TheftPal

October 2, 2022 Longrider Civil Liberties, General News, General Rants 9

PayPal is updating its terms.

On the heels of its censorship spree in the UK – that received backlash so great it got the attention of lawmakers – PayPal is rolling out a new agreement that gives itself more censorship powers and the ability to strip income from those who don’t abide to its speech rules.

I know it’s becoming something of old news now, but we have a payment processor that should be doing payment processing and nothing but payment processing, taking upon itself the job of policing wrongthink.

“How dare you!” springs to mind.

There are those who will point to Tommy Robinson a few years ago and make the perfectly valid observation that he was the canary in the mine, for PayPal did this to him and there was barely a whimper. Now, despite the recent backlash over the FSU, these evil tyrants are doubling down. Oh, but it gets worse.

Violation of the “Acceptable Use Policy constitutes a violation of the PayPal User Agreement and may subject you to damages, including liquidated damages of $2,500.00 U.S. dollars per violation,” PayPal writes.

PayPal’s clause about taking users’ funds for a violation of its rules has long been established. But, as published on September 26th and to be effective on November 3rd, 2022, PayPal will add restrictions to its acceptable use policy that go beyond illegal activities and fraud and into the realm of policing speech.

That’s right, they get to steal money from dissenters. They will take your money and keep it. That’s theft, pure and simple. Bear in mind that the state will have to go through the process, including a court hearing to seize illicit monies gained via criminal activities, and this vile organisation is bypassing all of this and will steal your money on a whim because you said something they didn’t like and not offer any explanation – as Toby Young found out when he tried to communicate with them.

I closed my account in the wake of their demonetising the FSU. If there was ever any chance that I would use them again – slim though that might have been – this assures beyond all doubt that I will never use this evil organisation again. I don’t deal with thieves. If you have any sense at all, do not allow them any access to your money. Use another payment processor. PayPal cannot be trusted.

9 Comments

  1. This is a shame as Paypal was so convenient, easy to use and relatively safe, any suggestions for trusted alternatives, ones on recommendation from people still using them are the safest option.
    Keep up the good work on your blogsite.

    • I am using my credit card directly. I know that PayPal was simple in that you could just click without entering the details, but given their behaviour, I’ll just live with it. There are other systems, but I haven’t used them so cannot comment.

  2. I use Wise (formerly TranserWise) multiple currency account for overseas buying/sending/receiving.
    They do a debit Visa and Mastercard
    Their exchange rates are always better than PayPal.
    What encouraged me to try them was the favourable commentary on Tim Worstall’s blog a few years back

  3. There’s Revolut.
    And another service called Pay M.

    People at work use both.
    I would be inclined to try Pay M as it’s set up by the banks. If I needed to that is, which I don’t

  4. I don’t think that Paypal has the slightest chance of getting away with this. What about, for example, existing customers? I signed no agreement saying that they could steal my money if I said something they don’t like. That means if they did, then they are breaking the law and can be sued for such. Only an idiot would agree to such contractual conditions and of course, if they want to change that agreement they can’t do that without my consent. Closing down my account because I refuse to change the agreement is breach of contract for which they can also be sued, not to mention plain theft.

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