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Comment by paulpauper | Hacker News Reader

People have been warning against keeping too much funds in PayPal since 2004. Consumer protection is nearly nonexistent.

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I remember reading paypalsucks.com around that time, closing our accounts and never looking back. It's sad that nothing has been fixed, a total failure of government, but if there was someone standing on the same street corner selling poisoned snake oil for 20 years with a pile of dead bodies all around them each clutching a bottle of the scammers poison, you'd think that at least after the first decade people in the neighborhood would learn to stay away.

Examples of paypal being shitty abound. Why do people keep falling for it?

> Consumer protection is nearly nonexistent.

Surely you can take them to court (if you have time to burn)?

I'm sure it's possible, but they probably count on having more money for lawyers than most of their customers.

If it's less than the small claims maximum, it's absolutely worth taking them to court. They probably won't even show up and you'll get a default judgement in your favor. Usually the horror stories are tens of thousands of dollars (far past the small claims threshold) and believe me when I tell you that suing someone, especially someone with deep pockets, is a clusterfuck nightmare.

> suing someone, especially someone with deep pockets, is a clusterfuck nightmare.

Absolutely correct.

Even worse, winning the lawsuit does not mean you'll see the money. It only gives you the right to do things like attach liens onto their assets. You have to actually do all that footwork (and pay the associated expenses) yourself.

So suing is a clusterfuck nightmare, and after winning, collecting what you're owed is a second clusterfuck nightmare.

I'm sure their EULA has an arbitration clause

If they don't show up to defend their EULA in the small claims court it doesn't matter what they put in there.

any money for lawyers and court fees.

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