5 ms·

This is neither shocking, nor new. A decade ago I remember a friend who had a small business selling some niche collectors items. One day, he was scammed. The

This is neither shocking, nor new. A decade ago I remember a friend who had a small business selling some niche collectors items. One day, he was scammed. The guy reported that the package was never delivered and, without even investigating, Paypal banned my friend's account and awarded the buyer their money back. Paypal has always, and will always be a shit company. Charging people $2,500 for wrongthink is simply asinine. They must be betting BIG on either woke politics being mainstream for the long term, unbreakable bonds with their existing customers, or both. I can't even think of someone around me that uses paypal regularly. I will be interested in reading the technical report on how they plan on implementing this because I'm sure it'll be silicon valley diarrhea. I am currently working out how to pay companies in a similar fashion to Paypal. I'm looking at Privacy.com but something is off about it to me for some reason. Once that is solved I'll get this ape off my back forever. I wonder what happens if I just say "lol, not paying" to them. Would they put me in collections? It seems infeasible to even enforce this and it strikes me that clicking a button doesn't amount of a legal agreement.

willsmith72 4y ago
I guess you're not in Europe. Paypal is huge here, especially in Germany. Has been useful for years here for free instant transactions without currency conversion fees (at least between some euro currencies)
- Test0129 4y ago
  Interesting. I'd imagine here most of the apps people use for that (Cash app, Zelle, etc) are just frontends for Paypal.
  - pie_flavor 4y ago
    Zelle is a direct bank transfer system.
  - acchow 4y ago
    They are not. Cash was built using unlinked refunds over visa to do direct deposit onto visa debit cards. For ACH, it uses normal ACH rails. Zelle…was built by the big banks…
    - formerly_proven 4y ago
      > Cash was built using unlinked refunds over visa to do direct deposit onto visa That sorta sounds like violating visa tos?
      - acchow 4y ago
        Nah, they just used a hack before working directly with visa to create a standard for this
  - kodah 4y ago
    Zelle is absolutely bad, imo. It's like an incomplete Paypal but with a $3.5k transaction limit.
- ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago
  SEPA payments and TransferWise are a complete replacement.
  - thirdsun 4y ago
    Paypal got popular because it allowed people to pay for things instantly online. SEPA Überweisung didn't really solve that problem and credit cards used to be rather uncommon - even today many germans don't have one. P2P payments between friends came later and wer just another thing Paypal could handle but at that point it was already very popular.
    - ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago
      That doesn't negate or contradict my point. >even today many germans don't have one Thankfully debit cards are a thing!
philsnow 4y ago
> I wonder what happens if I just say "lol, not paying" to them. Would they put me in collections? You can revoke paypal's ACH authorization to your accounts [0]. I would not want to deal with the headache of them falsely telling creditors that I owe them money, though. [0] https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ask-cfpb/how-can-i-stop-a-payday-lender-from-electronically-taking-money-out-of-my-bank-or-credit-union-account-en-1605/ https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ask-cfpb/how-can-i-stop-a-pa...
- actually_a_dog 4y ago
  Good luck with that. I had some random bad actor somehow get ahold of my account numbers and debit ~$40 out of my account once via something called a "demand draft." My bank refunded me the money, but they told me they'd have to close my old account and open a whole new account in order to stop it from happening again in the future.
  - philsnow 4y ago
    > open a whole new account in order to stop it from happening again in the future Not sure how that would stop it from happening again in the future, if the bank isn't going to make the barest attempt at stopping people from debiting your accounts with just the routing number + account number...
    - actually_a_dog 4y ago
      That's what I told them. They shrugged, opened a new account, transferred my balance, and closed the old one. It hasn't happened since, and I have no idea why or how it happened in the first place.
commandlinefan 4y ago
> woke politics being mainstream That's not even a requirement here - they just have to continually adjust their principles to be whatever happens to be most fashionable at the moment, just like most everybody else does.

willsmith72 4y ago

I guess you're not in Europe. Paypal is huge here, especially in Germany. Has been useful for years here for free instant transactions without currency conversion fees (at least between some euro currencies)

Test0129 4y ago
Interesting. I'd imagine here most of the apps people use for that (Cash app, Zelle, etc) are just frontends for Paypal.
- pie_flavor 4y ago
  Zelle is a direct bank transfer system.
- acchow 4y ago
  They are not. Cash was built using unlinked refunds over visa to do direct deposit onto visa debit cards. For ACH, it uses normal ACH rails. Zelle…was built by the big banks…
  - formerly_proven 4y ago
    > Cash was built using unlinked refunds over visa to do direct deposit onto visa That sorta sounds like violating visa tos?
    - acchow 4y ago
      Nah, they just used a hack before working directly with visa to create a standard for this
- kodah 4y ago
  Zelle is absolutely bad, imo. It's like an incomplete Paypal but with a $3.5k transaction limit.
ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago
SEPA payments and TransferWise are a complete replacement.
- thirdsun 4y ago
  Paypal got popular because it allowed people to pay for things instantly online. SEPA Überweisung didn't really solve that problem and credit cards used to be rather uncommon - even today many germans don't have one. P2P payments between friends came later and wer just another thing Paypal could handle but at that point it was already very popular.
  - ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago
    That doesn't negate or contradict my point. >even today many germans don't have one Thankfully debit cards are a thing!

philsnow 4y ago

> I wonder what happens if I just say "lol, not paying" to them. Would they put me in collections? You can revoke paypal's ACH authorization to your accounts [0]. I would not want to deal with the headache of them falsely telling creditors that I owe them money, though. [0] https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ask-cfpb/how-can-i-stop-a-payday-lender-from-electronically-taking-money-out-of-my-bank-or-credit-union-account-en-1605/ https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ask-cfpb/how-can-i-stop-a-pa...

actually_a_dog 4y ago
Good luck with that. I had some random bad actor somehow get ahold of my account numbers and debit ~$40 out of my account once via something called a "demand draft." My bank refunded me the money, but they told me they'd have to close my old account and open a whole new account in order to stop it from happening again in the future.
- philsnow 4y ago
  > open a whole new account in order to stop it from happening again in the future Not sure how that would stop it from happening again in the future, if the bank isn't going to make the barest attempt at stopping people from debiting your accounts with just the routing number + account number...
  - actually_a_dog 4y ago
    That's what I told them. They shrugged, opened a new account, transferred my balance, and closed the old one. It hasn't happened since, and I have no idea why or how it happened in the first place.

commandlinefan 4y ago

> woke politics being mainstream That's not even a requirement here - they just have to continually adjust their principles to be whatever happens to be most fashionable at the moment, just like most everybody else does.