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Ummm....no. As a software engineer, I can assure you there are not "thousands of PayPal employees" that can just ban businesses at will. I don't even think engi

Ummm....no. As a software engineer, I can assure you there are not "thousands of PayPal employees" that can just ban businesses at will. I don't even think engineers working on that particular piece of software have any jurisdiction over that. Time and time again people post complaints that PayPal banned them "for no reason", without cause, etc, but invariably when you do your research, they have violated the TOS, and they have often been warned by PayPal many times. They were scamming someone, exploiting return policies and systems, etc. People will conceal those facts, as well as their own actions which led to their consequences.

downandout 7y ago
The issue here is that this company did not violate PayPal's TOS, yet they find themselves in this situation. BTW, I had a similar experience with PayPal, though my account was not open for 12 years. I didn't violate any TOS, and had no chargebacks - as in not a single one - and yet my account was effectively ghosted. I was handed a bunch of hoops to jump through, I jumped through them, and then nothing happened. The account sat in that state for so long that PayPal was eventually required by law to turn the money over to the state as abandoned. Only then was I able to get the money back - from the state treasurer (years after the fact). So if your policy documents don't actually govern your policies, then employees are banning businesses based on their personal value judgments. That is problematic for a large number of reasons.
- ginsuown 7y ago
  > The issue here is that this company did not violate PayPal's TOS Untrue. Often the exact breach is legally prohibited from being publicly shared, but if a company is banned, then a TOS breach has happened. There is an unbelievable amount of red tape and compliance within every process, both digital and human, that occurs with regards to money and transactions. Especially in the fintech space, PayPal internally is bound to governmental regulations and auditing far more strict than any regulations imposed on customers. To suggest that PayPal can just close accounts at whim for any other reason than enforcement of legally binding terms and confiscate customer funds is simply absurd.
  - downandout 7y ago
    First, no company is ever “legally prohibited” from telling you what specific section of the TOS they allege that you violated. Second, with regard to PayPal not closing accounts on a whim, it happens literally everyday. See http://www.paypalsucks.com/ http://www.paypalsucks.com/ and countless other sites like it. Even the BBB lists nearly 8300 complaints against PayPal in the last 3 years - https://www.bbb.org/us/ca/san-jose/profile/payment-processing-services/paypal-inc-1216-210387/complaints https://www.bbb.org/us/ca/san-jose/profile/payment-processin...
    - ginsuown 7y ago
      > First, no company is ever “legally prohibited” from telling you what specific section of the TOS they allege that you violated Again, misplaced assumption and personal opinion. With some circumstances, especially if regulating bodies become involved, a company can be ordered by government to not share any further information with the other party, as well as freeze their funds. And even in the circumstances where that does not occur, I don't think a company is obligated to spell out for you what you violated. Sure, I agree that doesn't always look the best and it can seem like it happened "for no reason", but personally my opinion is that if someone told me I have violated TOS, I can read the few paragraphs for myself and figure it out. And they have over 250 million users, 8300 complaints over 3 years doesn't seem bad, and it looks like most of them were resolved. I get it, money gets people upset, and it's always tempting to see the "big bad corporation" turning its back on the little guy, but I personally feel like it gets blown out of proportion a lot. There's always more to the story... Being in the industry, it just frustrates me when people think these big companies can do whatever they want at will, when really their hands are often tied much more than you think.
      - downandout 7y ago
        it just frustrates me when people think these big companies can do whatever they want at will, when really their hands are often tied much more than you think I know my experiences with them very much fall in the “big company doing whatever it wants at will” category, and I am not alone. Scores of others over the years have wound up as frustrated as you are by these comments in their dealings with PayPal. especially if regulating bodies become involved, a company can be ordered by government to not share any further information with the other party, This would apply to an absurdly small percentage of the accounts that PayPal closes on a daily basis.

downandout 7y ago

The issue here is that this company did not violate PayPal's TOS, yet they find themselves in this situation. BTW, I had a similar experience with PayPal, though my account was not open for 12 years. I didn't violate any TOS, and had no chargebacks - as in not a single one - and yet my account was effectively ghosted. I was handed a bunch of hoops to jump through, I jumped through them, and then nothing happened. The account sat in that state for so long that PayPal was eventually required by law to turn the money over to the state as abandoned. Only then was I able to get the money back - from the state treasurer (years after the fact). So if your policy documents don't actually govern your policies, then employees are banning businesses based on their personal value judgments. That is problematic for a large number of reasons.

ginsuown 7y ago
> The issue here is that this company did not violate PayPal's TOS Untrue. Often the exact breach is legally prohibited from being publicly shared, but if a company is banned, then a TOS breach has happened. There is an unbelievable amount of red tape and compliance within every process, both digital and human, that occurs with regards to money and transactions. Especially in the fintech space, PayPal internally is bound to governmental regulations and auditing far more strict than any regulations imposed on customers. To suggest that PayPal can just close accounts at whim for any other reason than enforcement of legally binding terms and confiscate customer funds is simply absurd.
- downandout 7y ago
  First, no company is ever “legally prohibited” from telling you what specific section of the TOS they allege that you violated. Second, with regard to PayPal not closing accounts on a whim, it happens literally everyday. See http://www.paypalsucks.com/ http://www.paypalsucks.com/ and countless other sites like it. Even the BBB lists nearly 8300 complaints against PayPal in the last 3 years - https://www.bbb.org/us/ca/san-jose/profile/payment-processing-services/paypal-inc-1216-210387/complaints https://www.bbb.org/us/ca/san-jose/profile/payment-processin...
  - ginsuown 7y ago
    > First, no company is ever “legally prohibited” from telling you what specific section of the TOS they allege that you violated Again, misplaced assumption and personal opinion. With some circumstances, especially if regulating bodies become involved, a company can be ordered by government to not share any further information with the other party, as well as freeze their funds. And even in the circumstances where that does not occur, I don't think a company is obligated to spell out for you what you violated. Sure, I agree that doesn't always look the best and it can seem like it happened "for no reason", but personally my opinion is that if someone told me I have violated TOS, I can read the few paragraphs for myself and figure it out. And they have over 250 million users, 8300 complaints over 3 years doesn't seem bad, and it looks like most of them were resolved. I get it, money gets people upset, and it's always tempting to see the "big bad corporation" turning its back on the little guy, but I personally feel like it gets blown out of proportion a lot. There's always more to the story... Being in the industry, it just frustrates me when people think these big companies can do whatever they want at will, when really their hands are often tied much more than you think.
    - downandout 7y ago
      it just frustrates me when people think these big companies can do whatever they want at will, when really their hands are often tied much more than you think I know my experiences with them very much fall in the “big company doing whatever it wants at will” category, and I am not alone. Scores of others over the years have wound up as frustrated as you are by these comments in their dealings with PayPal. especially if regulating bodies become involved, a company can be ordered by government to not share any further information with the other party, This would apply to an absurdly small percentage of the accounts that PayPal closes on a daily basis.