> Instead of giving a valid reason, company says "specific reasons for such a decision is proprietary & it is not released since that could impair PayPal's ability to do business in a safe and secure manner"

I've been trying to close my PayPal account for the last week and will keep trying, but so far have not been able to. I've had this account since 2000. I want to close it because of the treatment of SubscribeStar and others. I've never watched a video by Sargon of Akkad. But even if it was Adolph of Hitler I'd be concerned about this behavior by Patreon. For PayPal to back them up by dropping a competitor is enough for me to want to reciprocate.

First, PayPal required me to individually cancel most of the vendors I've paid via PayPal in the last decade or so, and made it difficult to discover how to do that. But I finally figured it out and cancelled them all. If they weren't being mulish about this it seems like it would be easy for them to do the same as part of the process of closing the account.

Now that I've done this I still can't cancel via their web site. I get the message "Before you close your account -- Sorry, there's a problem. If you keep seeing this, please contact customer service." There is no email address on their contact page. Their pop-up chat app on the contact page freezes immediately and is unusable. I'll call them if I have to, but I shouldn't have to. The issues closing the account are by themselves enough to make me want to close it.

When I do manage to close the account I'm hoping that they ask me for a reason, at which point I plan to tell them "specific reasons for such a decision is proprietary & it is not released since that could impair my ability to do business in a safe and secure manner."

This happened to a very minor account we had, reasoning was dubious.

Without any kind of transparency or due process ... (or competition) ... this is a problem.

Have they ever been sued for similar?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_gateway#Typical_transa...

They simply froze the donated funds and kept them in limbo while forcing the operater of SA to jump through ridiculous hoops in order to unfreeze the money.

Don't use Paypal for any sort of fundraiser. Ideally never use Paypal for anything, ever.

These banks want to reduce thier risks as much as possible. CC laws in America provide a lot of protection for the consumer.

Not the person of whom you're asking, but I sometimes quote substantial parts of text to which I'm replying for three basic reasons.

The first is that in a large thread if can sometimes be difficult to find the original. In that case it's useful to have the comment there, not least because if you want to see the original you have the exact text to search for.

The second is that in some other forums it's the usual behaviour, and when it's a habit, and regarded as a "Good Thing"(tm) in other forums, that behaviour can carry over. I find it a natural thing to do, and sometimes have to think twice to stop myself from doing it.

And thirdly, in the past I've seen replies that genuinely don't seem to make sense, only to discover subsequently that the original text was edited. I fully appreciate that on HN the unethical editing of text to make replies look stupid is not "A Thing"(tm) but it does make the habit a useful one.

It's unfortunate that most people misunderstand what Bitcoin is because they can only think of it in terms of legacy financial instruments (ie, treat it like a stock).

However, there's no doubt that many people who are in it for the technology and liberty got to know about it because someone else made money and started bragging.

  co-opted by mining

HN uses rel=nofollow links so he's not posting links as part of some SEO plan. Cursory review of his previous comments shows he links to other sites more often than his own. It makes sense someone would often post links to their own blog though - if they're interested in a topic, they're likely to both comment on and blog about it.

I'm shocked you're essentially chastising someone for having their own domain and publishing articles on it they then link to. If anything we should be encouraging this behavior.

If that small group of creators finds a better alternative, and tells their audience to support them at the alternative rather than Patreon, they will go there.

SubscribeStar was enjoying a good amount of success as a Patreon alternative once a few users who got banned move to it, (but then PayPal cut SubscribeStar off).

Only time can tell.

Getting involved makes everything worse as now a larger population knows what's happening. It's a perfect example of the Streisand effect.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/maajid-nawaz-splc-apolog...

SPLC Apologizes, Pays Settlement to Islamic Reformer It Wrongly Labeled ‘Anti-Muslim Extremist’

The Southern Poverty Law Center has reached a settlement with liberal Islamic reformer Maajid Nawaz and his organization, the Quilliam Foundation, for wrongly including them on its now-defunct list of “anti-Muslim extremists.”

The SPLC announced Monday that it has agreed to pay Nawaz and Quilliam $3.375 million “to fund their work to fight anti-Muslim bigotry and extremism.” The settlement was the result of a lawsuit Nawaz filed in April over his inclusion on the SPLC’s “Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists.”

https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_6646994?ec_carp=612494826...

Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson has been added to the Southern Poverty Law Center‘s (SPLC) list of anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender extremists.

https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jun/29/guidestar-rem...

Gunmen have twice targeted conservatives specifically cited by the SPLC for hate: Republican Rep. Steve Scalise, who was shot June 14 by a fan of the SPLC Facebook page, and the Family Research Council, whose security guard was wounded in 2012 by a man who said he found the FRC on the SPLC’s list of “anti-gay groups.”

As far as conservative organizations are concerned, being labeled a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center isn’t just annoying — it’s dangerous.

When buying locally you can usually pay by wire transfer or Swish, but otherwise PayPal is the least bad option (as a buyer).

you wouldn't have a paypal account otherwise.

and outside of the usa, most bank systems have ways to forward money based on other records. I've implemented a few in south American countries where by accepting CC from one operator you also get an optional printable invoice (boleto) that can be paid on the bank (online or not) and it transfer same day to your account.

There needs to be more transparency, and a clear and fair system for arbitration and dispute resolution. Better still, one that's consistent across all digital services so people know what to expect when signing up without wading through a novel's worth of user agreements.

at this point, might as well trade in casino chips.

(see gnu taller for a less cassino-like alternative to payments)

The are a lot of ways to not have to accept MC or Visa.

That said, I do think holding money should be cause for more stringent regulations. Stopping service is one thing; holding funds entirely should absolutely happen only under direct court order (anything else would be theft).

Now I understand that being responsible is easier said than done, given various circumstance. I grew up without a lot money and my parents were pretty religious about budgeting cash weekly into envelopes, but even they eventually switched to using CCs and only spending what they had cash for. Too hard to pass up cash back on gas, groceries, bills, etc. Every little bit helps.

It is a legal responsibility upon the issuer, rather than a discretionary benefit. It is particularly beneficial when a retailer goes out of business; an undelivered or broken order will be refunded, whereas if the bill was paid by debit card you'd just be considered a creditor.

Amex is a small card processor. According to the Nilson report [0], Visa and MasterCard made up 80% of global transaction dollar amount in 2016. Amex, Discover and JCB combined made up 5%.

You may know of Amex but they are a very small card, especially outside of the US.

[0] https://nilsonreport.com/upload/issues/1109_6392.pdf

If I launched a new site called "TheFacebook.com" tomorrow, what proof would you need that I was, at a minimum, knowingly causing confusion?

That's disingenuous. A finding of monopoly status might be legally definitive, but it's not necessary to reasonably conclude that a corporation is a monopoly.

Online payment alternatives certainly exist, in a similar sense that alternatives to MS Windows existed in the 90s. The recent Patreon/SubscribeStar event suggests strongly that there is collusion at the very least, if the source of the suppression was not PayPal itself. That doesn't change the fundamental point being made.

You are correct that I'm unhappy with discrimination based on political beliefs even when non monopolistic corporations are involved, but pragmatically, that's a much longer discussion. Tackling the immediate concern of people of people having their livelihood destroyed for expressing unpopular views would be sufficient as a stop gap.

> Try imagining the tangled framework needed to protect political belief in a way that wouldn't infringe on freedom of expression if you want to understand why political belief has not yet enjoyed such protection.

More than likely it's not a matter of difficulty, it has simply not been needed. The centralisation of power inherent to technology has been changing the landscape considerably.

Regardless, recent studies have clearly shown that conservative and liberal brains are structurally different, so to some extent, political discrimination is discrimination on physiology. I agree that it's a subtle issue as to what should and should not be considered a deeply held conviction, but it's becoming increasingly clear that it is needed.

So, by definition, this is a problem.

We would no longer have a problem if we get to the point where a single company censorsing your transactions is no big deal because a dozen others will immediately step up in their place.

But we don't live in that world, and so because of this we have to recognize that there is indeed an oligopoly problem.

Duopoly when you are in Europe. Discover card and American Express is not really a thing here.