Hacker News Reader

Comment by LoganDark | Hacker News Reader

I honestly wish they could've succeeded because PayPal is one of the banes of my existence. They're one of those faceless corporations that accuse everyone of money laundering in order to steal their shit.

View on HN

They held and stole quite a bit of money from my company when it was small 'for fraud'; it was a very hard time, and of course there was no fraud. It was a long time ago and I don't get angry anymore, but it was a nightmare and nothing you can do. Since then I moved to local processing, issuing, acquiring; I can thank Paypal for all of that. Hope they die a miserable death, but I guess 50B$ says at least the managers will drive their lambo's/yachts around no matter what happens unfortunately.

Of course you can do something. You can sue PayPal.

Suing over borders. Did I mention small company? What would it cost me, in 2007, to sue a US company from my country in europe? With what chance of winning?

They're actually a European company, or else they can't operate there. The European company is probably a subsidiary of an American one.

Still not in my own country; I see they were in the UK back then; suing over borders inside the EU is still expensive and pretty much advised against unless it's a lot of money. It was for us, but not compared to this effort; anyway ; it was advised against back then. Maybe now it's easier.

Especially after they already stole all your money.

You sue the European subsidiary which will be a regulated bank, unlike US PayPal.

and how much would that cost vs the chance of it working?

It would be small claims court and they are being sued so much, that they don't even bother to show up in trials (courts are expensive goes both ways), so it is default win usually.

I am not sure about the year 2007, but in 2026, they need to be under your monetary authority somehow. That's why most crypto exchanges do not offer service in Europe. Your monetary authority might have a form or an email for complaint and depending on how pro-active they are, they can make the other counter-party very proactive.

Paypal stole over $10k from a Haitian charity drive we did. They froze the account and all the donations, then refused to refund people and offered "Donate to our charity instead" as an option.

It was bonkers.

You were collecting money for charity, and you're upset that PayPal... offered to donate the money to charity? Was it mixed with other funds?

"Donate to a different charity" is in no way a viable alternative.

Charities are anything but interchangeable. You might not want to sponsor one on ideological grounds, or concerns about how effectively they use the money, or just because you were seeking to support a specific cause. If you deposited money in a box that said "we're buying medicine for sick people in Somaliland" and they sent it to the RSPCA instead, wouldn't you be pissed?

Was it definitely a different charity though? I couldn't tell, hoped for clarification.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com