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Comment by tyingq | Hacker News Reader

I would be tempted to have my friend now send some small amount and then take PayPal to whatever the UK equivalent of small claims court is. PayPal would then have to spend money and time to deal with you.

The beauty there is you don't have to win, to win. A £5 dispute costs them more than you, when you get to control the venue.

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I did think about contacting the financial ombudsman or similar to recoup the fees or something, but I thought hopefully an article that gets a few thousand readers might do more financial damage than a hushed away small claims court ruling.

Contact the FCA in any case, I used to work for a bank and believe they charge the organisation per complaint whether upheld or not so can cost them time and money.

Edited to correct to FCA - https://www.fca.org.uk/

> but I thought hopefully an article that gets a few thousand readers might do more financial damage

Once upon a time I shared this sentiment about PayPal, but history has shown me that people continue using them anyway. I mean, every person I talk to has personally experienced a PayPal horror story or knows someone who has experienced one first-hand, and they continue using PayPal anyway. Some feel they don't have a choice, others just don't care, but I no longer feel like making noise about the PayPal horror stories is going to have any impact on them, so I encourage you to contact the ombudsman/FCA regardless.

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