Don’t Pay Pal
After reading Bill Quick’s horror story about PayPal, I briefly considered dumping my PayPal account. Then, after reading some of the comments, I thought it best to hold off for a little while and see how his case played out. Not anymore (h/t: Evil Glenn). Money quote:
On August 23, PayPal gave users via e-mail 30 days’ notice that it could levy a fine of $500 on those who violate its acceptable use policies. Its compliance team will strictly enforce the new acceptable use policy to implement the monetary fines on both buyers and sellers who use the transaction service to trade in items the San Jose, Calif.-based company has outlawed.
Great. The last thing we need is a business that not only plays morality police, but sees itself as a sovereign state with the authority to “outlaw” anything or “fine” people for violating what are in fact mere contractual terms. PayPal must die. [I don't want innocent dogs to die, however; therefore, the PayPal button on my side bar will remain in place until/unless I can convince Underdog to find another company. Suggestions are welcome.]
UPDATE: I just canceled my account. You can too, by logging in first, and then going to their well-hidden cancelation page. Of course you can’t just follow that link and get prompted to log in; that would make things too easy. Here’s the confirmation email I got after advising them that I had canceled because of their censorship policy and their chutzpah in collecting “fines” despite not being a government:
Dear xrlq@xrlq.com,
We are sorry that you have decided to close your PayPal account. With millions of members in dozens of countries across the globe, PayPal is continually improving and expanding its award-winning services.
I guess the definition of “improving” is largely a matter of opinion. Collecting $500 “fines” from unwitting suckers is probably a huge “improvment” for their bottom line, which will more than make up for their loss of legitimate revenue from medium-traffic bloggers like me. Then again, if these fines are illegal, as I strongly suspect that they are, PayPal will soon be on the wrong end of a B&P Code 17200 action, in which case the only long-term “improvement” will be to keep more plaintiff lawyers employed. Either way, their “improvements” will not involve me.
PayPal is the world’s leading online money transaction service for individuals, businesses and merchants.
We can fix that.
[Remaining fluff deleted.]
UPDATE: More smarm here.
September 24th, 2004 at 1:30 pm
I have only a small balance, and don’t use it very often. I’m considering closing my account, but they don’t seem to have a form for that. If I withdraw what I’ve got, the account’s still there. Maybe they close inactive accounts after a while.
It was a really great idea - but I don’t need a nanny for a banker.
September 25th, 2004 at 7:28 pm
Last year, I had a case that indirectly involved PayPal’s seizure of funds in an account of my client. It was extremely hard to get their attention through normal lawyer-type means — finding a phone or fax number or even an email address on their website was a huge chore. When I finally found and got the attention of the “responsible individuals,” though, they cratered instantly — became very cooperative, almost obsequiously so. They were just in the process of being acquired by eBay at that time, and I don’t know how that corporate culture conflict has played out.
September 25th, 2004 at 9:28 pm
Mike, try this page to cancel your account.
September 26th, 2004 at 10:15 am
That link only works, but only if you’re logged on first. If you’re not, you just get an error message, you’re not prompted to log on.
September 27th, 2004 at 4:49 pm
I’ve never been a big fan of B&P 17200, but in this case it certainly seems more reasonable, and quite frankly, I don’t imagine E-bay would want to be on the Defendent’s side of one of those cases.
September 28th, 2004 at 8:36 am
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