7 ms·

I'm so happy to see this. I am working on publishing a book on leanpub, and leanpub disburses payments using paypal. Yesterday, I logged into my paypal account

I'm so happy to see this. I am working on publishing a book on leanpub, and leanpub disburses payments using paypal. Yesterday, I logged into my paypal account and I remembered that this happened to me and my funds and account were frozen since 2010 (something I must have put out of my mind :p). I was searching for this issue and found this lawsuit and cannot wait to be part of it. Dealing with Paypal during the time was borderline abusive and I felt helpless every step of the way. In 2010 when they froze my account they mailed me a physical letter with an activation code which took weeks, and when I called to confirm my account I was told that the code was incorrect... I had very very little money in my account < $100 and I can't imagine how frustrating it would be for someone who needed paypal for their income. I'm happy to be in a position where I can choose to never use paypal again and I hope they are punished for the way they treat their customers.

mcv 5y ago
For over a decade I've heard tons of stories about PayPal freezing accounts for questionable reasons. I've heard of events that were cancelled because the organizers suddenly couldn't access the money people paid to the event, and PayPal wouldn't release the money until they could prove they'd organized the event for which people paid, for which the organizers of course needed that money. I will never ever use PayPal. Everything I've heard about them makes them sound like an extremely unreliable payment provider.They're not an organization you should trust with your money.
- amelius 5y ago
  They even created this website, back in the old days: https://paypalsucks.org/ https://paypalsucks.org/ Worth mentioning in this context is this page: http://paypalsucks.org/paypal-frozen-accounts.shtml http://paypalsucks.org/paypal-frozen-accounts.shtml
meonly123 5y ago
They frozen my account at Christmas. How do I get in Involved with this
kmlx 5y ago
> leanpub disburses payments using paypal generally speaking, is it more complicated for these kinds of payments to be done via wire/swift/etc versus paypal?
- pc86 5y ago
  Wire transfers have borderline predatory fees unless you're moving thousands of dollars, and there's still the issue of "oh you entered one of the numbers incorrectly, hopefully they give you your money back!"
  - vorpalhex 5y ago
    Try shopping banks. My wires are free in most cases and I am not a big customer or anything.
  - Xylakant 5y ago
    This is a distinctively US feature. SEPA transfers cost (next to) nothing, and the IBAN has a checksum, so entering a single digit wrong will get the transaction rejected.
    - maccolgan 5y ago
      It's not a US feature, the US has ACH.
  - ratg13 5y ago
    I wonder how Wise (formerly TransferWise) accomplishes this. They seem to be able to send money to bank accounts anywhere for extremely reasonable prices.
    - Scoundreller 5y ago
      They have bank accounts everywhere. They just avoid transferring money between them in the first place. As long as an even amount of money is going in each direction, they won’t have to. Only if flow gets too out of whack but that means their rates are too one-sided. That’s the forex business in a nutshell. They don’t convert money, they just exchange it.
designium 5y ago
Don't worry. You won't have that money after they've implemented the inactivity fee last year: https://www.paypal.com/be/smarthelp/article/what-is-the-inactivity-fee-faq4427 https://www.paypal.com/be/smarthelp/article/what-is-the-inac...
- msgi 5y ago
  How ironic. When I was canceling my paypal account a few years ago, paypal prompted me: It's free to have a paypal account, so if you don't want to use it, just leave it. It's hard for me to imagine when someone opens his old PayPal account and finds out that he was charged 10 €. (not even in US dollars)
- tananaev 5y ago
  Inactivity fee is such a disgusting practice. It doesn't cost them anything to keep the account.
  - Trias11 5y ago
    It's an attempt to legalize theft.
    - gunapologist99 5y ago
      Envato does the same thing; so does Freelancer.
    - muzika 5y ago
      This. Skype has been doing the same for years.
      - hackerfromthefu 5y ago
        With Skype credit that is deactivated, you can easily reactivate it again. I've done that.
  - kgermino 5y ago

mcv 5y ago

For over a decade I've heard tons of stories about PayPal freezing accounts for questionable reasons. I've heard of events that were cancelled because the organizers suddenly couldn't access the money people paid to the event, and PayPal wouldn't release the money until they could prove they'd organized the event for which people paid, for which the organizers of course needed that money. I will never ever use PayPal. Everything I've heard about them makes them sound like an extremely unreliable payment provider.They're not an organization you should trust with your money.

amelius 5y ago
They even created this website, back in the old days: https://paypalsucks.org/ https://paypalsucks.org/ Worth mentioning in this context is this page: http://paypalsucks.org/paypal-frozen-accounts.shtml http://paypalsucks.org/paypal-frozen-accounts.shtml

meonly123 5y ago

They frozen my account at Christmas. How do I get in Involved with this

kmlx 5y ago

> leanpub disburses payments using paypal generally speaking, is it more complicated for these kinds of payments to be done via wire/swift/etc versus paypal?

pc86 5y ago
Wire transfers have borderline predatory fees unless you're moving thousands of dollars, and there's still the issue of "oh you entered one of the numbers incorrectly, hopefully they give you your money back!"
- vorpalhex 5y ago
  Try shopping banks. My wires are free in most cases and I am not a big customer or anything.
- Xylakant 5y ago
  This is a distinctively US feature. SEPA transfers cost (next to) nothing, and the IBAN has a checksum, so entering a single digit wrong will get the transaction rejected.
  - maccolgan 5y ago
    It's not a US feature, the US has ACH.
- ratg13 5y ago
  I wonder how Wise (formerly TransferWise) accomplishes this. They seem to be able to send money to bank accounts anywhere for extremely reasonable prices.
  - Scoundreller 5y ago
    They have bank accounts everywhere. They just avoid transferring money between them in the first place. As long as an even amount of money is going in each direction, they won’t have to. Only if flow gets too out of whack but that means their rates are too one-sided. That’s the forex business in a nutshell. They don’t convert money, they just exchange it.

designium 5y ago

Don't worry. You won't have that money after they've implemented the inactivity fee last year: https://www.paypal.com/be/smarthelp/article/what-is-the-inactivity-fee-faq4427 https://www.paypal.com/be/smarthelp/article/what-is-the-inac...

msgi 5y ago
How ironic. When I was canceling my paypal account a few years ago, paypal prompted me: It's free to have a paypal account, so if you don't want to use it, just leave it. It's hard for me to imagine when someone opens his old PayPal account and finds out that he was charged 10 €. (not even in US dollars)
tananaev 5y ago
Inactivity fee is such a disgusting practice. It doesn't cost them anything to keep the account.
- Trias11 5y ago
  It's an attempt to legalize theft.
  - gunapologist99 5y ago
    Envato does the same thing; so does Freelancer.
  - muzika 5y ago
    This. Skype has been doing the same for years.
    - hackerfromthefu 5y ago
      With Skype credit that is deactivated, you can easily reactivate it again. I've done that.
- kgermino 5y ago