> If enough of these horror stories are publicized, people will learn to never buy/redeem Apple gift cards
You'd think so. Yet, the stories of PayPal locking up payouts to surprised people keep coming every year - and people still use them.
You'd think so. Yet, the stories of PayPal locking up payouts to surprised people keep coming every year - and people still use them.
At least in Europe, PayPal is a regulated bank which means you can hand the case over to the authorities and they can and will help you out.
Do the bank regulators in Europe typically help effectively when PayPal freezes an account?
[1] https://www.onlinehaendler-news.de/recht/urteile-entscheidun...
[2] https://www.sbs-legal.de/blog/update-sbs-legal-erwirkt-zwei-...
[3] https://www.test.de/Leserfall-Wenn-Paypal-ein-Kundenkonto-ei...
Commenters here talk about PayPal account closures as if everyone who uses the service will eventually lose their money. Now we're talking about gift cards as if everyone using gift cards will have their account locked.
These stories, while frustrating and sad, are rare occurrences. The majority of people who use these services will not have any experience like these stories you read.
To be honest, I think the average person is probably better at estimating their risk of using these services than a lot of these HN commenters.
It's easier to just eat something else, and not from the jar, than take an unnecessary risk, even if that risk is unlikely.
This captures the Hacker News style misjudgment of risk very well.
First, none of these issues are equivalent to eating cyanide in any way, shape, or form. The extreme melodrama of upgrading "someone's PayPal account was erroneously locked" to literally being poisoned to death is emblematic of the misjudgment of risk going on.
Second, eating M&Ms is a silly analogy because it's so easy to dismiss. Obviously nobody needs to eat a couple M&Ms, but someone who is running a business needs a way to collect money if they want to get paid. Using a mainstream service keeps your overall conversion rate higher and prevents losing customers who don't want to sign up for something new.
Third, the level of risk is not X in 1000. These cases you hear about in headlines are more like 1 in 10,000 or 1 in 100,000. This is what I referred to by Hacker News frequently misjudging the scale of these services because they only see these negative stories posted.
Finally, this is the key point that everyone misses when they say "Just don't use any Apple products" and other dismissive comments:
> It's easier to just eat something else, and not from the jar, than take an unnecessary risk, even if that risk is unlikely.
It's very obviously not easier to build a life where you avoid anything that might have a small risk. Building your entire life around not taking very unlikely risks is irrational. I know it brings some people comfort to feel like they've avoided some risk they saw in headlines, but claiming that nothing is given up or that it's easier to choose an alternative is blatantly false.
If you're a business, yes, PayPal locking your account and freezing your funds forever, which is what they do, is tantamount to legal grievous injury or death. This happens with enough regularity that I know multiple people that this has happened to, and the risk is enough for me to never rely on PayPal or its partners for my income.
You seem to understand this with the following:
> Obviously nobody needs to eat a couple M&Ms, but someone who is running a business needs a way to collect money if they want to get paid.
--
> Third, the level of risk is not X in 1000. These cases you hear about in headlines are more like 1 in 10,000 or 1 in 100,000. This is what I referred to by Hacker News frequently misjudging the scale of these services because they only see these negative stories posted.
I used a variable X so you could make it sufficiently large enough that you don't have to rely on the multiplier to understand the analogy.
> It's very obviously not easier to build a life where you avoid anything that might have a small risk. Building your entire life around not taking very unlikely risks is irrational.
I've lived my entire life without relying on an Apple account, and the few instances that I used one, I hit that risk myself[1] and now have an expensive paper weight instead of a tablet, and a bunch of app purchases I can never use again.
This isn't some hypothetical, it's something that's literally happened to me and people I know. The lesson I learned is not to rely on Apple or PayPal, and believe it or not, that's really, really easy to do.
Losing business funds is not equivalent to death, no.
> I used a variable X so you could make it sufficiently large enough that you don't have to rely on the multiplier to understand the analogy.
I was commenting on the "in 1000" part, not the X part.
Sorry, I just can't engage with this level of hyperbole and exaggeration. This isn't a life or death thing.
I think you can't understand his analogy no? Without taking it literally to the point of making it your entire life's purpose to counter the point?
How about this: You have a 1 in 100,000 chance of eating an M&M which literally drains your bank account and you have to eat hundreds or possibly thousands of M&M's per day.
(some of your dreaded hyperbole for transactions)
Would you dig in to that bowl? There's shouldn't be a miniscule percentage chance of your entire livelyhood being ripped away and locked forever without recourse simply by using a certain payment platform. Is that fair? Or are you still intent on stepping on the cosmic merrigoround of potential ruin without a care in the world?
Would you still risky eating from that jar?
The most money I have ever had on my PayPal account was 100 bucks from a reversed transaction (like, double booking of a hotel room or wrong item sent), otherwise it's just a gateway. It would be annoying if my PayPal account was locked, because I use it a lot to order pizza online and a few small purchases. I could just use my credit card or something else but it's more clicks. And I know a lot of people who do it like this. The only thing lost is convenience. No past purchases, no digital identities.
Maybe you meant the merchants who really amass thousands but I suppose they are a small minority of active users.
It's quite easy to build up a few hundred or thousand USD worth. It feels just enough like a bank account that you think you're safe. Then...well, the internet is full of PayPal horror stories, I won't bore you with my own.
You have a fee for transferring from PayPal to your bank account?
It’s always been free for me, as long as I don’t opt for the instant transfer option.
Never once encountered a fee.
Might be related to your country's local laws?
the number of people commenting like “well I don’t do/use/…” is mind-boggling
"But you don't have to hit yourself"
"tHaT yOu DoN't hIt YoUrSeLF iS IrReLeVaNt To ThE pEoPlE tHaT dO"