PayPal Says It Won't Fine Customers $2,500 for 'Misinformation' (nationalreview.com) 151
An anonymous reader shares this report from the National Review:
PayPal has backtracked on a published policy that would have fined users $2,500 for spreading "misinformation," claiming the update had gone out "in error."
"An 'Acceptable Use Policy' notice recently went out in error that included incorrect information. PayPal is not fining people for misinformation and this language was never intended to be inserted in our policy. Our teams are working to correct our policy pages. We're sorry for the confusion this has caused," a spokesperson told National Review in a written statement....
The policy update had appeared to authorize the company to pull a significant sum of money from the accounts of users who spread "misinformation," among other newly listed offenses.... Changes included prohibitions on "the sending, posting, or publication of any messages, content, or materials" that "promote misinformation." While the prior policy already forbade "hate," "intolerance," and discrimination, the new one would have explicitly applied to specific "protected groups" and "individuals or groups based on protected characteristics...."
The firm's current rulebook doesn't list these terms. It's unclear whether PayPal will also pull back these specific prohibitions on "discriminatory" language, or if it is only scrubbing the "misinformation" clause.
"An 'Acceptable Use Policy' notice recently went out in error that included incorrect information. PayPal is not fining people for misinformation and this language was never intended to be inserted in our policy. Our teams are working to correct our policy pages. We're sorry for the confusion this has caused," a spokesperson told National Review in a written statement....
The policy update had appeared to authorize the company to pull a significant sum of money from the accounts of users who spread "misinformation," among other newly listed offenses.... Changes included prohibitions on "the sending, posting, or publication of any messages, content, or materials" that "promote misinformation." While the prior policy already forbade "hate," "intolerance," and discrimination, the new one would have explicitly applied to specific "protected groups" and "individuals or groups based on protected characteristics...."
The firm's current rulebook doesn't list these terms. It's unclear whether PayPal will also pull back these specific prohibitions on "discriminatory" language, or if it is only scrubbing the "misinformation" clause.
No way this was an "oopsie" (Score:5, Insightful)
Those terms of service would have been run past legal and management multiple times, there's no way it was just "incorrect information".
Re:No way this was an "oopsie" (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly correct. These legal agreements don't get updated by mistake.
I don't know if they thought nobody would actually read the changes, but I'm sure they quickly realized their error when people started deleting their accounts en masse.
We are expanding the existing list of prohibited activities to include the sending, posting, or publication of messages, content, or materials that meet certain criteria.
Violation of this Acceptable Use Policy constitutes a violation of the PayPal User Agreement and may subject you to damages, including liquidated damages of 2,500.00 U.S. dollars per violation, which may be debited directly from your PayPal account(s) as outlined in the User Agreement
5. involve the sending, posting, or publication of any messages, content, or materials that, in PayPal’s sole discretion, (a) are harmful, obscene, harassing, or objectionable, (b) depict or appear to depict nudity, sexual or other intimate activities
It's election time. (Score:2, Insightful)
The mid-term elections are coming up next month. Short of cheating like mad again, democrats and their WEF masters have to put their crazy ideas on the down-low for a bit in the hope that voters forget all the insanity they're injecting into everyone's lives.
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What flavor kool-aid do you prefer? Grape, Strawberry, or maybe Cherry? Does one flavor do a better job of masking the crazy pills being mixed in?
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-1, Not consistent with Wokeness Narrative
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It is very good what the Canada PM is doing. Same with the Chinese. We all know the phrase, "if it saves one child's life, no amount of surveillance or government intrusion is too much."
Neither has multiple school shootings per day. The US is up to thousands this year. Chavez got rid of gun crime by enacting a wholesale ban on private ownership of firearms in Venezuela.
China and Canada are heroes, and the PM is doing what needs to be done. The only "bad" nation here is the US, which is the root of evil
Re: It's conservatard erection time. (Score:3)
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Woke leftists run paypal. The same ideology that runs the democrat party.
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There's Commies under the bed? Thanks for the tip.
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Re: No way this was an "oopsie" (Score:3)
Re: No way this was an "oopsie" (Score:2)
How could that ever thought they would get away with it, though? They would take $2500 from you, solely at their discretion of what constitutes misinformation? It seems like that would happen exactly once before they were in court trying to defend such a ridiculous fine.
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Misinformation 'fines' aside, the TOS/AUP calls for a $2500 fine for ANY violation a seller commits.
You acknowledge and agree that $2,500.00 U.S. dollars per violation of the Acceptable Use Policy is presently a reasonable minimum estimate of PayPal’s actual damages...
Among the very, very many ways to violate any of PP's terms...
Conduct your business or use the PayPal services in a manner that results in or may result in;
complaints;
Pure insanity and, frankly, why PP needs to be regulated as a bank...I don't think any of these crazy 'fines' would fly outside the US.
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Court? Nope.
Binding arbitration ... that PP pays for and you're almost certain to lose because of the same fact.
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Doesn't seem to say that the offending behavior has to happen on PayPal's platform.
Re:No way this was an "oopsie" (Score:5, Funny)
So, this published policy change constitutes 'misinformation'. Is PayPal going to have to throw $2,500 into the fine jar?
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You'd think so, but you're probably giving far too much credit to people. You ever look around at your place of employment and wonder how anything gets done since so many people don't seem to have a clue what they're doing? It's not just where you work. Stupid shit goes on all the time, pretty much everywhere. I could very easily see this being a case of some low paid and overworked secretary emailing someone the wrong file, and the recipient of that file just blindly copied and pasted the text into the bac
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I highly doubt that, There is no way Legal&Compliance will sign off on something this illegal. Somebody screwed up massively here.
Re: No way this was an "oopsie" (Score:2)
Even if this were the wrong version that got published, that this was even in a draft is yet another indicator of how PayPal views their role - the arbiter of orthodoxy. Maybe they said the quiet part out loud? Certainly this 'mistake' is entirely in line with their past actions.
I cancelled my PayPal account over the business with the Free Speech Union.
Re: No way this was an "oopsie" (Score:2)
Re:No way this was an "oopsie" (Score:5, Insightful)
Negative.
These documents are reviewed by an entire legal team & require various sign offs before they can be published. This kind of update literally cannot happen simply because some offshore person accidentally published a draft.
The fact there was an email campaign, website update, and a legal PDF document are absolute proof of this. This requires coordinated efforts amongst a whole host of different teams and isn't something that happens by mistake.
The mistake was they tried to pull a quick one and got caught.
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Sorry, but there is no way Legal&Compliance would ever sign off on something like that. No idea how this happened, but probably somebody high up violated process. Should cost that person their job.
Again, not saying it wasn't considered (Score:2)
If that many layers of approval had signed off they wouldn't have walked it back. Paypal has never given a damn about consumer backlash.
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These documents are reviewed by an entire legal team & require various sign offs before they can be published. This kind of update literally cannot happen simply because some offshore person accidentally published a draft.
I've never seen a company or system in place where something "cannot happen" as in this case. Publishing is a fundamental human process, and both humans and underworld dwelling lawyers can and do make mistakes.
Absolutely anything can happen during publishing. There are processes to go through, and verification stages, but ultimately they still rely on humans.
Even where I work right now we had an internal global specification for purchasing go through technical review, editorial review, and legal review, and
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Regardless of whether it was intended to be publisher, the bigger question is why this clause was even considered?
Seems pretty obvious to me: it gives PayPal yet another reason to steal money from your account.
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>Seems pretty obvious to me: it gives PayPal yet another reason to steal money from your account.
I was thinking more, how did PayPal think this was going to land well with normal people? How did they find themselves in a situation where somebody could make the suggestion without it being something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
I've seen some bad ideas suggested. Things that are at face value terrible, even dangerous. You either don't document them or you clearly mark them so they can't poss
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I'm sure there is a CMS with a dozen versions and somebody fucked up. My WAG (based on nothing except watching America's dumbest die faster than they should) is that PayPal is reacting to some sort of quasi-medical grift:, some paranoid halfwit contacts a chiropractor online, who tells them that to avoid turning their unconceived babies into gay 5G antennae, they should buy a tube of the Japanese medicine and some colloidal silver.
It isn't strictly fraudulent (since the chiropractor may be a sincere quack)
Re: No way this was an "oopsie" (Score:2)
Yeah, PayPal has off-shore lawyers writing US Terms of Service agreements, that sounds entirely plausible...
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So if PayPal has figured out a way to click a single button and have a legal documented updated, an email campaign started, and a website updated... they need to share this technology with other corporations because that's literally not how anything currently works.
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Which makes me sad. Misinformation is a massive, massive problem online
Yup, and it's getting worse and worse. I don't know who or what to trust anymore.
and efforts to curb scamming and other forms of misinformation through payments could help.
Only if you trust whoever the heck it is who decides to levy the fines (and steal money from someone's account).
We ("modern" society) have a legal system in place that often gets it wrong, sometimes horrifically. And now paypal want to levy fines with no court hearing?
Time to close my paypal account.
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Which makes me sad. Misinformation is a massive, massive problem online, and efforts to curb scamming and other forms of misinformation through payments could help.
Agreed. It is a mega-gigantoid massive humungous enormous immense monumental stupendous voluminous problem of epic proportions. As problems go, it's way bigger than a breadbox. If people guilty of wrongthink had all of their money seized by ethically pure mega-corporations, it would bring us closer to the world outlined in 'The Theory and Prac
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Its a massive lawsuit waiting to happen if they fine someone. They have 0 legal ground to fine anyone like this and their lawyer told them so.
You're only half right.
Hundreds of years of US contract law provides solid airtight grounds for such a policy. There is nothing regarding the "misinformation" clause specifically that breaks existing laws.
You are right that it is going to be a massive legal battle to attempt to enforce.
Not because "They have 0 legal ground" like you say, but because they have full legal grounds.
The lawsuit will be completely focused around if the defendant actually met a reasonable interpretation of "spreading misinformati
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It's very close to impossible for a policy like that to be enforced in a way that does not run afoul of the Civil Rights Act, in that it will be enforced in a way that discriminates against a protected class, particularly religion.
I suspect that the lawyers who approved this were contract lawyers with no experience in civil rights law, and that once it was published, a civil rights lawyer explained it to them. Probably while drooling at the prospect of presenting whoever sues them over it.
Re: No way this was an "oopsie" (Score:3)
I think you're wrong on that Civil Rights Act presumption. In order to violate the CRA, you need to have a policy that turns on a person's religious beliefs, not something that just impacts members of a particular religion more than others. To discriminate against a religion, you need a policy that cares about which religion you have. While you don't have to openly say that your policy turns on a person's religion to trigger the law, you do have to do something that targets some class of religious believers
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Targeting purveyors of misinformation is not going to trigger the CRA since there's no religion that can be plausibly said to have a requirement of giving out misinformation
Scientology?
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Not sure which country you are in, but in the EU, we have proper consumer rights. You can create any T&C document you want, but invalid terms simply cannot be enforced and will be struck down by the courts. Too many of those and the T&C are deemed invalid. Go ahead and try to take my $2500, and then see your EU banking license withdrawn faster than you can say "misinformation".
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Not really. Show me where a T&C that someone agreed on can be held invalid.
Courts throw out contracts all the time: that's why breach suits go to court. Where did you go to law school? You seem like an ironclad moron.
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You know language evolves over time, right?
You shall not pass (Score:2, Interesting)
> You know language evolves over time, right?
Sure, but we don't usually have activists trying to rewrite definitions of some of humanity's first words because they want the entire world to accept who transsexuals are, when the transsexuals can't even accept themselves for who they are. More than a few of them, though thankfully still a minority, think it's okay to bait super straight people who want nothing to do with them into trying to date them, as well, to the point where they think people are afrai
Gender meant pronouns pre-Money (Score:2)
Biological sex is real, gender is a social construct John Money created from a purely grammatical term back in the 60s.
Even if you relegate "gender" to grammar, gender still means what pronouns agree with a particular antecedent. Thus if a person uses she/her, then she is feminine gender even if she was apparently male at birth.
And if you relegate the term "gender" to grammar, then what term would you prefer to use to represent the difference between appearances and behaviors that a particular culture expects from masculine people and feminine people?
May I please point something out? (Score:4, Insightful)
I keep hearing critics of all the transgender stuff say things like you just did: "why do we need a new definition of woman just because people feel like a woman?" - and you seem to never notice that you are playing on the intellectual field of your ideological opponents, and playing by their extremely odd rules.
What do I mean?
This:
So-called trans people who were born male (BORN, not "assigned"; they'd have male parts whether anybody "assigned" anything or not) routinely say "I feel like a woman"... but given that they are decidedly NOT women, they cannot possibly know what it means to "feel like a woman". If they say "I don't feel like a man", the same problem applies: they ARE a man, so anything they feel must, by definition, be something a man can feel like. In point of FACT, the only honest thing a so-called trans who is biologically male could say along these lines is: "I feel like I IMAGINE a woman might feel", or "I don't feel like I presume other men feel".
The same (but in opposite directions) applies to women who self-describe as trans and say they "feel like a man" or "don't feel like a woman".
There is simply no way for a person of one sex to truly know how a person of the other sex feels, and it's actually an insult to people of the opposite sex to claim to know.
This ENTIRE DEBATE is based on false claims, false premises, pretenses, and imagination - and there's no reason for anybody with a clear eye to play on that field. The very fundamental propositions need to be challenged.
If consenting adults want to do these things to themselves, and can afford it, and can find physicians willing to do it, then nobody should have any issue with it. People also have every right to legally change their names to anything that makes 'em happy... so if Bob wants to change his name to Susan, he has every right to and people should respect the name change. A name's traditional association with a particular sex is just that - traditional; it's NOT a legal matter. Johnny Cash's song "A Boy Names Sue" comes to mind. This only becomes a matter for public debate when three things come into play: [1] these adults demand other people pay for it, [2] these people demand other people compromise their own consciences and join them in a lie (agreeing that a genetic male is a female, for example), or [3] kids are dragged into it - our civilization insists, for good reason, that persons under a certain age are too young to give informed consent for many consequential things, like having sex, joining the military, etc (which is why we say a minor is "under-age", as-in "under the age of consent").
Millions of children are being groomed to think that they should have parts of their bodies chopped off/cut out, and have other parts of their bodies harvested and used to make fake, non-functional other parts, which will render them sterile and unable to ever have biological children of their own. They're also being encouraged to pump themselves up with the wrong hormones, which will have severe long-term consequences for their bodies and alter their very perceptions of themselves - and in the end they will still have the same genetic codes that make them the male or female person they were born to be. Surgeons have become expert at manipulating appearances, so some of these kids may end up LOOKING like a facsimile of the other sex, for at least a few years, but it will still be an illusion. The "transition" will make a man into a woman about as well as a plastic surgeon re-shaping somebody's ears to match a character from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings will make that person an elf. It's a transformation that can never actually be completed. At the same time we're doing this, our schools require permission slips to give a kids an aspirin for a headache - just in case there MIGHT be some side-effect, and we forbid a kid the ability to take a gulp of beer before he's 21 (in 46 states, or 18 in the others). Think about it.
Re: You shall not pass (Score:4, Insightful)
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Good God what a freaking essay. You convince no one with your maga copypasta.
If she says she's a woman she's a woman
It doesn't hurt anyone to call someone what they want to be called
Life is change. Change or die.
No, he isn't. He has no idea what it means to be a woman, because he is a man. He thinks being a woman means having long hair, boobs, and wearing feminine clothes, but that's just the outward appearance. Anyone can wear a costume, heck I'm going to be a T-Rex this year for Halloween. It doesn't make me a real T-Rex and no one should be compelled to pretend I am.
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If she says she's a woman she's a woman
NO! Not only no, but fuck you for the suggestion that I have to participate in "her" delusion.
If you want to call yourself the God Emperor of Dune, fine. Call yourself that. But I will not participate. If a man wants to call himself a woman, fine. But I will not participate and I'll die before I let anyone force me to do so.
It doesn't hurt anyone to call someone what they want to be called
It hurts the truth. I'm not going to participate in the left's attempt to redefine reality. When words lose meaning, people lose freedom (Confucius)
Life is change. Change or die.
Change or die? You're gonna die i
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Just don't be a hater.
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Just don't be a hater.
Fair enough. But I'll not participate in a lie, either. I have NEVER gone out of my way to give a trans-person a hard time, nor will I ever. But I'll be damned if I let the left tell me I MUST refer to a person in a certain, non-truthful, way.
A trans-woman remains a biological male and a trans-male remains a biological female. End of story.
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I'll die before
Works for me. Please proceed.
Re: You shall not pass (Score:3)
That and some don't like being compelled to lie. And there is compulsion at okay, private and legal. The former is visible in the corporate world and on social media. The latter has been vest illustrated in Canada, also in various UK police forces acting as if 'misgendering' is a crime.
https://caldronpool.com/uk-pol... [caldronpool.com]
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-... [bbc.co.uk]
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ed... [telegraph.co.uk]
Gender ideology has clearly gone far beyond indulging a lie fir the sake of being polite or considerate. It has become an effo
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Please explain why this is a bad thing
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Crazy contract terms are tight!
Re:No way this was an "oopsie" (Score:4, Insightful)
If the mere act of "identifying" as something really could make you that thing, then identifying as vaccinated means I'm vaccinated, or identifying as Native American means I am Native American, etc. It is so absurd and ridiculous that only the severely mentally ill really believe it. Most everyone else knows this recent trans craze is a load of B.S, and it will end spectacularly with millions of sterilized adults with trans regret suing the crap out of teachers, health "professionals", family members, etc who encouraged them to cut their off their penis and receive hormone "therapy" when they were still children. Many of the sane people who don't speak out against this nonsense only stay quiet because afraid of getting fired by the radicals who have taken over their company's HR departments. Things are changing though and the emperor with no clothes is being exposed, especially now that some governments have started doing outrageous and egregious things like imprisoning parents who refuse to use made up pronouns while referring to their own children.
How common is detransition after SRS? (Score:2)
millions of sterilized adults with trans regret suing the crap out of teachers, health "professionals", family members, etc who encouraged them to cut their off their penis
I'm interested in the source for this statistic on prevalence of detransition among people who have had gender-affirming surgery. I thought that's what the year or two of social transition and cross-sex hormone therapy prior to surgery was for: to weed out those who get cold feet.
and receive hormone "therapy" when they were still children.
I doubt children (12 and under) are getting gender-affirming cross-sex hormone therapy in substantial numbers. Did you mean teens?
Re: No way this was an "oopsie" (Score:2)
When did PayPal become a social media site?
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I'm thinking they are back tracking because after they published this some attorney general from some place got in touch with them and told them this was illegal.
An if it's not illegal, it should be. I can't think of any reason a private company should be able to issue a 'fine' unless it's for something that affects business.
PayPal should go the way of the dodo (Score:3, Insightful)
They've too often played arbiter and tyrant. They don't deserve business because they want to control customers rather than serve them. I even saw them censor Just Thinking Out Loud with Desi-Rae (a Jamaican girl documenting her experience and thoughts while in America). She dared to have political opinions on YouTube and despite her being respectful, they decided that she should have her account frozen because some people whined that she wasn't in the hivemind.
I just asked PayPal this very question 2 hours ago (Score:5, Informative)
PP: If you haven't already, let us know why you're contacting us. Feel free to step away and we'll notify you by email or push notification when we've responded.
ME: I want to better understand this paragraph in the new terms of service as well as the new $2500 fine:
5. involve the sending, posting, or publication of any messages, content, or materials that, in PayPal’s sole discretion, (a) are harmful, obscene, harassing, or objectionable, (b) depict or appear to depict nudity, sexual or other intimate activities,(c) depict or promote illegal drug use, (d)depict or promoteviolence, criminal activity, cruelty,or self-harm(e) depict,promote, or incite hatred or discrimination of protected groups or of individuals or groups based on protected characteristics (e.g. race, religion, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation, etc.) (f)present a risk to user safety or wellbeing, (g) are fraudulent, promote misinformation, or are unlawful, (h) infringe the privacy, intellectual property rights, or other proprietary rights of any party, or (i)are otherwise unfit for publication.
PP: Hi Richard, My name is Anup. Welcome to PayPal Messaging, I'm looking into your previous messages and reviewing your account. I request you to stay connected with me and I'll respond to you in a few minutes.
ME: ok. My question is this: Would I be in violation of PayPal's new terms of service if I accepted payment for a T-shirt that said "Gender is Immutable", and/or "We will not change the definition of gender in order to 'affirm' your delusions"?
PP: Richard, I certainly understand your concern in this matter. Please allow me a minute to check from my end. Please stay connected.
ME: thanks. i just sent a screenshot of the t-shirt design in question. another example: a t-shirt that had the gay flag surrounded by a red circle with a line through it, or a t-shit that said "homosexual behavior is sinful"
ME: are you still looking into this? it has been 10 minutes.
PP: Thank you for your patience. Richard, it is not necessary for the acceptance of payments for the items that you're referring to. If there is any violation on the PayPal's user agreements then there might be a fine charged. I would request you to go through the below link for detailed information on the same. If there is any updates, you'll be notified via email. https://www.paypal.com/us/weba... [paypal.com] I have forwarded the feedback provided from your end to our Internal Team. Rest assured they will surely consider and work on this.
ME: ok. How will they contact me with the answer? I've already read the full agreement, which is the entire reason why I am contacting PayPal at this time. My question is simple: if I were to use PayPal to sell merchandise that says things such as "gender is immutable", "gay sex is sinful", "we will not redefine gender in order to affirm your delusions", etc, then would I be in violation of the new terms of service that take effect on November 3rd? The answer is either yes or no, and I need to have an answer in order to plan for the future.
Re:I just asked PayPal this very question 2 hours (Score:5, Interesting)
Thanks for posting that. Pretty much a waste of your time, but it's good that you did it to establish a data point.
My deduction: they'll do whatever they want whenever they capriciously want and steal your money. The only fix is to close accounts. I wish and hope that many many people do close their paypal accounts. I've been itching to for months.
That they backpedaled on this thing only tells me 1) their eventual intent (to steal money whenever they feel like it) and 2) testing the waters to prepare for when they actually implement the theft policy.
Who gives them the power and right to levy fines, anyway? Is our court system falling apart? Anyone can be a judge, jury, and executioner now?
Interesting dovetail: recently for many months I was having trouble buying with paypal. Payments were blocked, even though I could log in to my account, see everything. Many wasted hours on the (useless) chat, on phone, emails- they kept telling me to "provide alternate funding sources". How much more vague can people get? They would not tell me what that meant. But after much weeping and gnashing of teeth, I got them to say they wanted me to "attach a bank account". Well, that's not going to happen, and I told them many different times that if that's the only solution, I want to close my account.
I finally figured out what might have been the problem- newer browser version (Vivaldi) includes built-in tracking and ad blocking. It's subtle but strong. When I noticed the little icon (badge?) and turned it off, I was able to buy using paypal again.
But the point is: rather than helping fix a technical problem, _every_ interaction with "help" tried to get me to "attach a bank account". Now I understand why... Scarier and scarier times.
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The intent to steal money came with their, not only embrace of, but shady attempt to funnel people in to - Crypto. My account is from when they were just part of Ebay. I use it daily. I know there are a lot of businesses that hate Paypal but as a customer I've had almost 0 issues with them.
If they want to fuck with me, I will walk - they are, at very long last, not the only service that provides a buffer between retailers and your bank that doesn't cost usurious interest rates.
I didn't see the changes th
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Yeah, I've had a paypal account for 15 or so years. Recent problems are the first I've had problems, that I can remember.
Oh yeah, a year ago someone paid me through paypal for some work I did. They would not transfer the $ back into my account without a LOT of personal info- more than my bank has. I refused, saying it didn't make sense because my bank doesn't even have that info. It might be some new federal regulation. Eventually I got them to send me a check. Which of course I deposited into a bank
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My deduction: they'll do whatever they want whenever they capriciously want and steal your money. The only fix is to close accounts. I wish and hope that many many people do close their paypal accounts. I've been itching to for months.
I closed mine years ago and regret not closing it sooner.
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The greater fool is the one who tries to argue with a fool.
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I got an email from PayPal today... (Score:5, Interesting)
...and the link to their "Acceptable Use Policy" led to a PDF that was... blank.
Some last-minute ass-covering going on.
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It's blank because they deleted the document, even though the website is still pointing to it.
Email campaign + website edits + legal document = coordinated efforts. The only mistake was it backfired.
Legal limitations? (Score:2, Informative)
With Paypal being registered as a bank in Luxemburg and covered by financial regulations there, I highly suspect they have zero ability to "fine" anyone. They are a payment processor not a social network.
I suspect this was published without legal review and some lawyer told them to reign it in before they get in trouble.
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If someone at PayPal is publishing legal documents without the legal team signing off - people will be getting fired.
But then again - they had an email campaign and website updates to support the document - indicating it was a planned and coordinated change.
Interesting how people think corporations are able to make single button click whoopsies with all the red tape, bureaucracy, and various teams involved to support these kinds of efforts.
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Interesting how people think corporations are able to make single button click whoopsies with all the red tape, bureaucracy, and various teams involved to support these kinds of efforts.
They can. Just remember all the instances were large names forgot to renew domain name registrations...
Although this one will probably get somebody fired, because _anything_ published by a bank has to go through Legal&Compliance and every employee will have been told so. Repeatedly.
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Interesting how people think corporations are able to make single button click whoopsies with all the red tape, bureaucracy, and various teams involved to support these kinds of efforts.
They can. Just remember all the instances were large names forgot to renew domain name registrations...
A
Domain name renewals are not C-level issues. That's some random IT peon fucking up.
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Domain name renewals are not C-level issues. That's some random IT peon fucking up.
This is not necessarily C-level either. Just requires somebody to fuck up and think they can push this directly...
Re: (Score:2)
If someone at PayPal is publishing legal documents without the legal team signing off - people will be getting fired.
If they are a toxic company sure. But the reality is even documents and processes which require legal sign-off are imperfect and error do occur. I myself have internally published something that went through legal review that was subsequently post publishing retracted at the request of legal.
Scum sucking underworld bottom feeding lawyers are people too. Well maybe not people, but they are imperfect.
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Luxemburg? Then no. If they "fined" anybody, they would probably lose their license unless they can prove it was a mistake. All they can do is sue people or, if a crime has happened", report them to the police. They cannot even simply terminate an account. Banks are not allowed to play jury, judge and executor. At least not in the EU.
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I suspect this was published without legal review and some lawyer told them to reign it in before they get in trouble.
Possible, but it seems more likely to me that it was approved by their staff lawyers, who are contract lawyers, and some outside attorney with more expertise in public policy law - particularly civil rights law, given how likely it is that a policy like that would end in discrimination against a protected class - explained it to them. In detail.
Fines? (Score:3)
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They're a payment processor, and this is a contract term. In the same way that you, the merchant, agree to let your merchant service deduct transaction fees from your bank account every month. Calling it a "fine" is disingenuous (and could cause them no end of legal problems), but fees for contract violations are routine in all contract language.
If you don't like the terms, don't agree to the contract.
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I wouldn't use it for a real business (Score:2)
Paypal is fine for selling video cards on ebay or whatever but it seems like if you have a real business, you should have a real payment processor. I use paypal to make payments because it's easy, but I will make CC payments to sites too. I wouldn't run a lot of money through there at once, period.
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I use it to send friends cash, as well as commissions for artwork or whatnot. As a consumer/payer, it works well enough, provided one doesn't attach their bank account to it. However, if I were running a business, I'd probably go elsewhere. Worst case, use Square, which is "good enough" for small businesses.
'Misinformation' (Score:3)
Like using the terms "Like New" and "Slightly Used" ?
Mother may I... (Score:3)
May I fine PayPal for spreading mis-information?
BTW, when did PayPal become a social media website?
This is not the job of a payment processor (Score:2)
If we allow payment processors to police speech, eventually everything will be bland and boring and there will be no public discourse anymore.
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What will happen is that people will go back to cash, or maybe even cryptocurrencies would advance. A stablecoin that has anonymity like Monero would gain tremendous ground, provided it is done "right", perhaps by a non-profit, who can assure that if 100% of coin owners want their coins exchanged into dollars, they can get them.
Right now, PayPal is a lot easier to deal with than cryptocurrency. If the hand starts closing, then we can see businesses start accepting other payment methods, or even cryptocurr
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Also, bank transfers may make a come-back. In the EU, a bank transfer is 1 cent in cost. (Last I saw it was capped at 0.2 cent...) Domestically, I pay 90% bank transfer, because it is easy, fast and free. Internationally, it is more PayPal (outside of the EU) and credit card (inside the EU) with some variation, but it is only because it is convenient.
Basically, if the credit-card operators and PayPal overdo it, their business can go elsewhere pretty fast. And it will.
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We're already allowing it. Credit cards and banks and other payment processors have been banning payments to online sex workers for over a decade, closing accounts when they find them and keeping the money. Hell, they classed condoms as a prohibited category of goods and refused to change that, even when publish backlash shamed them into making an exception for an online condom store.
Welcome to capitalism. Dollars matter more than your freedom of speech and the wealthy are increasingly the only ones allo
This Paypal Policy went into effect in Sept 2021 (Score:2)
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This is a shame, I sort of liked the idea of paypal and use it as a shield from giving a credit card number to random companies on the internet. This is what I get for acting like a sheep and just clicking past the 'legal' agreements.
What? (Score:2)
The net gets ever tighter (Score:2, Insightful)
actually.... (Score:2)
Government getting companies to oppress people in the direction the government would like them oppressed is textbook fascism.
All that marching about with goose steps and snazzy arm bands is just special effects... the sort of visual that seeps into any totalitarian system. Mistaking the special effects of totalitarianism for fascism is a bit like mistaking fireworks for the American Independence Day celebrations - Americans USE fireworks in those celebrations, but the fireworks are NOT themselves "Independe
Trial lawyers sigh, put down the Porsche catalog (Score:2)
You think the Paypal move was bad? Wait for CBDCs
CBDCs need to be outlawed before they get started.
It's still in there. (Score:2)
I just read the Paypal "User Agreement" (for the first time), and it's a horrorshow. There is *still* a clause in there stating that "spreading misinformation" is among the "restricted activities" for which they can penalize you. Penalties include "liquidated damages" of $2500, which (under the User Agreement) you agree in advance is "fair compensation" for Paypal's expenses and for potential "damage to their reputation"; other potential penalties include freezing all the assets in your account.
It's alrea
Paypal banned me (Score:2)
Paypal changed some security settings on my account without notice. I think I must have been part of some kind of 'ease of use' A/B test. I did not appreciate suddenly not needing my password to make purchases, really I did not like that one bit. I wrote to Paypal explaining myself and they did not care, trying to sell me on their complete lack of security. I wrote 'Fuck You' to Paypal and they lifetime banned me.
Not surprised that Paypal pulled some more bullshit on paying customers. Paypal is dogshit and
Not a goddamned 'fine' (Score:2)
Such a thing is not illegal, at least not in the US, and I suspect not in many other relevant jurisdictions. You can agree to just about anything you want in a contract, with few exceptions - provided
Re: I see things like this (Score:2)
It's quite possible yet unnecessary for government actors to be involved. It's similar to how tech companies have no need to coordinate or collude. They don't have to when they share the sane fringe and elitist ideology.
Re: I see things like this (Score:2)
Yeah. I'm sure there's some state involvement, even if it's an off the record 'suggestion'.
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So it's legal in America to apply random fines ?
If you put them into your policies, yes. See: Overdraft fees, which were invented in the 1990s are strictly stealing money from customers for the crime of not having money, and for NOT COVERING A PAYMENT. They are LITERALLY a fee for NOT providing a service! If banks can do that, anyone with whom you have a contract can charge you literally any amount for anything.