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Comment by quesera | Hacker News Reader

This is harder than it sounds. PayPal can go after swept funds, and there's always a bank at the end of the chain that is more likely to cooperate with another bank and with FinCEN than with you. But the idea is sound!

Can you share more context around avoiding SVB?

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I'm more concerned with PayPal denying me access to my account, preventing me from attempting to move funds out, or disabling integration with my business that prevents customers from completing payments. Yes, reversing a sweep that already happened would be bad, but it's the other stuff that worries me more, along with the lack of proper support for such cases which are true emergencies for small businesses.

SVB: Used them about 10 years ago for a startup. Didn't go back to them when I started my second business, as I didn't feel like they had many staff or really cared about having me as a customer.

PayPal will (for $2) mail you a check. And while they do not allow you to remove the last bank account attached to your account, you can just close that bank account. I did that. I sweep from PayPal by requesting a check. I wish them luck stealing from me. They have NO access to any valid bank accounts of mine.

This is probably a smart approach, although there may be a ToS stipulation about requiring active bank/debit information which could lead to account disruptions if they notice.

How would they know without accessing my bank account without my direction? If they try that, I’ll call my state’s AG.

Plus, as I remove all funds instantly, disruption costs me nothing.

There are non-transactional checks to validate the active status of debit cards and bank accounts. You would never know -- there is no reporting requirement or mechanism.

If PayPal cares, they can do these things. If you move serious money through them, they should probably care.

> PayPal can go after swept funds

that sounds horrible. What do you mean by this ?

I assume by "sweeping" the GC meant transferring funds to a bank outside of PP?

ACH transfers can be reversed.

That is why I use multiple bank accounts accounts at different financial institutions, and only some are used for others to send and receive funds, and then I transfer the funds from there to the other bank accounts that others do not know about.

This is very interesting and something I’d like to replicate. Can you give an example of a typical transaction? For instance, after you withdraw say $10,000 from Stripe or PayPal to Bank, do you the transfer $10,000 from Bank A to Bank B?

I'm not the GP, and I'm not a nefarious actor for whom the strategy has been tested, but this is similar to my personal approach:

PayPal, Venmo, Stripe, etc -- any service provider that I choose to share bank account (or debit card) numbers with -- gets the information for a small holding account only.

I maintain the balance in that holding account around the level where I'd be "irritated but not affected" if something were to go wrong.

Honestly I just don't trust them to correctly and quickly fix any errors or exposures. So I prefer to avoid the issue altogether.

Thanks for sharing that.

I already have a "burner" bank account for gym memberships and other non-trusted entities.

Maybe I should take a two-tier approach for business accounts, to "sweep the sweeps," so to speak, and PayPal et al only have access to a business burner.

Is there a way to use an app similar to Privacy to set up a "burner bank account"? Or do you physically go into a bank, credit union, etc. and sign up for a new account as a new member?

Some banks will let you create new accounts through their mobile app or online banking app. Even for new customers (some banks have no physical presence).

And most banks that I'm aware of will let existing customers create new accounts with distinct routing/account numbers online.

> most banks that I'm aware of will let existing customers create new accounts with distinct routing/account numbers online.

Not in the US. Especially unique routing numbers. Maybe you mean virtual credit card numbers.

Sorry, I edited "distinct ACH info" to "distinct routing/account numbers" to be more clear, but evidently it was just differently-confusing!

A bank will only have one or a small number of routing numbers.

My point was that most banks will let existing customers open new accounts online. This will create a new routing/account number combination that you can share with the service you don't trust enough to share your primary account with.

You can also add a (new) debit card to the new account, and some providers let you create virtual cards at will. But that's not what I was talking about.

Revolut and Monzo do virtual debit cards. They're pretty handy to have, and have helped me dodge spurious charges in the past.

Yes, just keep enough in Bank A to cover the bills, and any extra gets sent to Bank B, which account number is never given to anyone (other than Bank A).

What is SVB?

Silicon Valley Bank

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