate title: Urgent Efforts to Bail People Out of Jail Used Paypal, Again. Can we stop using PayPal for this sort of thing? Every time there’s a news story about PP locking accounts for fraud checks. Every time. At a certain point it’s just PayPal’s policy to lock charitable accounts, it’s on you if you use them anyway.