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Comment by rideontime | Hacker News Reader

Checked out when it cited the scammer behind the "Freedom Phone" as a victim. Come on.

e: Their current site, for a laugh: https://www.freedomphone.com/

Same. I started with oh, they are talking to Theil. What does the king of the surveliance state have to say? When they followed up with Freedom Phone, it was clear what sort of story this was.

(This is in no way an endorsement of the PayPal dumpster fire)

Yet if PayPal deemed FreedomPhone a scam, why did PayPal end up dispersing the funds to FreedomPhone rather than returning them to users. This just makes it less likely that users will ever see the product (however pointless and exploitative I deem that product) they paid for.

This article has a bit of a slant towards a particular audience, but the issues it raises are real and worthy of consideration.

PayPal owed him money, so they paid it. They don't owe him an indefinite business partnership.

We don't know if they deemed him a scam, but it certainly looks scummy to me, so I can't blame them on that one. If people knew it was a ~$100 phone from a company in China that virtually nobody has ever heard of being sold for $500, they probably wouldn't buy it.

> PayPal owed him money, so they paid it.

After a significant delay during which PayPal got to hold onto money that wasn't theirs as an interest free loan.

While, I would strongly recommend against anyone buying a Freedom Phone, that doesn't mean that the way PayPal handled this was acceptable or beneficial to users.

>If people knew it was a ~$100 phone from a company in China that virtually nobody has ever heard of being sold for $500, they probably wouldn't buy it.

I have never heard of the freedom phone before this but basing the justification for them being banned from using PayPal on the fact they resell a cheap tech product from China is a ridiculous position to hold.

Just be honest and say that you don't agree with their political agenda next time.

Because you think the phone is silly or disagree with their politics that's a reason for Paypal to ban them?

Appears to be a ClearPHONE 220:

https://www.clearcellular.org/clearphone/clearphone-220-seri...

This is the first I've heard of them. What was Freedom Phone doing to earn them a ban?

The whole article is a tire fire.

That's not to say that accountability isn't a serious problem with PayPal and companies in a similar position. It absolutely is. But this particular source has an overt Trumpist/antivax/right-wing slant.

And of course this is intolerably awful because only progressive, woke, leftist, pro-Government-covid-control sources should in any way be tolerated in their views? Only they're free of slant and emotional bias? Indeed. Why not analyse a source for its specific arguments and their evidence instead of its political tendency?

> The Free Press is a new media company founded by Bari Weiss

this is the same crazy right winger who has been posting "The Twitter Files"

And she's jewish!

She calls herself a left-leaning centrist. But yes she is involved in the Twitter Files.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bari_Weiss

Yes, that amazed me. Twitter preinstalled ? That alone would make me stay clear of them. And who really cares about tesla apps. A vehicle needing apps on a phone to me is a massive fail.

And honoring Must, give me a break. I am very glad he was born in South Africa.

> A vehicle needing apps on a phone

You don't need the phone app.

You can unlock and drive the car with a regular plastic card or a key fob as the access key.

This seems like just another opportunity to randomly bash at someone online.

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