
PayPal has permanently banned The Hacker News and hold funds for 180 days - AlexKaul
https://twitter.com/TheHackersNews/status/1078907851995860992
======
japaget
Please note that "The Hacker News" is a separate site unrelated to "Hacker
News".

~~~
sokoloff
This name confusion seems intentional and makes me default to unsympathetic,
even though I suspect PayPal’s issue is not related to a name confusion root
cause.

~~~
ThrowMeDown01
> _This name confusion seems intentional_

Do you have proof, or do you just happen to feel this way without actually
knowing any background story? If you make such an accusation you should state
your reasons, preferably observable facts. Both "hacker" and "news" are
generic terms after all.

In addition, even if they _did_ mimic the name, I would not see a problem.
It's very descriptive, unlike a completely made-up word that someone spent a
lot of effort on to establish as a brand.

~~~
sokoloff
This site, with the name "Hacker News", was already popular and predates the
other site by several years.

If I launched a new site called "TheFacebook.com" tomorrow, what proof would
you need that I was, at a minimum, knowingly causing confusion?

~~~
rococode
I think that's not a great comparison. Hacker News is still essentially a
niche site known to people who care about a specific set of fields relevant to
startups. If you asked a random person on the street they probably wouldn't
know about Y Combinator, much less Hacker News.

I'm not sure how to measure the actual level of recognition of a brand name,
but I feel that Hacker News falls into the second or third tier of whatever
that ranking is, whereas names like Facebook or Google form the top tier.
That, combined with the relatively generic name, make me inclined to believe
without further evidence that it's a coincidence - especially given the fact
that the site is actually about news related to hacking, or hacker news.

A closer comparison I can think of is if I saw a watch company called "The
International Watch Company". The real IWC is a luxury watch company, but the
brand and its full name aren't known to many people. In that case too, my
opinion is that the name is generic enough for it to feel like an honest
coincidence.

~~~
user5994461
The popularity is not the most important factor in a brand trial, it's the
domain.

There can't be two companies with the same name in the same niche, which is
what is happening here.

~~~
danillonunes
This is not a brand trial, this is a discussion about the name being or not
intentional.

------
privateSFacct
This website was basically an extreme plagiarism website - all the way back in
2014 we had articles like this:

"The Hacker News - Profiting Off Extensive Plagiarism from Legitimate News
Sources"

Interesting they feel so unfairly treated by paypal, but don't treat others
properly themselves.

------
febin
Paypal has done this multiple times, here are some incidents.

[https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/My-Account/Permanent-
BAN...](https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/My-Account/Permanent-BAN-limited-
account/td-p/1489460)

[https://medium.com/@puntofisso/paypal-closed-my-account-
with...](https://medium.com/@puntofisso/paypal-closed-my-account-with-no-
explanation-it-could-happen-to-you-6ff0ba4ea95f)

[https://www.elliott.org/blog/banned-from-palpal-account-
limi...](https://www.elliott.org/blog/banned-from-palpal-account-limitations/)

[https://www.success.grownupgeek.com/index.php/2008/04/05/pay...](https://www.success.grownupgeek.com/index.php/2008/04/05/paypal-
limited-access/comment-page-3/)

Completely relying on any third party is a bad idea. We should consider the
risks when we signup to any service. Around this month we have seen multiple
companies banning accounts without giving valid reasons MailChimp, Patreon,
Slack(They had a reason but they didn't notify the users earlier, however they
appologized later)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18754860](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18754860)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18715866](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18715866)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18724107](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18724107)

~~~
barry-cotter
Well everyone who wants to accept payments on the internet ultimately relies
on VisaMasterCard. They will shut you off and get other payment processors to
shut you off like happened to SubscribeStar when they set up as a Patreon
competitor.

[https://twitter.com/nickmon1112/status/1076886857445711872?s...](https://twitter.com/nickmon1112/status/1076886857445711872?s=21)
Long twitter thread on the relation between MasterCard, Visa and Patreon and
how the credit card cartel is attempting to minimise political risk.

Transcript of a call with the head of Patreon’s Censorship department where
they as much as say MasterCard made them do it.

[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1U0mQjUA0T5INc_GDkwPJ2mfh...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1U0mQjUA0T5INc_GDkwPJ2mfhO7tbaIogisSqqxHw0hc/mobilebasic)

~~~
KozmoNau7
There's a whole lot of conspiracy speculation in there, especially the idea of
"SPLC's anti-conservative purge".

Simply put, being associated with hard-right political figures is seen as
problematic by Mastercard, Patreon, Paypal etc., and they are trying to
minimize their risk, because they don't want to lose business. They _have_ to
do this, due to their obligations to shareholders, boards of directors and
advertisers, who are all very concerned about public opinion's influence on
their bottom line.

If you want to get to the heart of this "voluntary censorship", you have to
either improve the public image of hard-right figures, so they're no longer
seen as problematic, or break the reputation/bottom line relationship, or
outright change the way businesses are run and held accountable, which would
probably mean changing some fundamental things about capitalism.

Unless you want to abolish capitalism outright, I would suggest lessening the
grip of corporations on payment services, and introduce a federal bank and
federal payment service for the people. After all, isn't the ability to make
and receive payment a public good on the level of water and electricity? Make
it for everyone, equally.

~~~
barry-cotter
> There's a whole lot of conspiracy speculation in there, especially the idea
> of "SPLC's anti-conservative purge".

[https://www.nationalreview.com/news/maajid-nawaz-splc-
apolog...](https://www.nationalreview.com/news/maajid-nawaz-splc-apologizes-
settles-extremist-label/)

SPLC Apologizes, Pays Settlement to Islamic Reformer It Wrongly Labeled ‘Anti-
Muslim Extremist’

The Southern Poverty Law Center has reached a settlement with liberal Islamic
reformer Maajid Nawaz and his organization, the Quilliam Foundation, for
wrongly including them on its now-defunct list of “anti-Muslim extremists.”

The SPLC announced Monday that it has agreed to pay Nawaz and Quilliam $3.375
million “to fund their work to fight anti-Muslim bigotry and extremism.” The
settlement was the result of a lawsuit Nawaz filed in April over his inclusion
on the SPLC’s “Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists.”

[https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_6646994?ec_carp=612494826...](https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_6646994?ec_carp=6124948269983792344)

Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson has been added to the Southern
Poverty Law Center‘s (SPLC) list of anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender extremists.

[https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jun/29/guidestar-
rem...](https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jun/29/guidestar-removes-hate-
group-tags-on-nonprofits/)

Gunmen have twice targeted conservatives specifically cited by the SPLC for
hate: Republican Rep. Steve Scalise, who was shot June 14 by a fan of the SPLC
Facebook page, and the Family Research Council, whose security guard was
wounded in 2012 by a man who said he found the FRC on the SPLC’s list of
“anti-gay groups.”

As far as conservative organizations are concerned, being labeled a “hate
group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center isn’t just annoying — it’s
dangerous.

~~~
KozmoNau7
SPLC serves a very important role of shining a light on dangerous extremists,
such as this guy:

[https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/12/20/longtime-
anti...](https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/12/20/longtime-
antigovernment-militia-organizer-calls-lone-wolf-action-against-antifa)

~~~
jessaustin
_...at the time of writing the video calling for lone wolf retaliation was
viewed just shy of 250 times on Facebook..._

------
twayback
This is a fraud website which has mercilessly ripped off content from other
sites and published as its own. Also it has published a ton of proprietary
information from time to time. Good riddance!

~~~
EvilTerran
Do you have any citations for these claims? Not calling you a liar or anything
- I'm just not at all familiar with the site in question, and it seems like
it'd be important evidence if we want to fairly judge paypal's behavior here.

~~~
campuscodi
[http://attrition.org/errata/plagiarism/thehackernews/](http://attrition.org/errata/plagiarism/thehackernews/)

If you don't believe that, than take my word. I'm an infosec reporter and had
countless articles end up on that site. News sites often report on the same
topics all the time, but there's a difference between running a story on the
same topic and copying the text and replacing some verbs and nouns with a
synonym, and then switching sentence order to pass it as your own. Every
reporter has his own way of structuring a story. It's pretty obvious for us
when someone steals an article, based on how you present information points
and which information points from a —let's say 50-page academic paper— you
decide to present. Many times, information I obtained during private email or
phone conversations would also end up on their site. When I confronted the
"CEO" (aka site owner) he said he found that information using Google (obvious
lie) and replied with insults. They kinda stopped copying my articles after I
called them out a few more times on Twitter, but I don't believe for a second
they're now doing actual news reporting.

I have other reporter friends who'd tell you similar stories and interactions
with their staff. At one point someone tried to organize a campaign where all
reporters would call out The Hacker News and Security Affairs (another site
engaging in plagiarism) on Twitter, and urge security researchers to stop
sharing links to their sites, but that didn't materialize because some of the
bigger names in infosec journalism didn't wanna participate. In hindsight, it
was kinda silly (childish would be a better word), but this only shows how
many news sites TheHackerNews has angered in the past few years. They're
absolutely despised by most infosec news reporters and I know at least two
people who are now opening a beer in celebration.

Recently, the site started declining on its own. Reporting has been awful,
with tons of inaccuracies that now I don't even bother checking it in RSS
feeds:
[https://twitter.com/thegrugq/status/902600568262107136](https://twitter.com/thegrugq/status/902600568262107136)

------
zarkov99
They also reportedly shutdown Subscribe Star recently, when people started to
use it instead of Patreon, in the wake of the Patreon banning of some
prominent You Tuber. This isn't working. The free market doesn't seem to work
well in the tech world, where we have all powerfull monopolies controlling
what we say, what we know and what we buy. We need new laws.

~~~
indigochill
Can you expand on this line of reasoning a bit? Specifically, what's stopping
a competitor from eating Paypal's lunch right now? They have a majority market
share now, but disruption still seems a possibility. Often it seems would-be
disruptors get bought by the goliaths, but that's on the owners of the
disruptors making their company purchasable such as through accepting investor
money.

On the flip side, if we did get new laws, why would the goliaths not use their
country-size budgets to lobby for the laws to just ensconce them as the
government-approved monopoly (maybe not directly, but for example by throwing
up legislative barriers to entry against would-be competitors)?

~~~
michaelt

      Specifically, what's stopping a competitor
      from eating Paypal's lunch right now?
    

Perhaps being a payment processor is actually difficult, and Paypal is doing a
tolerably good job?

I only hear people bitching about their paypal account being locked once or
twice a year, whereas I assume paypal deal with hundreds of attempts at credit
card fraud, chargebacks, complaints about ebay goods and suchlike every day.

~~~
justtopost
Oh, they deal with it. But always on terms favorible to them. I sold off
inventory to my old CoLo and they froze all my funds for 6 months until
lawyers got called, and somehow their fraud investigation magically vanished.
They are no better than mafia.

------
4ad
PayPal is a disgrace. Years ago they blocked my account and freezed my money
until I sent them a copy of my passport, my birth certificate, and a proof of
address. But sending them wasn't enough, as this dragged on for months and
months with no feedback from them. Eventually (after over a year) they cleared
my account, but just a month later it was frozen again, _and they asked for
the exact same documents_ yet again. By that time I had made sure I had no
money in the account, so I didn't even bother contacting them again.

This was many years ago, and I have almost successfully avoided them since.
However, a few months back I had to buy something from Ebay, and I could only
pay through PayPal. I now live in a different country, and I have learned that
I needed to create a brand new account, you can't change the country of the
old account (not that i wanted to use that old account anyway). I made a new
account, paid that Ebay guy, and got my merchandise. A month later (after I
had already received my merchandise and having not used PayPal after that) I
got an e-mail from PayPal asking me yet again for a copy of my passport, my
birth certificate, and a proof of address.

Unbelievable. Stay away from PayPal if you can!

~~~
snazz
This applies to most centralized external services, but especially those that
handle money. If your application or business relies 100% on one of these
services that could be shut down or have your account suspended or removed,
make sure to have a backup plan in place to switch it over to a self hosted
option or another offering from another company.

~~~
4ad
Business? I'm a private individual _buying_ stuff on Ebay. The only time I
received money on PayPal was from friends who paid back small loans, like taxi
trips or restaurant bills.

~~~
snazz
That's even crazier then. I guess PayPal is bad for both parties!

------
tlogan
As far as I know, The Hacker News is just bunch of copied articles (i.e., blog
spam) - but copying and plagiarism is so prevalent and pervasive on these news
sites. Nothing new here.

However, they did add "donate" pay button on their website which means that
PayPal might be on the hook if somebody donates to The Hacker News but article
is written by somebody else. Just speculating.

~~~
VMG
Even assuming you are 100% correct, it is interesting that this violation is
not decided by the legal system but by a secret court inside PayPal. They will
not even tell you the offense you are guilty of.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Secret court? They're a private company, they're entirely free to choose who
they do business with for whatever reason (barring a few protected classes
that would fall foul of anti-discrimination law, of course).

------
iDemonix
[https://hackernoon.com/paypal-is-still-one-of-the-worst-
onli...](https://hackernoon.com/paypal-is-still-one-of-the-worst-online-
examples-of-customer-service-42f3c13f6cd0)

I wrote this article on Hacker Noon 18 months ago or so, nothing has changed.
The only good thing was the article going viral, which spawned a new golden
level of PayPal customer service - they also had to disable account deletion
for 48h, which was nice to know.

I've moved away entirely to Stripe and other services and it's been bliss.

------
benmarks
Wow, the "bitcoin" responses to that thread. Talk about trading one problem
for another....

~~~
aiven
Yeah, everyone suggest to move from platform with 0.001% incidents rate, to
the scammy bitcoin where no one is responsible for anything.

~~~
Buge
In bitcoin there's no central authority responsible for everything that has
the power to censor you. You are responsible for your own safety.

------
dec0dedab0de
Off topic, but "The Hacker News" should really change their name to "The Other
Hacker News"

~~~
kkarakk
why? has ycombinator trademarked/registered hacker news?

~~~
tzs
Yes/no (in the United States).

In other words, they claim a common law trademark on it [1], but they have not
registered it with the USPTO. This means they probably have some trademark
protection, at least in some states, but not nearly as much as if they had a
registered mark. For example, they might be able to get an injunction against
a similar user in some states, but probably not damages or attorney fees. With
a registered mark, they would be able to go for damages and attorney fees.

[1] See reply to you from 'disconnected' for link to claim.

~~~
kkarakk
thanks for your response, i don't know why i was downvoted.

------
tyingq
Often, the bans are just because they implemented Federal rules in the most
stupid way possible.

For example, the US has something called the "Office of Foreign Assets
Control" (OFAC). It's a list of names that companies like PayPal are supposed
to prevent from being sent payments.

Paypal chose to implement it with super dumb string matching in ANY field. So,
for example, if you put the words "Castro", "Cuba" or "JAMES KANG" into ANY
field (even a MEMO field)...your payment gets stopped and your account frozen
until you send them the DOB for "Cuba", even though it was just in a memo
field.

[https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160817/13505935266/paypa...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160817/13505935266/paypal-
stops-payment-just-because-payees-memo-included-word-cuba.shtml)

[https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/About-Business-
Archive/T...](https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/About-Business-Archive/The-
Secret-Paypal-Blacklist/m-p/925329#U925329)

[https://imgur.com/a/RnpRm](https://imgur.com/a/RnpRm)

------
pirogen
Is there any viable alternative to PayPal for a EU-based micro-business
wanting to accept CC payments from North American customers?

I run a legally operating one-man business providing electronic services to
customers (mostly other businesses) in EU, US and Canada. The EU customers pay
me with bank transfers like civilized human beings, but Americans and
Canadians always insist on PayPal because, apparently, North American banking
system charges an arm and a leg for international bank transfers, so they'd
rather pay with CC.

I didn't mind having to provide PayPal with scans of a bunch of sensitive
documents. What I do mind is pretending my PayPal balance is not real money
but virtual tokens with little legal protection and the possibility of being
arbitrarily frozen for an undisclosed reason. That, and their horrendous fees
(including currency conversions based on rates they pull out of the ass) for
which they don't even provide anything resembling a legal invoice (a
screenshot of an HTML table won't cut with my IRS).

Someone, for the love of God, tell me there's an alternative a teeny-tiny
business like mine could use.

------
eximius
All this talk of monopoly in this sector of finance makes me wonder how you'd
start a service in this space.

And it made me realize I have no idea how it works.

I swipe (or insert w/ chip) at a POS... which then beamz the transaction to
VISA? So do you need to get a partnership with all of the POS vendors? Is that
open or closed?

Of course, that presupposes that someone has your card. VISA doesn't make
cards, they just get banks to issue cards using their network (why don't banks
do this on their own?). So now I also need a partnership with at least one
large bank to have a decent enough exposure to get those partnerships with
those POS vendors?

The challenges sound largely political, in making those initial connections
with the right company. Which doesn't make them easy, but it elevates a
deceptively simple technical problem to a hard one, I think.

~~~
farazbabar
There is a lot more to it than that, there is merchant acquiring (merchant
relationship with a payment services provider that gives merchants the
credentials and equipment to accept payments), there are sometimes aggregators
that transactions then funnel into. Next the transactions hit a network which
acts as the router between acquirers and issuers (more on this later). The
network can also act as a default stand in when the issuing bank is not
reachable. From here the transaction goes into the issuing bank which runs a
host of fraud and risk rules to answer the questions: 1. Should I authorize
this? <\- this is bank's prerogative and mostly deals with financial risk and
2. Can I authorize this? <\- this is regulatory in nature and can be very
binary and very binding. Its the the second question that also comes with
binding regulations in some jurisdictions that prevent all parties along this
chain from disclosing the reasons for declining, withholding funds or delay
processing to affected parties. Even more interestingly, PayPal operates at
most of these tiers almost entirely independently (PayPal API as the acquirer,
PayPal as the aggregator, PayPal as the network of network _AND_ of-course
PayPal as the issuer with PayPal credit. Obviously not all transactions go
through all tiers in case PayPal (a credit card transaction goes to card
network and card issuer in the back for example) but Pay upon invoice, Bank
transfers and PayPal credit (bill me later) are all examples of PayPal
extending credit to buyer. Payments are quite fascinating, you are correct
that a lot of issues are political but don't underestimate the complexity of
the ecosystem, especially in global context. And I have not even gotten into
bad faith actors and the war between good and bad guys yet.

~~~
megous
Is there some good resource on how this all works in reality, or is it just
something you learn by working in the sector?

~~~
farazbabar
I write about it on my company blog for internal developers, perhaps I can get
our legal folks to go over it and I can publish some of it. There is a lot of
tribal knowledge for sure but on my journey from issuers to merchants to
networks, I keep finding consistent themes. Perhaps it is time to put this all
down on paper.

------
linkmotif
Of all the legit PayPal outrage stories this one doesn’t seem outrage-worthy.
Looks like a bad blog spam account trying to capitalize on this community’s
name. Good for PayPal and for everyone really? What am I missing?

~~~
outoftheabyss
No rhyme or reason given, the other times Paypal have withheld funds from or
barred others for less legitimate reasons, most recently substar. For me big
tech actively sabotaging the careers and income of folks with whom they, often
arbitrarily find problematic is a big problem, particularly given how reliant
people are on the web for these purposes and the increasing lack of
competition

------
birksherty
Why do visa and mastercard want to ban people from receiving money? If anyone
here have the answer please share.

~~~
mothsonasloth
The same reason banks and countries put sanctions on countries.

------
bougiefever
Every chance I get, I tell people not to use PayPal. They have done this
repeatedly, and the people who are affected have absolutely no recourse unless
they happen to own a popular newspaper. PayPal has been shamed into doing the
right thing, and that seems to be the only recourse. From reports I've heard,
their internal system doesn't exist, and they aren't a bank, so there is no
legal recourse either.

~~~
sys_64738
I wouldn't use ebay if I couldn't use paypal. I don't want to use my CC for
any online xacts if I don't need to. I'd rather use paypal to protect myself
or just shop at a site I trust (e.g. Amazon).

People who receive monies via PP need to protect themselves by assuming PP
could freeze their account at any time. That means keeping the minimum amount
of $$ possible under PP's control. I know there are regs to that but you need
to protect yourself.

~~~
root_axis
Some of the banks and some 3rd party companies are now offering a system to
digitally generate "one-time" use card numbers that are automatically
destroyed after a successful transaction.

~~~
sys_64738
I've seen virtual CC numbers for one time use here in the USA but not sure if
they're still available. It's still a hassle to setup, configure, use, etc,
which is its fall down. Simplicity is PP's strength, IMO, which is why it's
got staying power.

~~~
root_axis
They're definitely still available, there are even companies offering card
generation API as a service (google Marqeta). I agree with you on simplicity,
but one clear advantage to the temporary card approach is that it's
automatically revoked without you having to take further action, whereas
paypal still offers merchants the ability to automatically bill you on a
recurring basis.

------
paulftw
Real Hacker News would’ve known to avoid PayPal :)

This story only made the front page because of the name confusion. Other
comments claim that name choice to be intentional

------
twayback
On Why this site was banned?
[http://attrition.org/errata/plagiarism/thehackernews/](http://attrition.org/errata/plagiarism/thehackernews/)
Plagiarism to begin with!

------
sonnyblarney
So you can take someone's money and not give them a reason for it? Isn't this
called theft?

This happened to a very minor account we had, reasoning was dubious.

Without any kind of transparency or due process ... (or competition) ... this
is a problem.

------
JeremyBanks
Who was ever donating to that thing?!

~~~
skilled
Looks like they sell online courses, with some having thousands of enrolled
users.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Are those stolen from other sites too?

------
itchyjunk
Regardless of weather the `THN` name is confusing or not and regardless of the
speculations, does paypal need to give a reason for termination? Are they
legally obligated? Is it something they should do for the sake of customers?

Should one get mad at `THN` because there name overlaps HN and they supposedly
are `real hack` or should we be mad at paypal because it's overreaching it's
powers?

~~~
wccrawford
When PayPal bans a site it's always for breaking their TOS. Sometimes the
specific parts of that TOS are bullshit, but most of the time it turns out
that it was a pretty flagrant violation of those terms.

I don't feel sorry for anyone who still uses PayPal to collect money for a use
that has been specifically banned in their TOS, and anything that even starts
to encroach on illegal matters falls into that. Information about how to break
into computer systems (hacking) definitely falls into that and they should
have known they were on shaky ground.

~~~
gomox
That is quite simply wrong. I have been on the receiving end of this problem,
and there is zero transparency about the reasons behind banning, zero warning
or recourse, and of course the good old 180 day locking of funds which can
kill any e-commerce platform that runs on anything other than absurdly high
margins.

The company in question moved to Stripe where it operates to this day.

PayPal is just a very large, shady as fuck company. Im hoping cryptocurrency
matures to a point where they are not needed.

------
xte
Well they discover a thing: regulation may slow down things, but protect. A
bank can't lock you out without facing trial, an internet company, far less
regulated can.

Now think many time because we generally do no see banks as something "good"
especially these days. If such days arrive it means that we are really in a
dangerous situation.

And for we I mean "society".

------
Simulacra
I hope we have more democratization of payment processing. I don't have an
opinion of this instance either way, but the fact that a few companies
dominate the payment universe is troubling.

------
Sephr
That website has recently plagiarized an article I helped write, so good
riddens.

------
hirundo
From the follow-up tweet:

> Instead of giving a valid reason, company says "specific reasons for such a
> decision is proprietary & it is not released since that could impair
> PayPal's ability to do business in a safe and secure manner"

I've been trying to close my PayPal account for the last week and will keep
trying, but so far have not been able to. I've had this account since 2000. I
want to close it because of the treatment of SubscribeStar and others. I've
never watched a video by Sargon of Akkad. But even if it was Adolph of Hitler
I'd be concerned about this behavior by Patreon. For PayPal to back them up by
dropping a competitor is enough for me to want to reciprocate.

First, PayPal required me to individually cancel most of the vendors I've paid
via PayPal in the last decade or so, and made it difficult to discover how to
do that. But I finally figured it out and cancelled them all. If they weren't
being mulish about this it seems like it would be easy for them to do the same
as part of the process of closing the account.

Now that I've done this I still can't cancel via their web site. I get the
message "Before you close your account -- Sorry, there's a problem. If you
keep seeing this, please contact customer service." There is no email address
on their contact page. Their pop-up chat app on the contact page freezes
immediately and is unusable. I'll call them if I have to, but I shouldn't have
to. The issues closing the account are by themselves enough to make me want to
close it.

When I do manage to close the account I'm hoping that they ask me for a
reason, at which point I plan to tell them "specific reasons for such a
decision is proprietary & it is not released since that could impair my
ability to do business in a safe and secure manner."

~~~
outoftheabyss
I'm with you. The problem is, PayPal weren't the only payment processors to
bail on Substar, if we want to purchase online which popular/accessible
processors are not engaging in similar? Genuine question

~~~
hirundo
I'd like an answer to that too. If one emerges I'm inclined to support it.
Hopefully there are enough people like us to make that profitable.

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joshfraser
This is why we need permissionless money that can't be seized by companies or
the government.

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cauldron
Banning without explanation seems too common for Paypal?

~~~
awakeasleep
It’s common for any money transmitter service. Every time i look into the
stories I’ve found the ban actually makes sense.

People who get upset generally are running a business that violates their
payment processor’s terms of service, or user agreement.

Paypal is the most accessible, largest payment processor so we see the most
stories about them.

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Havoc
PayPal up to its usual top class behaviour I see

Have they ever been sued for similar?

