How do I close my PayPal account? | Hacker News Reader

How do I close my PayPal account?

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20 pointsmtgx25 comments

Well, then we should close all our accounts on Microsoft, Apple, Steam, Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Because they all have recently added similar Anti-Class Action Suit clauses.

I can't find it in the twitter and google agreements, I haven't checked them all.. Where are these additions?

I'd gladly close my Paypal account, and have felt that way for years, if there was a decent alternative. There simply isn't. I need Paypal, and use it almost every day. So I am at their whims, and they know it.

From what I understand, Stripe is pretty highly regarded as a payment alternative (at least if you're lucky enough to live in a supported country).

He could need it to pay out people, to receive payments from ad networks/partners, etc. I know I definitely need it to pay contractors who live in Asia or Europe and only have Paypal (or otherwise is easier than doing a bank wire).

Explaining the situation would be a good idea before showing us the way to close our account.

+1. What's going on?

Methinks this is personal army type of stuff, not much to see here.

Is arbitration as evil as it's popularly made out to be? I will say, the thought of being able to settle a dispute via a neutral third party without invoking the morass that is the legal system sounds enticing, and i'm the consumer.

Are there any stats on how often they find for the corporation vs the consumer? Nothing jumped out at me when I did a search.

Another question I just thought of, how freely can courts ignore the contract of adhesion in which you "agreed" not to bring a class action?

> Are there any stats on how often they find for the corporation vs the consumer?

The corporations choose the arbitration firms. The arbitration firms should know full well who's feeding them. So stats aren't really necessary.

> ... how freely can courts ignore the contract of adhesion in which you "agreed" not to bring a class action?

My understanding is, zero freedom for that.

> The arbitration firms should know full well who's feeding them. So stats aren't really necessary.

Yes, the incentives are perverse but empirical evidence is always necessary.

And certainly not always available due to those same perverse incentives.

I second what illuminate said. Plenty of society's systems hide info for potentially nefarious reasons, so that you have little choice but to draw your own conclusions. Just follow the money.

Consumer is going to lose almost 100% of the time when it goes to Arbitration.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Arbitration_Forum

That's a single, corrupt organization which hasn't handled a consumer case since July 2009. Over 3 years ago.

Being able to settle a dispute via a neutral third party is enticing. And I'm a big fan of arbitration.

But you're not thinking of arbitration, you're thinking of binding arbitration. That's where a 3rd party is picked (in these cases, picked by the corporation) and then both sides must do whatever that person says, regardless of whether they find it fair.

To which new policies is this referring to?

If you use the Search form in the footer, the top result is: https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&c...

Basically, no class action lawsuits, etc. They've rewritten the entire Arbitration section.

PayPal has revised their terms forbidding class action suits against them: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4609280

I wish everyone would start using Dwolla so I could give up on Paypal forever. I think the thing that keeps Paypal on top is since eBay owns them, they basically force you to use Paypal if you want to do any transactions on their site.

The agreement is just another contract. Contracts can't make you do anything; they just list penalties if you don't adhere to the agreement.What penalties if you go ahead and file a Class Action suit?

The judge will throw out the class action when shown that the plaintiff agreed to arbitration only. Hence lawyers won't start the class action to begin with.

That's an odd response - I'm unfamiliar when a civil contract binds a legal issue like that. Contracts are about money.

By definition contracts are legally-enforceable, hence they are typically upheld by judges.

Unless they have unfair contract terms, or are accepted under duress, or don't make terms/changes visible enough (e.g a tiny wording change written in 8 point in the middle of a 20 page contract may be unenforceable) etc - at least in the UK.

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