Hacker News Reader

Comment by slenk | Hacker News Reader

Yup. They closed my account with money in it, with no explanation why my account has been closed and absolutely zero recourse.

View on HN

I'd be curious to know what happens if you sue them in small claims court. Jurisdiction may be an issue, but if they stole from you while you were home, then I'd argue your hometown is the proper jurisdiction. Note: IANAL.

I'd guess that they'd just not show up, you'd get a judgement, and then just have to figure out how to get it paid. Or maybe they will show up, hire a local lawyer to represent them and point out the fine print in the ToS that forbids holding them accountable for any reason in any venue. And with any luck, the judge will laugh at them and give you treble damages.

I saw a post on here recently talking about how they got Paypal into court. I'll have to try and find it again.

Problem is, it's not worth whatever court costs I would probably incur. Granted, there isn't a lawyer involved in small claims, but could they judge order me pay their lawyer fees if I lose?

Maybe we could create a sort of small mutual insurance fund to pay legal expenses in such cases.

I am not smart enough to know if that is already a thing or not...

You might want to check if lawyers are even allowed in small claims. If they aren't they would have to sent a company representative, and there would be no 'lawyer fees'.

Well in Michigan (where I am located) they are not allowed. I am pretty pessimistic and just assume there are fees I don't know about

Depends on the laws in your jurisdiction. I think in a lot of cases, small claims courts put very low caps on legal fees that can be claimed. The defendant might only be able to claim a few hundred dollars at most.

The ToS has a forced arbitration clause, so a judge would never get to the merits of the case. Any disputes must be resolved through an arbitrator that Paypal gets to pick. Judges love cases with forced arbitration, because they can just issue a summary dismissal and go to lunch early.

Forced arbitration clauses should be illegal just as indentured servitude should be illegal, and for similar reasons.

They may have an arbitration clause, but even then,you would have a good chance of getting your money back if you took them to arbitration.

Yup, thx for the reminder. I had a small-ish balance sitting there and your reminder just provoked me to login, check it, and transfer it out. Can't wait for that new FedNow Service -- it should be coming soon! [0]

[0] https://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/fednow_about.h...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com