A Paypal story

[Fred]

I thought the group might be entertained by these corporate hijinx. I've been accepting Paypal on my knife web site for the past couple of years. Suddenly, early this week I received an email explaining that my Paypal account was "limited" because my website sold push daggers and butterfly knives which are politically incorrect at Paypal. They demanded that I remove them from my website. It seems strange to me for a funds transfer service to dictate to me what I should sell and not sell. I could imagine my bank bouncing a check because they didn't approve of what I bought. At any rate, I refused to remove the offending products and instead removed Paypal from the site as a method of payment. I assumed that would resolve the issue. Nope. They were determined to get those products off my site and, since I didn't comply, they decided to punish me by closing my 13 year old Paypal account.

I do sell some things on Ebay from time to time so I set up direct payment through my merchant account on Ebay. Guess who wouldn't allow me to remove Paypal from my Ebay account so that I could accept credit cards directly. You guessed it. It was Paypal. My closed account gets in the way of doing anything.

Finally, they are holding my money for 6 months. I can understand their desire to eliminate any possibility of a chargeback before they give me my money but it was their doing. They closed the account. I didn't. We tend to think that government gets more and more intrusive over time and it does. But so do corporations.

[VHo]

unbelievable. where do they get off? that is infuriating to the nth degree.

[Rob Babcock]

I don't like dealing with paypal if I can avoid it. Crap like this is the reason why.

[rhinoknives1]

Fred,

The Corporations get more intrusive because The government let's them!

We have the best Government money can buy!!

Laurence

www.rhinoknives.com/

[Fred]

Fred,

The Corporations get more intrusive because The government let's them!

www.rhinoknives.com/

You think the government should "let" them or "not let them" do what they do to earn a profit? You think the government should run businesses?

[rhinoknives1]

You think the government should "let" them or "not let them" do what they do to earn a profit? You think the government should run businesses?

Fred, We have the best Government money can buy! And I am sick of it. Pelosi, Reed and many more have become millionaires many times over from insider trading info and "influence" money they receive from large companies & individuals.

Those two come to mind,but I am sure they are on both sides of the isle. Profit is not a dirty word to me.

When business buys the law's it wants so it holds people in a form of economic slavery, That's what I abject to.

Laurence

www.rhinoknives.com/

[Rob Babcock]

I've been going 'round and 'round with PP over their absurd requirement to "verify" your account in order to lift the $10,000 limit. Basically you can only make $10k in transactions unless you give PP access to your bank account. This is for, wink wink, "security" purposes. As if my $10 payment is more likely to be fraudulent after making 1000 perfect payments! This bizarre requirement actually weeds out users with a great track record and with longstanding accounts. Obviously we all know it's not about security but rather saving PP money & boosting profits (it's cheaper for them to access your accounts than with the CC company), and of course it also lets them reach into your bank account and take your money. I strongly suspect that if one reads the fine print your only recourse is likely arbitration with a PP chosen arbitrator.

They provided a phone number where I can talk to a representative about it. According to an article in Slate magazine that's about the only way to have the requirement waived. I haven't decided whether to bother or just drop PP altogether.

[BreadFan]

don't go all bonkers about "government" and "PayPal" in the same sentence.

PayPal is a totally 100% unregulated private "bank" - they do as they please, they are subject to zero.zero government oversight, rules, regulations or consumer protection.

not that I'm a particular happy customer when it comes to "government" , , , either.

[bikehunter]

Yup, Paypal has all the benefits of a bank, but none of the restrictions. This is why I have one dedicated bank account for Paypal only. The instant I have money in my Paypal account I transfer it to my bank account, and immediately transfer that balance to a bank account for which Paypal has no access. If they want to freeze my account which always has a zero balance...they can knock themselves out. ;-) I do so little business any longer with Paypal, and it's owner ebay, it hardly matters anyhow.

[Rob Babcock]

I planned to do that but now free checking has virtually disappeared (thanks Big Banking!). While my US Bank checking acct is still "free" I must have $xxx of direct deposits and/or a certain balance to keep it that way. I doubt I can have my employer split my direct deposit, either. The long and the short of it is that I'm not willing to pay $6-$10 per month to have a "throwdown account" to verify with PP.

I find PP's recalcitrance baffling. If they refuse to allow me to conduct any more transactions w/o verification, then they'll get a higher cut of nothing. Anything times zero is still zero. If I am allowed to keep using the service they'll continue to get their cut (it's what, 3% nowadays?) of an ever increasing pie. I have been working on developing some camping & survival products that I intended to sell thru eBay. But if I can't do PP then eBay is virtually worthless to me. In that case setting up on Amazon is looking better every day.