Josh-da-man

I'm curious about that, too.

It's one thing if PayPal thinks you're doing something shady or illegal -- like selling counterfeit items, selling stolen goods, or transferring gambling funds -- and stops letting you accept transactions, but I don't see what the justification is for essentially seizing the funds from your account unless there's a some kind of order from law enforcement or the government. And if the funds are being forfeited to a government agency, then what is PayPal doing with the cash they've seized?

Even if an account holder has been doing something illegal like selling bootlegs items or stolen goods, any asset forfeiture needs to handled by law enforcement; it shouldn't be up to PayPal to make these judgments and line their own pockets with the filthy lucre.

tasha99

I loathe Paypal and Facebook. Once I donated to a friend of mine's birthday charity request through Facebook, and with no new password verification whatsoever, Facebook dipped into my Paypal, which dipped into my bank account and donated the money. I had intended to put it on a credit card for the points, but no such option was ever presented. The whole thing went through with one click. The last time I had used Paypal through Facebook had been YEARS before that. The lack of security was stunning to me, so I rage quit both Paypal and Facebook.

I have a new Facebook with a fake name and no bank info attached. It's just for playing Covet Fashion, a phone game where having lots of friends is a huge advantage. Didn't know Paypal owns Venmo, but that makes me not want to use it.

Hope Paypal loses its shirt on this. Fuck them.

RichC2

Paypal saw Braintree/Venmo as a competitor and bought them, they saw no need to rebrand since it was its own successful thing. You can just not use the social media aspect of it - or keep all your info on private.

John Galt

I had no idea all those transaction memos were public. I always put asinine stuff like "whips and chains" and "inflatable sex doll".

spainlinx0

It defaults to public, but I immediately set all mine to private as soon as I installed the app.

tanman

Agreed. It's sketchier than a college art class.

How is there not more outrage over this? Questionable Tweets celebrities made decades ago that deserves public outrage. A massive corporation arbitrarily stealing people's money....doesn't.

Sonic

Damn I would flip too if that happened to me. Imagine waking up one day and finding your entire account depleted? I don't trust Facebook. I don't trust PayPal either. I only keep less than $100 in my account.

cultshock

I didn't even know you could connect your Facebook account to Paypal, etc. Fuck that, I trust Facebook even less than Paypal, people are nuts.

mickey65

I remember when Paypal first started up back in 1999/2000 and how you were able to connect it up to your eBay account. I remember their slogan back then too, "Free and always will be"...that didn't last long at all.

Sonic

PayPal Plunges, Forced to Close 4.5 Fake Million Accounts

PayPal Holdings Inc. said it closed 4.5 million accounts and lowered its forecast for new customers after finding "bad actors" were taking advantage of its incentives and rewards programs. Shares of the company fell by the most on record. Kriti Gupta reports.

Source

zyzzle

What does "lowered its forecast for new customers" mean? Does paypal make bets (that is, hedge) on how many "devil" and how many "angel" customers will deal with their awful business, or what?

And, I'm not seeing why the stock would plunge after the company closed fake accounts. If anything, one thinks it would surge, for paypal is getting rid of "undesirables" who just make it harder and more expensive for regular people to use their dubious 'services'. Mysteries of the deep.

Deftones

More accounts = more transaction fees it receives
Simple math, really. Closing those accounts affects their bottom line.

zyzzle

Yes, normally, but apparently these 4.5 million closed accounts were "taking advantage" of incentives, so closing them should have resulted in a possible net positive upon their bottom line. Oh, well, I couldn't care less, as Paypal (Ebay) is another "evil' company in my list. Along with Google, Apple, Amazon et al. However, this plunge won't drive people away, it'll increase spectators and enable the company to continue its cashgrab tactics and outrageous fees.

Deftones

But stockholders like #s regarding the amount of users. Like why you see Netflix stock drop when they don't meet subscription#s. Same thing here. But this was worse because those accounts were fraudulent.

cultshock

Yep, stockholders want to see increases in numbers of users, not huge decreases like this one, no matter the reason.

John Galt

Yup, but when you see stockholders being irrational is a great time to make some purchases (in no way, shape, or form am I suggesting buy PayPal though).

zyzzle

Yes, I can see that logic, in a warped kind of way. Especially with stockholders and speculators.

Rex Fenestrarum

I stopped using PayPal... 15 years ago, maybe? I knew this guy from the Ars Technica forums - I'd met him a couple times IRL and listened to his show on a local college radio station - and he had a similar tale of PayPal freezing his account and eventually taking the money. It was only around $400, but freezing the account was a pain in the ass, since he and his two roommates used it to pay their share of the bills. I can't even remember why they froze his account - I wanna say he was selling t-shirts to pay for an Ars gathering? I dunno. I just read his thread in the forums and was like "yeah, fuck that". I still use PayPal to buy stuff from random sites on occasion - not my actual PayPal account, but where you can use PayPal like Amazon Pay. But that's IT. Screw those crooks!

Troy Stiffler

Interesting. So does that mean guys at FatWallet or other deal sites are losing their shit right now?

I've known people who vacation and fly first class on certain cards and rewards. It turns into approximately 5%-10% rewards if you "play" the system. There are some YouTubers who go deep into it.

Does PayPal "own" Venmo? If so, I'd imagine that's doing well for them. But PayPal itself is fading into MySpace territory with its usefulness. Someone asked me to pay with PayPal the other day and it felt like someone requesting a fax.

Timber

Very confused by that as well. No idea it was a thing or why it would be a thing?

Draven

After doing zero research, I'm assuming it's because you can pay for things directly through Facebook.