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Paypal has started banning accounts selling anything Bitcoin-related
- scottcanoni 13y agoThey are banning the sale of non-physical items. So miners/hardware, even your GPU :) is safe to sell. Basically if it can be shipped in a box, it's fine. Vires in Numeris! Long live Bitcoin!
- officialjunk 13y agoWonder where casascius coins fit in this... https://www.casascius.com/ https://www.casascius.com/
- nwh 13y agoBanned. Did you not read the linked post? > I got called from paypal because i sold a few casascius coin
- officialjunk 13y agoi hadn't at the time i posted that comment, and then i got distracted and didn't correct myself :(
- pnathan 13y ago> They are banning the sale of non-physical items Can you link me to the seller policy? I have an app I'd like to sell (no bitcoin involved - except maybe taking it...maybe), and I've been wondering about the seller policy, but couldn't find it.
- dangrossman 13y agoThere's no ban on selling non-physical items. They have a very small list of prohibited services which includes currency exchange: https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/ua/acceptableuse-full https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/ua/acceptableuse-full
- scottcanoni 13y agoYou are correct. By non-physical item, I could only think of a Bitcoin related currency exchange for USD or any other fiat currency. Unless, can you think of a Bitcoin related non-physical item that is NOT a currency exchange?
- timv 13y agoUnless, can you think of a Bitcoin related non-physical item that is NOT a currency exchange? An ebook about Bitcoin. (I would consider a digital download to be non-physical)
- scottcanoni 13y agoGood one timv. I wonder what Paypal would do with Bitcoin ebooks.
- pnathan 13y agoHmm. OK. Yeah. good to know. :D
- dualogy 13y ago> They are banning the sale of non-physical items. If that were the case, thousands of ISV, SaaS, indie mp3/ebook vendors etc. would be up in arms already, wouldn't they?
- tlrobinson 13y agoI think they meant non-physical Bitcoin related items, i.e. Bitcoins.
- alexeisadeski3 13y agoMakes sense. Expansive anti money laundering laws in US are probably the cause?
- Mandatum 13y agoAlso the amount of scamming involved in the virtual currency market is pretty substantial. I assume they're doing this to curb the headache that's generated.
- valar_m 13y agoOr, perhaps Paypal is a company whose interests aren't well served by the availability of electronic money transfers with little or no transaction costs.
- lisp-and-seo 13y agoNow that's a conspiracy theory.
- jellicle 13y agoJust as a general rule: positing that one individual entity is acting in its own, legal, self-interest is not a "conspiracy theory". It may or may not be correct, but it's not a wacky, crazy, tinfoil hat conspiracy theory.
- lisp-and-seo 13y ago"wacky, crazy, tinfoil hat conspiracy theory" != "conspiracy theory" ;)
- nwh 13y agoThat was predictable, Bitcoin is a huge source of chargebacks and fraud. My bank had issues with people stealing online banking credentials and using them to buy Bitcoin, there's a bit of a blanket ban on that sort of service now I think. It's a fairly common occurrence for sellers on localbitcoins too, I've talked to sellers before who have been ripped off to the tune of thousands of dollars due to similar situations.
- dclusin 13y agoSo this is why coinbase takes so damn long to fulfill buy btc orders.
- laureny 13y ago> That was predictable, Bitcoin is a huge source of chargebacks and fraud. It's also a potential huge competitor for PayPal.
- nwh 13y agoI sincerely doubt it. PayPal is an escrow service, Bitcoin includes one in the protocol but it's by no means the easy user protection PayPal provides.
- jfoster 13y agoI'm not really well versed in Bitcoin, so I could be misunderstanding the mechanics of it, but I think Bitcoin would be really good for PayPal. As you suggest, they would continue to provide their service, but instead of PayPal accounts being funded through Visa/MasterCard (X% txn fee) they could be funded through Bitcoin (0% txn fee). (disclosure: I currently own some eBay Inc stock)
- nwh 13y agoThat's completely and thoroughly possible, and doesn't at all conflict with the way eBay operates. I'm not sure if users would accept it particularly readily though, there's other escrow services that require no trust in the escrow agent, why would they use Bitcoin? I'm not particularly opposed to the idea, I don't mind PayPal particularly, I'm just not sure how well it would be adopted.
- citricsquid 13y agoThis is incorrect. The CEO of PayPal David Marcus has already denied these claims: To clarify: we have no policies against using PayPal to sell Bitcoin mining rigs. We don't support any currency txn whether fiat or BTC for a host of regulatory issues. But we treat BTC and any FX txn the same way. We're believers in BTC though. There was a communication error in January but it was retracted within hours: http://i.imgur.com/GMC0fsd.png http://i.imgur.com/GMC0fsd.png https://twitter.com/davidmarcus/status/422632561882316800 https://twitter.com/davidmarcus/status/422632561882316800 https://twitter.com/davidmarcus/status/422632849670299648 https://twitter.com/davidmarcus/status/422632849670299648
- sillysaurus2 13y agoIs the Bitcointalk poster lying, then? One of these two stories can't be true, and the poster has no reason to lie... (Not that people on the internet need one.)
- dustcoin 13y agoNeither the bitcointalk poster nor Paypal's CEO were lying, although the poster's conclusion is now proven to be incorrect. The OP was selling casascius coins, which contain bitcoin private keys (digital currency) and are therefore against the terms of service. The CS rep the OP talked to incorrectly communicated that ALL bitcoin related items were banned. Later Paypal and their CEO issued a statement clarifying that only digital currencies themselves were banned.
- citricsquid 13y agoI doubt they're lying, what they are doing is mislabelling their experience as representative. Low level PayPal employees have previously made mistakes that has resulted in people who are selling mining equipment finding their accounts suspended, however these are misinterpretations of the rules by the lowest level of PayPal employees. The David Marcus statement was in response to a story (almost identical to the story of the bitcointalk poster) from a couple of weeks ago. http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1v12p4/well_done_paypal_well_done_jerks/ http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1v12p4/well_done_pa... http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1v3qhw/update_well_done_paypal_well_done_jerks/ http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1v3qhw/update_well_...
- doubt_me 13y agoEven though they are able to keep money from these banned accounts its probably just to get back from all the scammers involved Check out number 4 https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/ua/acceptableuse-full https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/ua/acceptableuse-full
- miw-sec-work 13y agoThis doesn't make sense -- from Feb 11th 2014 ebay will be allowing Virtual Currency to be sold in its own category. This is eBay policy, so papal will have to fall in line.
- jfoster 13y agoFYI - there are categories on eBay which have a format (Classifieds) whereby the transaction is to be handled offline: http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/formats.html#classified http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/formats.html#classified An example use-case is the Real Estate category.
- kvanderd 13y agoPaypal is the worst way to process payments, no one should use them (use any of the alternatives). Paypal will never support anything like Bitcoin unless they absolutely have to because it involves "risk". I wish consumers weren't so use to the easy checkout process, because they're terrible to develop with and will stifle virtual currency adoption.
- jliptzin 13y agoNo surprise. My personal experience with paypal: Apparently I am permanently banned for life because I refused to cover my "negative balance" that resulted from a scammer buying my old laptop on ebay, claiming he never got it (despite having proof of delivery), then somehow reversing the Paypal transaction just by speaking to a representative. He used a brand new ebay account, mine was at least 7 years old with 100% positive feedback. Have they resolved this issue yet? I keep hearing similar stories from friends, who have obviously stopped using ebay/paypal for this reason. So Paypal customer support apparently just does whatever they want to do, at the individual agent level.
- aestra 13y agoThis sucks and is pretty much a known scam. Ebay and paypal don't do what they want so much as just automatically side with the buyer. The buyer could have also claimed they got a defective product. I guess the only way to protect yourself is to purchase insurance.
- jvm 13y agoThis is a 'feature' of the credit card system, it has nothing to do with PayPal. If you buy something with a credit card, you can chargeback by claiming a defective product and get your money back from the card companies. Then the card companies go to the seller to get their money back. In this case, the credit card companies only have a relationship with PayPal, not you, so they come to PayPal to get their money back. PayPal fights them but if they lose then they pay up, then they come to you to get the money back from you, and you obviously refused to pay. You can imagine what this kind of thing does to PayPal's business. Paypal were the ones that ended up getting screwed in that transaction. Just be glad it wasn't you.
- jliptzin 13y agoI understand chargebacks. This wasn't a chargeback, it was a straight up Paypal reversal. And if you count not being able to use Paypal for anything as a penalty, then I got screwed too.
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- rqebmm 13y agoThe obvious conspiracy here is that David Marcus asked that a bunch of bitcoin related accounts get frozen, then bought a shitload of bitcoin as soon as it tanked before eBay "hastily" declared they "believe in bitcoin"
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- StuartWalker 13y agoInteresting to see Paypal say they are believers.
- kolev 13y agoThe President is - he owns bitcoins, duh. He's either doing this for personal benefits or he's just a wolf in sheep's clothing.
- jccooper 13y agoAmazing that the author has--and is keeping--$6k in PayPal. Even after they threaten to ban and freeze him. They're well-known for freezing accounts at a whim, and as a merchant I keep nothing in PayPal longer than a day. I don't keep anything in there as a buyer either; they're perfectly happy to fund purchases directly from a bank or CC account. It's just plain safer if PP has as little of my money as possible.
- nolok 13y agoAnd even if you don't worry much about paypal freezing funds on a whim, it does not make any sense to me to let your money sleep there.
- scottcanoni 13y agoAgreed, I see no reason to hold a balance on Paypal.
- marcosdumay 13y agoI'm more amazed by how they can just "freeze" other people's money, with no repercussions at all. I'd expect the police to get involved fast every time they do that.
- pearjuice 13y agoThe more power to them. In 9 of the 10 cases Bitcoin is used for either illegal or fraudulent cases.
- ionwake 13y agoHi - out of interest, where did you get this statistic from?
- pearjuice 13y agoI pulled them straight out of my ass but it's unlikely I am wrong. Seeing how there is basically no real reason to spend your bitcoin on legal activities (1. because the price fluctuates too much and 2. because nothing valuable can be bought with Bitcoin yet) the only reason why you would be spending this coin is when you want to make semi-anonymous transactions in the illegal circuit.
- patrickg_zill 13y agoWhile I support the idea of Bitcoin (and have some Dogecoin), I do realize that the central banks (note I did not say government) will act swiftly and mercilessly to crush any true competition. Look at what happened in the Worgl experiment - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C3%B6rgl http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C3%B6rgl - once the idea gained traction the central bank outright banned it, so that other towns considering it, could not start up a competing currency. Can Bitcoin be banned? Not without crushing the Internet; but if made illegal (or just subject to very onerous reporting requirements) such that businesses in the USA could not easily use it, it would stop Bitcoin's growth dead.
- adobriyan 13y agoThere is no real government backing Bitcoin. There is no real economy backing Bitcoin. At some point you need to convert BTC to real money for taxing and what not and this conversion is the perfect place to ban it if so desired. Nice experiment currently backed up by blogging.
- nhaehnle 13y agoThe history of Wörgl is a bit debatable. There are some accounts that state that their alternative currency quickly devolved to essentially circulating within the city hall, because others became disillusioned about it, in particular its loss of value. The problem is: I cannot find the link to this article anymore, because searches invariably turn up tons of positive articles that all use suspiciously similar wording - kind of as if somebody with an agenda was consciously working on copy&pasting similar texts all over the internet. At its core, the idea underlying the Wörgl experiment is actually very simple and most likely true: When a monetarily sovereign government isn't afraid of spending, they can do good things. You don't actually need an artificially value-losing currency for that, you just need the political will for spending.
- interstitial 13y agoOh, the humanity! The nerds and their hoarded pseudo-currencies trying to fleece their IT-ignorant neighbors as payback for having to always fix their PC! If the nerds can't find a Greater Fool to dump their pumps, what next?
- tomasien 13y agoTwo things: 1. I don't see how Bitcoin being sold on Paypal is competition to Paypal. Why wouldn't Paypal love to be a place where people sell bitcoins down the road? Bitcoin is a competitor to money, not to Paypal. 2. I've talked to reps at Paypal who have told me transacting BTC using Paypal or even in apps that use Paypal but transact money in other ways is against their TOS.
- lucasrp 13y agoEverytime some financial institution tries to promote fear by freezing accounts, they show why bitcoin is so superior.
- andyhmltn 13y agoThere are calls on that forum to start 'boycotting' paypal as they have 'gone too far.' The sad thing is: PayPal have been doing stuff like this for years. I've had hundreds of GBP held by them for months for no reason. When I say no reason: I mean that the agent that finally solved it for me admitted there should be no reason this has happened.
- kolev 13y agoI lot of people violate PayPal terms of service and then they whine about it. I've been using PayPal as a merchant since 2000, I've been getting nice emails with advance notices when policies change. I wish others had such system in place as well!