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So wait. You want Paypal to require everyone who opens a PayPal account to have to write up what it's going to be used for, and wait in a queue before you can r

by lambda 13y ago

So wait. You want Paypal to require everyone who opens a PayPal account to have to write up what it's going to be used for, and wait in a queue before you can receive funds so that they can review it to ensure that it's not something like crowdfunding, and then require that you either never change what you use your PayPal account for, or submit any changes back to them, so that they can re-review it and approve your new use? As far as I know, PayPal allows anyone to open an account and start using it without any review (I've never received funds with PayPal, only sent funds, but I don't recall any extra hoops that would be necessary to receive them). Likely what happens is that either certain kinds of activity cause an account to be flagged for a manual review, or someone gets cold feet about the crowdfunding campaign and does a chargeback, so PayPal looks into it to see what you were selling. When they see that you are in violation of their very explicit pre-sale policy: https://www.paypal-businesscenter.com/content/presale-policy-and-reserves https://www.paypal-businesscenter.com/content/presale-policy... they hold your funds until you are within 20 days of shipping your product. They have a lot of rules about what you can sell via PayPal, and there's no way they could possibly check what you are going to use funds for before each transaction, as you could start using an account that was used for permitted transactions for ones that aren't permitted at any time. So, they wait until an automated system, a complaint, or a chargeback notifies them that something is amiss, and then hold on to the money until they can resolve the situation.

PhasmaFelis 13y ago
"So wait. You want Paypal to require everyone who opens a PayPal account to have to write up what it's going to be used for, and wait in a queue before you can receive funds so that they can review it to ensure that it's not something like crowdfunding, and then require that you either never change what you use your PayPal account for, or submit any changes back to them, so that they can re-review it and approve your new use?" Not at all. I want them to say up front, when you sign up for an account, which apparently-innocuous activities will likely get your funds suspended for long enough to be useless. After that, it's on you if you go ahead with it. They're obviously not communicating clearly enough right now, or this wouldn't keep happening.
- lambda 13y ago
  Was the link I gave, about not allowing pre-sales for items that won't ship within 20 days, not clear enough? It's not some little footnote hidden within a wall of legalese. It's a pretty clear statement of what they allow and what they don't. And why would you think that crowdfunding counts as "apparently-innocuous"? Crowdfunding is an area that is ripe for scamming. You create a glitzy campaign, get lots of backers, keep promising something that never quite gets finished, and then disappear with the money. Apparently, ever since the Ubuntu Edge crowdfunding campaign failed, there's been a whole bunch of fake knock-off campaigns, of people capitalizing on the interest and trying to trick people into funding things that pretend to be related but really aren't. Any time you have some kind of "amazing new investment opportunity", there are going to be scammers. And when you get down to it, crowdfunding is just an "amazing new investment opportunity".

by lambda 13y ago

PhasmaFelis 13y ago

"So wait. You want Paypal to require everyone who opens a PayPal account to have to write up what it's going to be used for, and wait in a queue before you can receive funds so that they can review it to ensure that it's not something like crowdfunding, and then require that you either never change what you use your PayPal account for, or submit any changes back to them, so that they can re-review it and approve your new use?" Not at all. I want them to say up front, when you sign up for an account, which apparently-innocuous activities will likely get your funds suspended for long enough to be useless. After that, it's on you if you go ahead with it. They're obviously not communicating clearly enough right now, or this wouldn't keep happening.

lambda 13y ago
Was the link I gave, about not allowing pre-sales for items that won't ship within 20 days, not clear enough? It's not some little footnote hidden within a wall of legalese. It's a pretty clear statement of what they allow and what they don't. And why would you think that crowdfunding counts as "apparently-innocuous"? Crowdfunding is an area that is ripe for scamming. You create a glitzy campaign, get lots of backers, keep promising something that never quite gets finished, and then disappear with the money. Apparently, ever since the Ubuntu Edge crowdfunding campaign failed, there's been a whole bunch of fake knock-off campaigns, of people capitalizing on the interest and trying to trick people into funding things that pretend to be related but really aren't. Any time you have some kind of "amazing new investment opportunity", there are going to be scammers. And when you get down to it, crowdfunding is just an "amazing new investment opportunity".