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PayPal has restricted our account after we invoiced a key containing “ALEP”
- jonathonlacher 4y agoReminds me of when I was locked out of my Venmo account for paying a family member back for a meal at a Cuban restaurant. I put “Cuban food” in the description field and it didn’t like that.
- devrand 4y agoSame thing happened to me. I tried to Venmo request friends for "Habana Outpost" and it got flagged for review. I just withdrew the requests and resent them as "Outpost"
- reboot81 4y agoAnswer Paypal with: Unlock our business account within 24h. Failure to comply will trigger Little Snitch firewall rule #X, completely blocking traffic to *.paypal.com on all X million devices.
- inetknght 4y agoI honestly believe this is not only a valid response but should occur anyway. Paypal is a dumpster fire of scummy business tactics. Their emails don't even properly go through paypal.com and are filled with all kinds of phishy tactics.
- hgsgm 4y agoNot a good idea to make andvance confession of intent to commit tortious interference against Paypal and anyone who didn't consent to Paypal being blocked.
- chang1 4y agoAbout a year ago, I bought clothes online using PayPal for my mother (and shipped to her address). PayPal blocked the transaction and temporarily suspended my account until I could verify a detail. When I logged in to verify, it was asking for the recipient's (my mother's) birth date. I thought it odd that they would ask, and also know, the birth date of someone PayPal has no association with. I called their support (finding a human to talk to was difficult) to ask for the reason why I would need to give out my mother's birth date. I was asking for other ways I could verify and that I shouldn't be asked to give out someone else's PII. The support person started to become defensive, sarcastically asking "you don't even know your mom's own birthday!?". I could tell this person saw nothing wrong with the ask and thought I was being intentionally combative. I ended up conceding and giving the information. Since then, I've stopped using PayPal as a payment method. I always thought this incident strange and have wondered about how their verification method works.
- mcv 4y agoDo they even know your mom's birthdate? Can't you just give them a random date? Also, if you bought something at a webshop, why does PayPal know who it's being sent to? They just need to know you and the webshop, don't they? Who the webshop sends it to is between you and the webshop.
- vajrabum 4y agoA lot of online credit fraud schemes involve sending things to an unwitting 3rd party.
- cglong 4y agoSorry, could you go into more detail here? This happened to my mom several years ago, and we always wondered why.
- mike 4y agoOne thing it could have been is the “brushing” scam Creating fake orders to enable fake reviews for a product to be posted, boosting the product listing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brushing_(e-commerce) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brushing_(e-commerce)
- alistairSH 4y agoSteal CC info from person A. Buy item from using junk email address and shipping address of person B. On delivery day, wait near person B's home, and grab the package when UPS delivers it. If person B manages to get to the package first, scammer is only out some time. Junk email and 3rd party mailing address - harder to track scammer. Of course, this ignores IP address and similar - smart scammer would also use Tor and other tools to obfuscate the online transactions.
- WirelessGigabit 4y agoOr: Steal credit card. Sell new stuff on eBay. Wait for purchaser. When someone buys from you on eBay, you go to a merchant, and order stuff with the stolen credit card, and have it shipped to the buyer. You have your money from eBay. Person has their stuff. Owner of stolen card gets refunded. Only the merchant has lost some money. Which makes this hard to stop.
- hbbio 4y agoAll this is a screaming ad for blockchain payments. Really decentralized.
- mcv 4y agoWhat's insane is still trusting PayPal at this point. They've had this tendency to randomly block accounts for over a decade now. I wouldn't want to have them as a payment option at all, but I definitely don't want them as my only payment option.
- mikrotikker 4y agoAlso they'll fine you $2000 for "misinformation" on any platform. They snuck it back in very sneakily after the outcry when it was announced.
- ImHereToVote 4y agoWhat is the definition for "misinformation" that they use? Is it ok if I'm wrong about something from time to time?
- mikrotikker 4y agoI don't think they set one. Its better for them if its vague.
- NotYourLawyer 4y agoWrongthink of any sort.
- max51 4y agopart of the problem is that they used a definition so large it could include anything that may be offensive to a paypal employee.
- than3 4y agoAfaik, there is no definition, its arbtitrary so they can charge anyone.
- hot_gril 4y agoSelectively and retroactively enforced, probably.
- croes 4y agoIn Germany exists ALEP e.V. https://alep-ev.de/ https://alep-ev.de/ A registered association: " ALEP e. V. works in the field of youth welfare, especially with disadvantaged, at-risk children, young people and their families." So maybe PayPal should adjust their block lists. Do it for the children.
- RobotToaster 4y agoGiven how many acronyms (IRA, ETA) are associated with terrorism it's amazing this doesn't generate more false positives. Can an accidental space get you banned for "pago por anal isis"?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- croes 4y agoMy favorite is RAF https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Air_Force https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Air_Force https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction
- jjgreen 4y ago... or some student magazines https://isismagazine.org.uk/ https://isismagazine.org.uk/
- iagooar 4y agoA friend of mine once got his PayPal account suspended (and never got it back) because he transferred money to another friend with the title "NS" or "Money for NS". The NS referred to "Nobelhart & Schmutzig", a Michelin-star restaurant where the two went for dinner and one of them paid. It obviously had nothing to do with National Socialism, but PayPal did not care.
- rpaddock 4y agoMy late wife set up a PayPal account that we both used. When she died I wanted to change the name of the account from hers to mine. PP asked for a Death Certificate, which I provided. They then said that I needed to PROVE THAT SHE WAS DEAD. I even went an spoke with a lawyer about it. He too was pissed off. Alas there was no money in the account so he said there was no point in dealing with these morons, just open a new account. PayPal NEEDS TO DIE! What are the viable alternatives for international transactions? Ones that don't want my Social Security Number as part of the sign up process (I've had issues with identity theft and give my SS# to no one)?
- insomagent 4y agoCrypto. Now you know why it's being so heavily regulated, demonized, and lampooned.
- prottog 4y ago> PP asked for a Death Certificate, which I provided. > They then said that I needed to PROVE THAT SHE WAS DEAD. You'd think that a death certificate is literal proof that someone had, in fact, passed on from among the living. I'm sorry you had to deal with such algorithmic bullshit for such an emotional circumstance.
- londons_explore 4y agoLesson 1: Never tell your payment provider anything about your transactions beyond the legal minimum. All line items on invoices should say "Payment for computer services".
- dejj 4y ago“Aleph who?” asked Ambassador Genscher. “ALEPH YOU ARE GOING TO DIE.” Then there was light. https://unsongbook.com/chapter-34-why-wilt-thou-rend-thyself-apart-jerusalem/ https://unsongbook.com/chapter-34-why-wilt-thou-rend-thyself...
- auguzanellato 4y agoIt's interesting how inclined is PayPal to ban users for insignificant reasons, often without any appeal opportunity. Two years ago when I was 21 I was asked to provide my ID for account verification/AML purposes, I sent everything they requested and then got banned because when I opened my account without lying about my birth date I was under 18. Support just told me to open another account under a different email address.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- londons_explore 4y agoI am almost certain they violated their own policies for telling you which word triggered their filters. Regular KYC procedure usually involves using a blacklist of disallowed words, and then if anyone triggers the filter, you block them, and ask them to submit any and all documentation they have for all recent transactions (but importantly, you dont tell them the transaction or word that triggered the check). Someone then reviews the documentation, and unless it explains the blacklisted word, the account ban stands.
- barrkel 4y agoI would guess it's some kind of abbreviation for Aleppo and falls into Syrian sanctions detection.
- jefftk 4y agoIt's the French name for Aleppo: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alep https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alep
- GoblinSlayer 4y agoAcronym finder suggests "advanced laser eye protection". Google leads to some american military contract https://www.gentexcorp.com/gentex-awarded-navy-contract-for-laser-eye-protection-spectacles-for-pilots/ https://www.gentexcorp.com/gentex-awarded-navy-contract-for-... >Proven to be scalable to visor applications, the laser protective filter in the Gentex spectacles utilize the latest, most advanced laser eye protection materials developed for and tested by both the NAVAIR and USAF/AFRL advanced technology development and demonstrator programs.
- anigbrowl 4y agoThat's ridiculous. If I sell someone a framed photograph of Moscow am I violating sanctions against Russia? Of course not.
- hot_gril 4y agoThat's interesting. Venmo (ik still PayPal-owned but somehow not trash (edit: yet)) seems to protect you from this by rejecting your payments early if they contain bad words. I found this out when trying to pay for a Cuban sandwich.
- agilob 4y ago> Now they ask us to provide an explanation of the reference to “Alep”. WiseTransfer blocked my transfer because they didn't like my full name that they got from Monzo (Mozno has partnership with Wise). They blocked my transfer, hold it hostage until I contacted them, spent a few days hanging on phone, emailed them etc... they wanted to know what my surname means. I made an international transfer to buy a conference ticket. I don't remember the precise dates, but I spent full days on phone, emailing dozens of people and took me 3-4 weeks to revert the transfer. They. wanted. to know. what. my. surname. means. Edit: I filed a complaint to Monzo and Wise, and stopped using both.
- hgsgm 4y agoAnd? Did you tell them? Your surname may be the same word as something else that gives cause for concern.
- atum47 4y agoJust got an email from them saying that they will hold my money for 21 days unless I do some other stuff, like linking a credit card to my account or something like that. Thank God I don't need them anymore as my main source of international payment.
- montenegrohugo 4y agoAnd people ask why we need decentralized payments. We're building Tools to get rid of paypal/visa/mastercard and other rent seekers. Here's mine: https://peanut.to https://peanut.to There's lots of other people building useful stuff in the space. My dms are open if anyone wants to chat
- pizzalife 4y agoHaving no KYC process is "building useful stuff"?
- __alexs 4y agoIt is the payments are in XMR.
- KronisLV 4y ago>> Having no KYC process is "building useful stuff"? > It is the payments are in XMR. If you mean Monero, isn't that just asking for trouble? As in, you'd be supporting a cryptocurrency that has a history of often being used for illicit purposes (as many unfortunately are), with no KYC processes in place, non-compliance for which has historically resulted in some pretty hefty fines by the powers that be as well: https://shuftipro.com/blog/record-breaking-fines-on-banks-for-kycaml-non-compliance/ https://shuftipro.com/blog/record-breaking-fines-on-banks-fo... Assuming that the protocol/platform works out and assuming that you don't attract the attention of neither nefarious individuals, nor regulatory bodies, nor media that would lead to one or both of the former, it would probably be fine, but that's a lot of "if"s. It makes me feel dirty that nowadays the choice is between large orgs that can ban you and kill your business with a (possibly automated) wave of their finger, and between oftentimes shady platforms, using which is just asking for trouble.
- warent 4y agoNot to be rude but your website looks like it's run by stoner bros who would treat my money as a joke. It doesn't really instill confidence
- deleted 4y ago
- Traubenfuchs 4y agoI wonder if this could be weaponized: Get the PayPal accounts of enemies, competition or those you want to bully banned by somehow "injecting" forbidden words like "ALEP" or "NS" in the transaction.
- Euphorbium 4y agoWestern union, the preffered payment method of scammers is less scammy than paypal.
- sneak 4y agoAleppo is in Syria.
- kinggencha 4y agoSo what's the problem? Handling any kind of payment dispute should be part of regular operations. So, when your payment provider has a complaint, handle it, instead of running to Twitter/HN for validation.
- southernplaces7 4y agoIf there is one single thing I would absolutely give to crypto (in its essential form, not through centralized, heavily regulated intermediaries like Coinbase) it's that something like the above and the many stories in this comment thread can be circumvented if one is relatively careful about managing transfers, keys and basic use. Excepting truly major state-level interventions, almost nobody can stop you from collecting a payment from a third party or sending it to them, or keeping your payments collected secure from some bullshit arbitrary KYC corporate freeze. It works internationally, it works 24/7 and funds received are funds that are yours. Sure, the space as a whole is loaded with scammers, collapsed exchanges and etc, and its more technically difficult than using things like Paypal, but the essence I describe above is wonderful and should exist on a much broader scale as a basic right for people wishing to move funds and hold them. How you later convert them to fiat cash for daily spending is a separate debate. I can already image many people here in their bubbles of privilege decrying much of the above, or companies and governments not being able to randomly freeze funds and block their flow for individuals, but I invite you to deal with a corporate freeze of YOUR money, or simply live in a place where state-level corruption is endemic, frequent and hard to escape by any conventional means. Finally, Paypal truly is a hideous dumpster fire and deserves a slow, strangling corporate death. I look forward to a day in which that happens.
- superzamp 4y agoWell put. As great is the current financial system, seeing legitimate people and companies left on the sidelines for basically no reason aside factored in cost of applying the current regulation efficiently is quite maddening. Also well summarized by patio11 with [1]: > The actual probative value of SARs varies wildly; at the top of the spectrum, they can include sufficient investigatory work and documentation, produced by the analyst at the financial institution, to lead to convictions for e.g. human trafficking. > Across the financial industry, that SAR is wildly outnumbered by “Mohammed tried to do something, we didn’t let him, and when we told him that he became agitated.” > An example from here in Japan: an immigrant attempted to wire the equivalent of $600 to his cousin in Africa. He was asked the purpose of the wire and said it was for a tuition payment. Bank staff asked for supporting documentation like e.g. a tuition statement or student ID card for the cousin. The customer refused to provide that documentation. The bank refused the wire. The customer accused the bank staff of racially profiling him and raised his voice. > I was not a party to that transaction and, for clarity, it did not involve any employer or business partner of mine. I winced when reading a news report about it, because this is practically ripped from Compliance training. The customer is absolutely right and they are very likely getting a SAR filed on them. [1] https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/money-laundering-and-aml-compliance/ https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/money-laundering-and-...
- breakingrules 4y ago[dead]
- di456 4y agoWith all of these horror stories could there be a class action suit? Why no regulatory enforcement, no recourse for the victims? Seems like a racketeering operation but ianal.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- eli 4y agoA lot of people mad at paypal but this is how the US sanctions regime works.
- LoganDark 4y agoI once tried to make a Venmo account to donate $25 to a friend. PayPal immediately closed my account and demanded ID because they thought I was money laundering. I was never able to unlink my personal phone number from that account. Worst mistake was ever trusting PayPal with it.
- tlogan 4y agoAnother issue is text messages and T-Mobile. When my wife sent me a message saying, "pick up some sea weed," T-Mobile was blocking it. Fortunately, we transitioned to using iMessages, which resolved that problem. However, I continue to receive various spam and scam messages - but T-Mobile is not blocking them.
- firstSpeaker 4y agoOne is probably has legal repercussion and the other has none but profit!
- phpisthebest 4y agoThere is no legal repercussion in the US for the T-Mobile to allow that text, or even a text with implicit references to illegal activity.
- tlogan 4y agoRegarding T-mobile, they claim that content of the text msg must be legal across all 50 states. Not 100% sure which state and with law causes this but that is the reason they gave me.
- phpisthebest 4y agoWell the content of that message as stated by the OP is 100% legal across all 50 stays, even direct references to illegal drugs in messages is legal across all 50 states. the drugs are what is illegal, not the messages.
- anoonmoose 4y agoIf that was legally required of T-Mobile, don't you think it would be likely be legally required of all carriers? If that was true, don't you think there'd be a lot of people here confirming that Verizon and AT&T do the same thing? I am incredibly suspicious of the idea that this is a legal requirement, not a choice.
- fundad 4y agoIs PayPal a bank or some kind of exchange? It’s one or the other folx.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- AlbertCory 4y agoOn one of the Reddit book subs with a lot of vendors, I made a nasty remark about PayPal and got downvoted and condemned for it. A lot of people still depend on it. I guess if you never get on PayPal's bad side, you're OK, but woe betide you if you do.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- fn-mote 4y agoI'm confused why I don't see any calls here for regulation. It seems like an obvious area to turn to when established companies are either (1) stealing your money or (2) banning you for no reason. It seems like there should already be regulations in this area and (in the US) prosecutors willing to pursue companies for the fame or a portion of the payout. Is this area of finance really totally unregulated?
- lisper 4y agoAm I missing something? Does ALEP actually have some kind of meaning that would render it suspect? Or is this just completely random?
- csours 4y agoAleppo, Syria - Syria is on a lot of naughty lists right now.
- lisper 4y agoIt is? Why???
- astura 4y agoSanctions. PayPal, being a US company, is required to enforce them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_Syria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_Syria
- lisper 4y agoAh. So because a random identifier contained a four-letter-long substring of the name of a city in a sanctioned country the whole thing was flagged. Makes perfect sense.
- csours 4y agoAs I said in another comment: You're being sprayed with weed killer. It doesn't matter to the farmer that a few flowers are killed, it just matters that the weeds are kept down.
- csours 4y agoYou're being sprayed with weed killer. It doesn't matter to the farmer that a few flowers are killed, it just matters that the weeds are kept down.
- jeron 4y agoI remember a friend venmo-ing money with the description “Pizza for ISIS” as a joke. The money got held indefinitely
- growt 4y agoSo what’s an Alep?
- lakomen 4y agoSo, did you tell them it's none of their fucking business?
- myself248 4y agoWow, this could be problematic for Conitec, makers of the GALEP series of GAL/EPROM programmers...
- MrBurrito 4y agoOne point that makes this important for me: this is not a random guy with a questionable business trying to smear paypal, as far as I can tell, these are the real developers of LittleSnitch, a well known, established development team in the EU.
- nolok 4y agoPaypal is also registered as a bank in the EU (in Luxembourg), and as such is liable as a bank for such things. I just don't think someone bothered to take them to court over it.
- WhyNotHugo 4y agoI avoid PayPal completely. I've had experience with them charging twice and pretending it didn't happen (never got a refund), being charged secret "fees", exchange rates 2x the market rate (which I only found out after completing the purchase). All sorts of actions which we'd usually call "scams" but legal department has probably signed off that they can defend in court. Additionally, *a lot* of scams operate exclusively with PayPal, because PayPal doesn't care as long as it's profitable for them. There's no risk of a bad reputation because you can't have a reputation worse than PayPal anyway. Oh, and PayPal has also many times banned activists because of simply disagreeing with their cause. Not because required by law or any similar obligation, simply their own will. We really need decent payment providers; it's sad how many have to rely on this kind of business because they don't realistically have a choice.
- jamesfisher 4y agoWhat is ALEP?
- autophagian 4y agoI'm really struggling to think of what "Alep" even refers to that would trigger this. Surely not Aleppo, right?
- leokennis 4y agoSurely Aleppo. Financial institutions are responsible for making sure their customers don't circumvent sanctions, don't launder money etc. If PayPal would not stopped this transaction, it could be a huge liability for them in regards to financial regulators. Unfortunately, I do not know of a better solution than "match transaction data on this list of regexes" that would scale for the millions of daily payments that banks are processing.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- aikinai 4y agoAt least they were given the reason and a chance to respond. I'm just an infrequent, individual user and one day I got an email from Paypal that I was banned for life with my account closed and the same would happen if I tried opening any new accounts. It also banned my Zelle account for life. Thank god I never left any money in there or it would have been stolen. And to this day I still get emails from them as if my account isn't banned, but logging in just takes me straight to the ban notice and I can't actually close it or opt-out of emails.
- awill88 4y agoHorribly applied logic. While mistakes will happen, PayPal for individuals and businesses are apples and oranges because that’s how the banks work. This is a business account. This comment adds nothing to the convo. Little Snitch is amazing btw
- mcv 4y agoIf you can't opt out of their emails, report them as spam. Because that's what it is.
- MiddleEndian 4y agoI reported all my Paypal emails as spam the day I created an account to get something on eBay. Tragically, GMail didn't listen.
- Dylan16807 4y agoAll? Like, you reported the account confirmation as spam?
- MiddleEndian 4y agoThey started sending me advertising shit the same day, so I reported them all because I considered them to be spammers at that point.
- 4y ago
- davidwritesbugs 4y agoYet another person finding out that Paypal is sh*t. What a world where you have to worry about four random letters in your messages that may just happen to coincidentally have terrorist connotations "Alep" ffs. When I ran a company >10 years ago we swept our Paypal account daily to mitigate this risk.
- tsukikage 4y ago> we swept our Paypal account daily to mitigate this risk ...so, is there a list of forbidden character combinations one should scan for somewhere? That sounds like a super useful thing to have.
- personjerry 4y ago"Swept" in this case means withdrawing all the cash from the Paypal account
- maxgashkov 4y agoThis is not an option for the majority of businesses now as PayPal requires mandatory funds hold which may routinely be on the order of 90 days. So even if you sweep it daily, you still have 1-3 months of your MRR sitting in flight and at risk indefinitely.
- rodgerd 4y agoI'm pretty sure that seizing customer funds is part of their profit model. They've been doing it for a very long time, and well beyond anything that could reasonably be explained via regulatory or card scheme requirements.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y agoI do all my business via PayPal, and have done so for 20 years. No mandatory funds hold. My account is cleared monthly, but I could have chosen daily (that screws with my own personally accounting). $200k/year transaction volume. Too many people generalize specific stories or their own PP experience to all of PP.
- iso1631 4y agoALEP would be * Association of Leasehold Enfranchisement Practitioners * association of employment and learning providers * Aboriginal Landcare Education Program * Acute localised exanthematous pustulosis Seems to be the Romanian name for Aleppo too. And of course it's 4 random letters, which if random in say 32 character code would have 28 attempts to get. If those characters are letters without IOQZ it would show up once every 8000-9000 codes generated, 12k for a 24 character code. Does anyone know what (presumably conspiracy theory) this refers to?
- mro_name 4y agothe P must be for paypal, I am sure.
- franky47 4y agoAvoid listing every possible association, lest entity Paypal adapts logic evaluating perpetrators.
- meghan_rain 4y agoNice! GPT or selfmade? :-)
- franky47 4y agoSelf made, but you can't be sure I'm not a large language model.
- eecc 4y agoIt's also a kind of artisanal soap, not surprisingly from Aleppo and therefore named after that. It's all over the internet, are they going to ban all those hipster, new-agey cottage industry websites? Stupid computer... stupid
- masklinn 4y ago> Seems to be the Romanian name for Aleppo too. Also Catalan, Croatian, french, … > Does anyone know what (presumably conspiracy theory) this refers to? Like other commenters I’d assume it’s related to the syrian sanctions.
- float4 4y ago> PayPal has restricted our business account because we have invoiced a license key containing the random letter sequence “ALEP”. This makes me wonder: what's the best way to generate "safe" license keys? Binary feels like an obvious solution (binary keys surely get through virtually all blacklists?) but at the same time: binary license keys would be very long and very atypical, so maybe fraud detection systems mark them as suspicious anyway. Maybe just generate random alphanum license keys and run them through some open source blacklists yourself? I doubt "ALEP" is in those lists though.
- blueflow 4y agoYou cant. Insane people will always find hidden codes and dog-whistles in your messages.
- jrochkind1 4y ago> what's the best way to generate "safe" license keys? In the library (like the kind with books) field where I work, one identifier standard was devised that intentionally has alternating letters and digits, with never more than two letters in a row. Explicitly for the intention of avoiding the possibility of any meaningful words (that might end up being offensive or just off-putting in an undesirable way.) It does make the identifiers longer for the same entropy/byte width, compared to a more normal BASE-X with an alphabet. Which mattered to me when they were going to be used in a URL, although probably doesn't for a license key. I personally in my projects stopped using this system for a more straightforward "Ascii-85" like encoding (which can contain coincidental meaningful words), because it was more convenient. The particular system the library community was using [https://n2t.net/e/noid.html https://n2t.net/e/noid.html] was, I still think, over-complicated for at least my needs, but the alternating letter/number schema seems attractive to me now and perhaps worth slightly more characters in identifiers and slightly more complex algorithm for creation than a simple base-x encoding.
- cromulent 4y agoIt sounds good, but of course for "security" it might not be enough. 626f6d62 is alternating letters and digits, with never more than two letters in a row. And it spells "bomb" when converted from hex to ascii. Some security scanners do check for this kind of thing.
- deluxeroyale 4y agoThis is horrifyingly bad. I have yet to this day read anything good about paypal. They provide a “free” service with the option to rob the user of their money at any random moment. What other options are there out there that provide similar services? Are all modern banking services this bad at their core or is paypal by far the worst? There has to be options that are at least partially run by sane humans.
- hgsgm 4y agoPayPal isn't free. It charges about 3% of txn
- Ekaros 4y agoPayPal and it's ilk are worse. At least with regular banks there is regulation against this sort of stuff. That is they can't just confiscate the money for long periods unless there is some external decision. PayPal and the others like it are not banks, as such they play by different rules worse for consumers. What is kinda horrifying is that nothing has been done about this despite PayPal doing exactly these things for entire history seemingly it has existed.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y agoPayPal is only not-a-bank in the US. They are an actual bank in EU.
- cubancigar11 4y agoThe horrifying part is the bank's incompetency. In India you can transfer bank account to bank account immediately even without UPI.
- codedokode 4y agoI hope all people here who love AML/KYC and hate crypto and believe it is only for criminals and current legal system is absolutely fair will wholeheartedly approve this lawful decision.
- leokennis 4y agoYes...one false positive on transaction screening certainly justifies replacing the current banking model with a payment system almost exclusively used by scammers and criminals.
- max51 4y agoYou can go back to forum posts from >10 years ago and paypal locking accounts with funds in it was a common problem even back then. Even if you had 50k$ in your account, they would reply to you with a one liner saying they can't discuss the ban. The only to get your cash back was to sue them. A lot of people were speculating that they were intentionally locking accounts with the intention of stealing the funds.
- seydor 4y agoIf bitcoin wants to go anywhere, it must acquire weapons, including nuclear ones.
- hot_gril 4y agoThe more I dealt with PayPal, Stripe, and other payment processors at my job, plus my personal bank and Venmo, the more I appreciated Bitcoin and Ethereum. Takes a while to realize the full scope of control the governments have via money alone, both as a currency and a payment method. And the abuse of power. That PayPal rule against "misinformation" is the reddest flag. Maybe cryptocurrency isn't the best answer in the end, but there needs to be some alternative even if only to pose a threat to the status quo.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- yashg 4y ago
- Ekaros 4y agoThis opens very fun avenues for naming yourself if you ever start organisation branded as terrorist one. So many fun 3 letter names and acronyms you should make. Maybe VAT or TEL. Or just pick something existing USA.
- seydor 4y agoMany women named Isis
- RobotToaster 4y agoJust name your terrorist organisation "payment".
- fundad 4y ago“cop”
- hot_gril 4y agoOddly I've wondered about this too. The entire world somehow respected ISIS's declared name "Islamic State," or IS for short, which is a common word.
- thinkingemote 4y agoThere's a national bank in France with the same 3 letter initials as a (now defunct) very right wing policital party in the UK. BNP
- teddyh 4y agoMaybe “OK”?
- Idiot_in_Vain 4y agoThis is a good argument for BitCoin - no one can ban you from the blockchain. It's extra work and expences, but it's worth supporting at least two payment processors. Keep in mind that some people can't pay with PayPal - e.g. register a credit/debit card with PayPal, PayPal account gets locked - you can't pay with that card any more through PP.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- PurpleRamen 4y ago> no one can ban you from the blockchain. Except, then you have even bigger problems than just PayPal.
- mdasen 4y agoI think that Bitcoin has many similar issues in the real world, though you might argue that these are more under the user's control. For example, it seems like most people don't hold their own keys. I know, "not your keys, not your coins," but it does mean that Bitcoin doesn't provide that kind of safety for most of its users. Even if you do hold your own keys, there's a decent potential that you'll lose your keys. I've known people who have lost Bitcoin that way. If you're holding your keys yourself, how are you keeping them safe? You certainly need off-site backup and probably a weak enough password protecting them to be sure that you won't forget the password. People have those key safes that only allow a certain number of tries: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-55645408 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-55645408. That guy has $240M locked away. Sure, PayPal feels unaccountable when you're a tiny player who uses PayPal for thousands of dollars, but a lawyer would be able to get that $240M. From that article, "Currently, about $140bn worth of Bitcoin is lost or left in wallets that cannot be accessed, according to cryptocurrency-data company Chainanalysis." Given that Bitcoin had around a $700B market cap back then, we're talking about 20% of the total Bitcoin out there simply being lost. Yes, in theory, these are things that you as a user have control over. But human life is tough. If you get in an accident that impacts your memory, do you lose access? If there's a fire, do you lose access? If you die, have you prepared a way of transmitting those Bitcoin to your heirs - and a way that doesn't give them access currently? How would you do that? "Here's how you access the private keys, but pinky swear that you won't until I'm gone." > no one can ban you from the blockchain I'm not so sure about that. Bitcoin are traceable. The government could blacklist certain coins they determine are the proceeds of criminal activity. Sure, the person holding those coins could still transmit them to others and then those people could transmit them to more people, but if the US/EU blacklisted certain coins, people would refuse to take them as payment. For example, Mt. Gox froze accounts that deposited Bitcoins that were known to have been stolen. Let's say that the US says, "no business under our jurisdiction can do business with any wallet that has held Coin-X after today." The value of that coin becomes much lower than any other coin. You can't accept that coin as payment if you're looking to change it (or any other Bitcoin you own) into dollars in the future. Coinbase and other companies couldn't do business with you. Let's say the US takes it one step farther and says "any coin held by Wallet-X today is tainted and any wallet that accepts any of the coins held by Wallet-X (no matter how many transactions removed from Wallet-X) is also tainted along with all their coins." That means that everyone in the Bitcoin network needs to treat the coins in Wallet-X as radioactive. If you accept payment from Wallet-X, you now can't convert your money to dollars at Coinbase or similar companies. Even if you accept payment from Wallet-Z who got the coin from Wallet-Y who got it from Wallet-X, you're still compromised. There'd need to be an updating blacklist of coins that couldn't be used by US companies - a list that would expand over time. If Wallet-X had Coin-X and sent it to Wallet-Y, it would taint Coin-A and Coin-B in Wallet-Y which means even more Bitcoin are now blacklisted by the US. Even if you never want an off-ramp from Bitcoin, others do. Maybe you dream of making every transaction with Bitcoin for the rest of your life. Still, the value drops hard if others don't share that dream. Even if you never want US dollars, let's say you want to buy a house with Bitcoin. The US sees the purchase and seizes the home as the proceeds of illegal activity. The Bitcoin network generally treats all coins as the same kinda like how we treat all dollar bills the same, but our dollar bills all have unique serial numbers and similarly different Bitcoins can be differentiated from each other. If the US government starts blacklisting coins, they aren't technically banning you from the blockchain, but they kinda are for all practical purposes. Sure, there are ways to get US dollars that don't involve Know-Your-Customer US-jurisdiction rules. However, the value of Bitcoins that are blacklisted like that, especially if they taint your other Bitcoin, goes way down. Sure, you can't be banned from the blockchain. However, if the US government bans all coins in your wallet, you're going to effectively lose those coins since others aren't going to want to accept those coins.
- t344344 4y agoI have opposite problem. I am trying to deactivate paypal account or get banned. They keep sending me spam. I stopped using paypal long time ago. Phone number I used expired when I moved countries. Paypal somehow activated 2FA authentication and I can not login. Perhaps I will try this
- no_time 4y agoJust send $1 to anyone with the message "bomb terror weed crack isis"
- Etheryte 4y agoDon't worry, as someone pointed out in another thread they're not going to stop sending you spam just because they've banned you.
- Nextgrid 4y agoSet up an email rule to redirect the spam to their legal department or some other inbox monitored by highly-paid people.
- capitol_ 4y agoGDPR to the rescue, send a delete request.
- nnx 4y agoAll this AML/CTF nonsense for a 39EUR transaction… There should be laws and penalties for triggering any of those nonsense checks for such insignificant amounts.
- hgsgm 4y agoYour solution is to make obeying the law illegal? Do you think Paypal enjoys spending effort to prevent itself from collecting fees?
- tdrgabi 4y agoIt's probably trying to avoid the opening of many accounts, all under 25$, as an attempt to transfer a lot of money but still fly under the AML radar
- Puts 4y agoIt's interesting how these money laundering checks works flawlessly for regular people and businesses but always seem to fail when there are hundreds of millions of dollars involved.
- msm_ 4y agoOptimistic explanation: businesses that handle millions of dollars probably have way more transactions than regular people, and thus have a higher chance of triggering a false-positive on some random blacklist.
- freetanga 4y agoI only use them as an additional layer between an isolated debit card and the internet. Anything more is reckless.
- mkl95 4y agoPayPal sucks. I was scammed out of $130 because of their horrible UX. I can't believe no competitor has killed them yet.
- codetrotter 4y agoIf only there was some sort of global payment system where you could transact freely and no one could prevent you from sending or receiving money.. A system where instead of trusting banks and governments and other entities, we could harness the decentralised nature of the internet. A system based not on trust at all. A system where the total number of units of currency was limited to a pre-determined amount.
- moremetadata 4y ago[dead]
- moffkalast 4y agoSnitches get... their accounts restricted by PayPal?
- xnorswap 4y agoSo what's stopping them writing a letter explaining it was a randomly generated license key and getting unrestricted?
- dtgriscom 4y agoNothing, except the fact that nobody at PayPal would read the letter.
- richrichardsson 4y agoA small independant record label I'm involved with had its Paypal account shuttered with around £2500 balance because "reasons" and they've basically stolen it. Fuck Paypal.
- toomanyrichies 4y agoI was "banned for life" about 4-6 weeks ago. No explanation given. No sketchy transactions on my record, just sending money back and forth between friends who (AFAIK) aren't up to anything suspicious. It was embarrassing having to explain to people that we'd have to figure out another way to transact going forward because I was no longer welcome with Paypal. A week later I tried logging in again just to see what would happen, and everything was back to normal. I could once again send and receive money as if nothing had ever happened. Needless to say, I took the opportunity to transfer every last dime out of the account.
- gerogerke 4y agoI opened a business PayPal account, and it was closed within the first 2 minutes of opening. There was no reason given, and I had provided all details necessary during sign-up. I still get promotional mails until now.
- justsomehnguy 4y ago> I still get promotional mails until now Just forward them to phishing@paypal.com
- rendaw 4y agoSame, I got the ban email before I was even done setting up the account: > After a review, we decided to permanently limit your account as we found potential risk associated with it. > You'll not be able to conduct any further business using PayPal. > Based on this decision, if applicable, you are no longer eligible for PayPal Seller Protection as per our User Agreement. You'll also be charged a High Volume Dispute fee based on your activity for all existing and future cases you receive. > Any bank or credit card information that's linked to your PayPal account cannot be removed nor can it be added to another account. You can still log in and see your account information but you can't send or receive money. > If you have funds in your PayPal balance, we'll hold it for up to 180 days. After that period, we'll email you with information on how to access your funds. > We regret any inconvenience this may cause. No contact address, no escalation path, only vague rumors on internet forums of voodoo to get the ban lifted by the Paypal gods. They continue to send me daily emails telling me to link my bank account. Okay! And then a day or two later I get another email > My name is YYYY and I work on the PayPal Business team. I am more than happy to assist you with your PayPal onboarding journey. > So I understand the nature of your request. Could you please provide me with some additional insight to your business by answering the below questions. And a bunch of generic business area questions (what do you sell, what's your volume, etc). Are you kidding? You open by telling a fellow to get stuffed, then talk about journeys and assisting them?
- Cthulhu_ 4y agoI've recently had friends over for a weekend, the most convenient way they could send me money was through Paypal. I've made sure to transfer the money to my bank account as fast as possible, because I don't trust them anymore. I got a notification as well that they needed additional verification (it was a big group and we shared the cost of accommodation that I paid), that one already gave me The Fear. Although the verification went pretty smoothly, it used a system from my bank to verify identity.
- ho_schi 4y agoEuropean here. Happily never been a customer of PayPal or used harmful stuff like Bitcoin (ponzi-system). “Here” was never a need for them. Why? The banking system in Europe relied for long time on federated and regulated wire-transfer/direct-debit. More than a decade ago SEPA made cross-country transfers easily. And the instant-transfers are great! Little to no fees for transfers itself. Downsides? Both should have been added much earlier! Especially instant-transfers. Most Europeans don’t value that. I’m always baffled by differences, especially using checks. And yes, we rely on cash because…you’ve seen PayPal? And fragile infrastructure.
- altairprime 4y agoThe US direct transfer system is supposed to launch later this year. If it works out, it is going to absolutely crush PayPal, and Roundrect Cash or whatever they call themselves these days. I can’t wait.
- rootusrootus 4y agoFedNow is between banks, though, not an end-user service. Assuming it is as awesome as Zelle is, I don't think it'll crush my habit of using Venmo (which is a PayPal subsidiary).
- altairprime 4y agoWe’ll see, certainly. I remain hopeful.
- seydor 4y agoMaybe i should ask my users to pay for the $2 in-game purchases with wire transfer
- PurpleRamen 4y agoEven as a European, there are times when paypal is the only viable solution. Though, they have been become less and less over the years, but they still are there. For example, looking at Humble Bundle just now, there is no SEPA-Option. It's paypal, credit card, Klana or Alipay. And I trust Klana and Alipay even less than paypal.
- sampa 4y agobut remember kids, bitcoin is only for criminals
- seydor 4y agoIt may be anti laundering or sth
- blitzar 4y agoI can not be the only one who is aware of the "Paypal Mafia" and hear tales of their giga brain level collective and induvidual genius and success - yet use their product and see only a total and utter failure.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- jononomo 4y agoI don't understand what PayPal's justification here is.
- sekai 4y agoWeekly reminder to not associate vital business / personal accounts with PayPal. They can't be trusted with your finances.
- mysterydip 4y agoWhat are the good alternatives for vital business/personal accounts?
- mikrotikker 4y agoIn NZ we can transfer money willy nilly between different bank accounts. Hell even to aussie accoubts i dont think its too hard. Could start with getting that implemented.
- eythian 4y agoThis is normal in the SEPA zone too. Within some countries (at least the Netherlands) there are apps that make it easier, but all they're basically doing is putting the transfer behind a slightly more convenient link that doesn't require typing in an account number.
- seppel 4y agoThe problem with SEPA is that is does not work at night or over the weekend and even during normal business hours it might take a day for the money to arrive (depending on some specifics of the banks involved). This is fine for many use cases, but totally different from the paypal experience.
- greggsy 4y agoI’ve never thought about it until SVB collapse, but I wonder how they address the risk of a liquidity crisis? Do they hold assets other than their customer’s deposits? Are they even a bank?
- 4y ago
- nomilk 4y ago> The problem was named after an incident in 1996 in which AOL's profanity filter prevented residents of the town of Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire, England, from creating accounts with AOL, because the town's name contains the substring "cunt".[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem
- hulitu 4y agoAnother one bites the dust. People, just don't use PayPal, Stripe and other "inovative" payment providers. They are doing this since at least 10 years yet people never learn.