4 ms·

Your story is no different than what PayPal sent in their email to a select number of account holders; that they will continue to freeze accounts (or as you put

by omd 14y ago

Your story is no different than what PayPal sent in their email to a select number of account holders; that they will continue to freeze accounts (or as you put it, "rob" people) until you have an outstanding account performance (or as you put it, start making real money). Never mind having had a clean track record for years, your reputation, credit history, no chargebacks, no disputes, you will still be held to the same scrutiny until you start performing "outstanding". Your experience only shows they've always made exceptions and the email they sent out is just to make that fact public which doesn't change a single thing.

InclinedPlane 14y ago
Paypal has two big problems. One problem is their own, their customer service is, in a word, shitty. That's their grave and it's up to them to dig themselves out of it or wallow in it. The other big problem is one of expectations. Unfortunately, they have trained people into believing that transferring money back and forth is frictionless and painless. Which, at a small scale it generally is with paypal. However, once you get into the range of taking a significant amount of money via paypal (defined as around median US income or higher) then everything changes. When you start using paypal as a processor for your personal business then all sorts of financial regulations come into play and all sorts of business rules imposed by VISA and MC come into play as well. And then people do stupid things like take pre-orders for something that won't be shipping for months (a VISA/MC/legal nono) or take donations without being registered as a non-profit org. and you mix in a good helping of problem #1 and a lot of people end up having more than a few bad days. However, the thing that many people don't appreciate due to their ignorance is that with a merchant account a bank is going to do all of these same things for all of the same reasons. They are going to "steal" (read: put a hold on) your money while they spend the time working out whether or not your questionable business activity is not actually fraud, or money laundering, or simply sufficiently risky as to require a higher balance to be maintained in case of charge backs. Now, the more business you put through paypal the more it makes sense for them to dedicate real-live human oversight to your account, which can lead to leniency if they see that you aren't a fraudster/mobster/etc. Make no mistake though, every single day paypal has to deal with those folks too, only we don't hear about it because no fraudster, phisher, or mobster is going to complain on the internet about being shutdown legitimately by paypal.

by omd 14y ago

InclinedPlane 14y ago

Paypal has two big problems. One problem is their own, their customer service is, in a word, shitty. That's their grave and it's up to them to dig themselves out of it or wallow in it. The other big problem is one of expectations. Unfortunately, they have trained people into believing that transferring money back and forth is frictionless and painless. Which, at a small scale it generally is with paypal. However, once you get into the range of taking a significant amount of money via paypal (defined as around median US income or higher) then everything changes. When you start using paypal as a processor for your personal business then all sorts of financial regulations come into play and all sorts of business rules imposed by VISA and MC come into play as well. And then people do stupid things like take pre-orders for something that won't be shipping for months (a VISA/MC/legal nono) or take donations without being registered as a non-profit org. and you mix in a good helping of problem #1 and a lot of people end up having more than a few bad days. However, the thing that many people don't appreciate due to their ignorance is that with a merchant account a bank is going to do all of these same things for all of the same reasons. They are going to "steal" (read: put a hold on) your money while they spend the time working out whether or not your questionable business activity is not actually fraud, or money laundering, or simply sufficiently risky as to require a higher balance to be maintained in case of charge backs. Now, the more business you put through paypal the more it makes sense for them to dedicate real-live human oversight to your account, which can lead to leniency if they see that you aren't a fraudster/mobster/etc. Make no mistake though, every single day paypal has to deal with those folks too, only we don't hear about it because no fraudster, phisher, or mobster is going to complain on the internet about being shutdown legitimately by paypal.