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Comment by YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo | Hacker News Reader

I went to visit the US and transferred just 500 Dollars to a friend for our shared Airbnb. The account got suspended because of "unusual activities" I called them and told them it was myself transferring funds and it still took them two weeks to reinstate the account...

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I paid my PayPal credit card with my PayPal balance (which was "cleared funds"), $700 or so, and that triggered a three week hold on both my card and my balance.

They hold people's money a lot. Very profitable as they are essentially free overnight loans. Fuck PayPal. Anyone who does business with them is captive.

When a bank places a hold on a transaction or account for compliance review, the law state that those funds are to be held in an interest-bearing escrow account to be returned to the owner when the hold is lifted.

It’s illegal for PayPal to treat held funds as an overnight loan— that’s a gross misunderstanding of what is going on.

As many others have pointed out, PayPal goes out of their way to make sure they are not a bank.

It doesn’t matter. If they aren’t holding your deposits then the underlying bank would place the hold and they must follow the banking regulations.

If PayPal isn’t holding deposits and doesn’t forward the hold to the underlying bank, then go get your funds from the underlying bank or sue them.

FinTech is a stack of companies operating as veneers on the underlying, heavily regulated banks.

Good luck with that. Any links to stories of people who have successfully done that?

https://www.paypalobjects.com/marketing/ua/pdf/US/en/synchro...

Look through the disclosures and agreements you signed on account opening and find out which banks PayPal is using for your account. The linked one above is for a deposit account at Synchrony Bank.

Never signed anything.

Do you have a PayPal account? If so, I assure you that you signed an agreement. The complaint in this class action lawsuit says that the agreement is a 65-page PDF. You would likely have signed it electronically by clicking an “I agree” checkbox.

They sure didn't give me a penny more when they froze my account.

Hmmm...there is no bank holding those funds which is counting them as reserves?

I had a CC lock my account once when I went on a trip to several places in a quick amount of time. I called them and worked it out. Their algos thought it was someone had stolen my card.

Now, before I go on vacation or make a large purchase, I call them and tell them what I'm going to do. I've never had a problem since doing that and it's a very quick call, actually.

I wonder if anyone has tried same with PayPal.

With my bank I explicitly have to announce in advance if I am going to use my card abroad and can enter specific dates and times online. It's quite easy to do. You can also call if you forgot but then you will have to go online and add days if you want to use it for more than one/a few if I recall correctly.

These "unusual activity" detecting algos are a menace. If I use a VPN to access my account, blocked.

Had this issue with Paypal & Digitalocean. Reddit shadowbans accounts made with VPN.

At least the 'unusual activity' should block the transaction not ban the account and you get notified on the spot.

I mean that's fair enough because that (payment methods being stolen) happens frequently enough, but it should be just as easy to clear it up again.

Over here, banks have set things up so that by default you can't get money from foreign ATMs - you have to activate that first. Because lots of people got their bank card stolen and PIN code skimmed, only for the card to pop up again in eastern Europe or wherever to drain the account.

I have had a situation where I called my bank to let them know I was traveling overseas so this wouldn't happen, and it still happened. It's utterly ridiculous.

I used to travel a bunch and never informed anyone. Then one year I decided to inform my cc. That was the first time my cc was blocked because it unusual activity.

All I had to do was login to be suspended a few minutes later for "suspicious activity". Fortunately I didn't have any money in my account. Fuck PayPal.

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