5 ms·

This policy has been discussed on HN before. It’s extremely cynical, and unique to PayPal’s status as a service that holds money for you. Any service could say

by CPLX 4y ago

This policy has been discussed on HN before. It’s extremely cynical, and unique to PayPal’s status as a service that holds money for you. Any service could say that you’ll have to pay $2,500 for violating the TOS if they want to. Instagram could say it, but nobody would give the money to them willingly and since it’s a bullshit clickwrap contract they’d have a hard time finding a sympathetic court to inflict it on you. The problem is that PayPal says it and then doesn’t just shut your account down unaccountably with no human recourse they take thousands of dollars of your own money when they do it, and you’d have to fight them in court for it. It’s a fait accompli situation. No it’s not remotely ethical.

htrp 4y ago
Possession is 9/10ths of the law
- deweyusa 4y ago
  This is nonsense, and typical layman logic when it comes to matters involving abandoned property and theft when on another premises. It is not even remotely inline with reality. In almost any jurisdiction in the US, one has legal recourse when someone takes their money or property. Whether it's in the other's control or not, it's still just as equally defined as theft.
  - DangitBobby 4y ago
    It's not completely nonsense, but maybe it kind of dances around the point. 99% of the time people don't have any legal access whatsoever because it's much too costly. Practically, people only have legal protection in catastrophic scenarios, where they have no choice but to pay exorbitant fees. So good luck getting your property back in 9/10 cases.
  - mlyle 4y ago
    In this case, it's a reasonable approximation. If property is the subject of a reasonable dispute-- e.g. whether a contractual term applies-- whomever is holding the property has the upper hand. Especially if the amount of property/money is small compared to the probable cost of litigation and especially so if one is unlikely to recover legal fees.
  - eru 4y ago
    To be pedantic, if you take stuff you already have control over, isn't that embezzlement rather than theft? In any case, I agree with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33063096 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33063096
  - NautilusWave 4y ago
    It's a quote from Roger Stone, and likely a joke.
    - Kbelicius 4y ago
      That saying is far older than Roger Stone and since GP didn't attribute it I fail to see why you would think he was quoting Roger Stone specifically.
  - TomSwirly 4y ago
    > > Possession is 9/10ths of the law > This is nonsense, ORLY? When PayPal closes people's accounts and keeps the money, in what percentage of cases do you think the people eventually get their money back? My guess is far fewer than 10%.
morpheuskafka 4y ago
> Any service could say that you’ll have to pay $2,500 for violating the TOS if they want to. Instagram could say it, but nobody would give the money to them willingly. Stubhub has a similar policy where you automatically get charged the entire sale price as a penalty (which goes entirely to Stubhub, separate and in addition to them refunding the buyer) for cancelling an order. Even if you do it right after sale. Most platforms like eBay or Amazon will give you some kind of strike for that, but I'd never heard of anyone attempting to fine you money beyond refunding the buyer. I cancelled the credit card so they can't charge me, but apparently they send people to collections for this. IANAL, but I think I might be able to argue that it is unreasonable liquidated damages, especially since their help site refers to it as a "penalty." PayPal is clearly trying to use the right language here, calling it an estimate of hard to calculate damages. I think these liquidated damages in consumer contracts are really a terrible idea and getting more and more common with online companies. Apparently Zipcar will charge a $50 late fee if you are even one minute late, whereas other rental firms charge something like $12 a day and wouldn't even think of counting minutes.
- eru 4y ago
  > I think these liquidated damages in consumer contracts are really a terrible idea [...] I agree. > and getting more and more common with online companies. Apparently Zipcar will charge a $50 late fee if you are even one minute late, whereas other rental firms charge something like $12 a day and wouldn't even think of counting minutes. I'd hope customers catch on, and competition takes care of this.
  - omnimus 4y ago
    > I'd hope customers catch on, and competition takes care of this. You mean they all realize it’s a great idea and implement same fees?
    - eru 4y ago
      Huh?
- 4y ago
lettergram 4y ago
> This policy has been discussed on HN before. Section 5 is new. It covers posts, content, etc that PayPal finds objectionable. To understand this in context, say I’m a website based business that posts conspiracy theories about JFK and UFOs. People pay for exclusive content via paypal. If I get labeled as misinformation on 300 posts, I could owe PayPal a minimum of $750,000 (300 * $2,500). I’m not saying PayPal will do that, but that appears fair game given the terms being provided here.
- brudgers 4y ago
  A prudent course of action would be to get pre approval from PayPal before accepting PayPal payments. To me, this is what the document suggests.
  - lettergram 4y ago
    Section number 5 under prohibited activities is what I was mentioning. There's a different section for topics requiring pre-approvals.
Cederfjard 4y ago
What legal justification does PayPal use for keeping people’s money when they shut down their accounts? Even if the funds were obtained in some illegal way, they are still surely not PayPal’s. Banks can’t decide unilaterally to just keep someone’s money.
- jhugo 4y ago
  They recover their "reasonable costs" from your money, after you agreed to them doing that when you decided to use their service. I've refused to use PayPal as either a buyer or seller for years now; anyone still doing so honestly can't act surprised when something like this happens.
  - YeBanKo 4y ago
    What is the alternative?
- TomSwirly 4y ago
  Why do they need a legal justification, practically? They take the money, and there is nothing you can do. If you spend enough money on lawyers, eventually they would give you the money back, but you'd lose on that deal too. Ethically and morally it's abhorrent, it degrades the power of the law, but they can get away with it. Fuckers.
pelasaco 4y ago
different than Instagram it has already access to your credit card/bank account, so I think they can just charge you and then you have to fight with your bank to roll it back.

by CPLX 4y ago

htrp 4y ago

Possession is 9/10ths of the law

deweyusa 4y ago
This is nonsense, and typical layman logic when it comes to matters involving abandoned property and theft when on another premises. It is not even remotely inline with reality. In almost any jurisdiction in the US, one has legal recourse when someone takes their money or property. Whether it's in the other's control or not, it's still just as equally defined as theft.
- DangitBobby 4y ago
  It's not completely nonsense, but maybe it kind of dances around the point. 99% of the time people don't have any legal access whatsoever because it's much too costly. Practically, people only have legal protection in catastrophic scenarios, where they have no choice but to pay exorbitant fees. So good luck getting your property back in 9/10 cases.
- mlyle 4y ago
  In this case, it's a reasonable approximation. If property is the subject of a reasonable dispute-- e.g. whether a contractual term applies-- whomever is holding the property has the upper hand. Especially if the amount of property/money is small compared to the probable cost of litigation and especially so if one is unlikely to recover legal fees.
- eru 4y ago
  To be pedantic, if you take stuff you already have control over, isn't that embezzlement rather than theft? In any case, I agree with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33063096 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33063096
- NautilusWave 4y ago
  It's a quote from Roger Stone, and likely a joke.
  - Kbelicius 4y ago
    That saying is far older than Roger Stone and since GP didn't attribute it I fail to see why you would think he was quoting Roger Stone specifically.
- TomSwirly 4y ago
  > > Possession is 9/10ths of the law > This is nonsense, ORLY? When PayPal closes people's accounts and keeps the money, in what percentage of cases do you think the people eventually get their money back? My guess is far fewer than 10%.

morpheuskafka 4y ago

> Any service could say that you’ll have to pay $2,500 for violating the TOS if they want to. Instagram could say it, but nobody would give the money to them willingly. Stubhub has a similar policy where you automatically get charged the entire sale price as a penalty (which goes entirely to Stubhub, separate and in addition to them refunding the buyer) for cancelling an order. Even if you do it right after sale. Most platforms like eBay or Amazon will give you some kind of strike for that, but I'd never heard of anyone attempting to fine you money beyond refunding the buyer. I cancelled the credit card so they can't charge me, but apparently they send people to collections for this. IANAL, but I think I might be able to argue that it is unreasonable liquidated damages, especially since their help site refers to it as a "penalty." PayPal is clearly trying to use the right language here, calling it an estimate of hard to calculate damages. I think these liquidated damages in consumer contracts are really a terrible idea and getting more and more common with online companies. Apparently Zipcar will charge a $50 late fee if you are even one minute late, whereas other rental firms charge something like $12 a day and wouldn't even think of counting minutes.

eru 4y ago
> I think these liquidated damages in consumer contracts are really a terrible idea [...] I agree. > and getting more and more common with online companies. Apparently Zipcar will charge a $50 late fee if you are even one minute late, whereas other rental firms charge something like $12 a day and wouldn't even think of counting minutes. I'd hope customers catch on, and competition takes care of this.
- omnimus 4y ago
  > I'd hope customers catch on, and competition takes care of this. You mean they all realize it’s a great idea and implement same fees?
  - eru 4y ago
    Huh?
4y ago

lettergram 4y ago

> This policy has been discussed on HN before. Section 5 is new. It covers posts, content, etc that PayPal finds objectionable. To understand this in context, say I’m a website based business that posts conspiracy theories about JFK and UFOs. People pay for exclusive content via paypal. If I get labeled as misinformation on 300 posts, I could owe PayPal a minimum of $750,000 (300 * $2,500). I’m not saying PayPal will do that, but that appears fair game given the terms being provided here.

brudgers 4y ago
A prudent course of action would be to get pre approval from PayPal before accepting PayPal payments. To me, this is what the document suggests.
- lettergram 4y ago
  Section number 5 under prohibited activities is what I was mentioning. There's a different section for topics requiring pre-approvals.

Cederfjard 4y ago

What legal justification does PayPal use for keeping people’s money when they shut down their accounts? Even if the funds were obtained in some illegal way, they are still surely not PayPal’s. Banks can’t decide unilaterally to just keep someone’s money.

jhugo 4y ago
They recover their "reasonable costs" from your money, after you agreed to them doing that when you decided to use their service. I've refused to use PayPal as either a buyer or seller for years now; anyone still doing so honestly can't act surprised when something like this happens.
- YeBanKo 4y ago
  What is the alternative?
TomSwirly 4y ago
Why do they need a legal justification, practically? They take the money, and there is nothing you can do. If you spend enough money on lawyers, eventually they would give you the money back, but you'd lose on that deal too. Ethically and morally it's abhorrent, it degrades the power of the law, but they can get away with it. Fuckers.

pelasaco 4y ago

different than Instagram it has already access to your credit card/bank account, so I think they can just charge you and then you have to fight with your bank to roll it back.