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> 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.

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They aren’t regulated as a bank in the US, where they have a much lighter-touch type of licensing.

Do the bank regulators in Europe typically help effectively when PayPal freezes an account?

Yes they do. Someone got banned for Cuba sanctions [1], others I don't know the context [2], and for others media attention is enough [3].

[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...

‘Member States shall ensure that, in the cases referred to in paragraph 4 …, after taking its decision, the credit institution immediately informs the consumer of the refusal and of the specific reason for that refusal, in writing and free of charge, unless such disclosure would be contrary to objectives of national security, public policy or Directive [2005/60]. […]’ https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...

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