
Paypal shut my account today because my business donated money to wikileaks - Flemlord
http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/ejzfp/paypal_shut_my_account_today_because_my_business/
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tptacek
_Lots_ of people donated to Wikileaks. Did they all get locked out? Or is
something else going on here? We can't possibly know from this, can we?

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ergo98
There's a complete lack of detail in this story, and the wikileaks bit almost
seems like an aside looking to cash in on some of the wikileaks sympathy.

It's humorous how bitchy people are about PayPal -- do this sort of stuff with
your bank and see how that turns out. Long before wikileaks, and before 9/11,
banking and financial regulations have been very tight.

Every single payment system on the planet has to abide by the laws of the
countries that they are operating in. Anti-money laundering regulations, in
particular, apply to every organization that does money transfers of any sort.

Further still, many of the recipients of PayPal cash got paid via credit card.
For those who don't know this, when you pay someone with a credit card they
normally don't get a penny for 60 days or so. PayPal, in letting you withdraw
cash against credit card payments, is essentially fronting you a loan with the
CC receipts as the collateral, though obviously they have risk if you have
significant fraud or chargebacks. It's that element that so many fail to
understand.

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alnayyir
Stop pretending there isn't something horribly wrong with the company just
because it suits your rhetoric.

They go above and beyond what the law requires them to do.

>Disclosure: My first entrepreneurial effort was annihilated in concert by
UPS, PayPal, and eBay.

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ergo98
_Stop pretending there isn't something horribly wrong with the company just
because it suits your rhetoric._

This sort of trollish nonsense has no place on HN.

I built a banking AML system (not for PayPal, which is a company that I have
zero affiliation or interest in). I _know_ the incredible burden that the
financial industry lives under, and to say that PayPal -- which is absolutely
the wild-west of payment systems (it exists for a reason, often serving those
organizations who in many cases would have had trouble getting a merchant
account) -- goes "above and beyond" is patently ridiculous. No seriously, file
that patent, because you nailed it.

Some subsection of users have trouble with a large organization. Big whoop.

~~~
tptacek
Consider striking the first two sentences and the last sentence from this
comment.

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jjoe
As a person, you do have the freedom to donate to whomever you like but you,
alone, have to bear the consequences. But to use your business account to
donate money puts you _and_ your clients (and their livelihood) at risk.

I don't think it's responsible.

Regards

~~~
mey
Under US law, you can not donate to whomever you wish. Sending money to
organizations flagged as terrorist organizations is illegal. (Not that the US
has officially declared the wikileaks org to be a terrorist organization.)

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scootklein
I guess the moral of the story, whether PayPal is justified or not, is to have
another payment solution in the wings ready to go at any time.

~~~
activationreq
<http://www.paypalalternatives.net/>

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tzs
If you read past the top dozen or so comments on Reddit, you get to the likely
_real_ explanation. The guy is (1) emptying his account every day, and (2)
making unusual large oversees payments.

These are things that correlate pretty well with scammers, and that is
probably why his account is being investigated.

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pasbesoin
OT, but I recently updated my credit card information in PayPal. New
information is valid and verified. Bank account information remains unchanged
and is the first choice as a source of funds.

My couple of crappy little subscription payments start failing. "No secondary
source of funds specified."

I look through all the configuration settings -- which it turns out are not at
all clear about funding sources for existing subscriptions. About three times.
It all looks fine / as good as I can set it.

I email PayPal. It's like talking to a blank wall. Customer support?
Buwahahaha! (That would be their response, not mine.)

Fuck them. I wouldn't trust them to buy a lollipop.

(Which reminds me, I should probably just close my account, though I've kept
it up to this point for the occasional crappy little payment.)

CORRECTION: I recall now, I used their own web site form to 'report a problem
/ as a question', not email.

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jonursenbach
They finally let me close mine today. Had an "instant" payment pending for the
past week for some reason. Good riddance.

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alnayyir
<http://hackerne.ws/item?id=1982856>

What did I say HN? What did I say?

~~~
coderdude
>What did I say HN? What did I say?

You sound indignant, like no one believed you -- but you have like 80 up votes
on that comment. Am I missing something?

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alnayyir
I don't care as much about the upvotes as I do the people who respond.

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gcb
So much for political freedom

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scrod
What do you mean, you have complete freedom! Why, all you have to do is simply
to start your own international payment processing system, convince enough
people to use it, and voila; convenient money-transfer freedom by your own
rules! Oh, what's that you say? You don't have a multimillionaire co-founding
CEO to force your idea on the masses by partnering with existing internet
monopolies? Well, then obviously you just need to work harder for your liberty
(erm, I mean, it's not as if you're actually _entitled_ to political
expression or anything—that's for people with money).

~~~
gcb
you forgot that to convince enough people i can't be silenced every step on
the way.

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wowfat
i hope my hackernews account is not shut for upvoting this post

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siculars
You could not pay me to use paypal.

