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Comment by csomar | Hacker News Reader

It's easy to bash PayPal but they probably implemented that after too many people used the platform to sell stolen goods. The receipt was probably in your relatives name's; which means you did not buy it. This is actually a good use case for Gift cards.

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Yes but that's PayPal's problem and it's up to them to find a solution that works for both sides, or leave the business and let a more competent company solve the problem. It's not an impossible problem to solve either, banks also have requirements to detect and block fraud and they do occasionally get it wrong but at the very least you are able to reach out to a human (and not a script-reading monkey, as in PayPal's case) and get any false-positives sorted out.

What is not right is presenting their service as easy to use, letting people sign up and sell items and then essentially steal the money unless they are lucky enough to pass their broken verification process.

Absurd.

PayPal should just ask the seller to have the original purchaser make a statutory declaration stating the item was a gift to a relative / friend, maybe provide some sort of supporting documentation to prove the relationship.

Notarizations and medallions are not cheap.

Here in Australia the list of people who can notarise a stat dec is as long as your arm.

https://www.ag.gov.au/legal-system/statutory-declarations/wh...

Your point still stands, you may not know any of those people who are willing to witness a stat dec below the value of the funds in question.

I'm not clear on why selling 2 iPods is cause for Paypal to assume malicious intent. Selling dozens sure but come on.

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