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Not Your Pal: Could ‘Misinformation, Intolerance and Hate’ Get $2,500 Yanked from Your PayPal?

PayPal’s new ‘acceptable use policy’ (AUP) gets rapidly retracted, and the online bank-ish claims it never intended to release it in the wild.

Not Your Pal: Could 'Misinformation, Intolerance and Hate' Get $2,500 Yanked from Your PayPal?

PayPal’s new ‘acceptable use policy’ (AUP) gets rapidly retracted, and the online bank-ish claims it never intended to release it in the wild. But the purported mistake got yanked only after folks noticed that PayPal intends to fine you — by confiscating up to $2,500 from your account — for infractions of “misinformation, intolerance, and hate”.

Will this PR blunder keep their AUP in the company safe forever, or are they merely awaiting a more propitious moment to activate it, and start picking our pockets?

Special thanks to Zo Rachel for sitting in for Bill Whittle this week. Right Angle is a production of our Members. Learn more.


37 replies on “Not Your Pal: Could ‘Misinformation, Intolerance and Hate’ Get $2,500 Yanked from Your PayPal?”

Seems to me that Paypal has just been shown to have put out misinformation, by either saying they would fine you for posting misinformation, or for saying it was a mistake and they were withdrawing the potential fine. One or the other of those contradictory statements has simply got to be misinforming the public, by definition.
Therefore, I believe that Paypal owes all of its members $2500 as an appropriate fine for its spreading of misinformation!!!

I heard a great quote about what these people do. “They use your vocabulary, but not your dictionary.”

Perfect.

So they only retracted half of their vague and nebulous “hate, intolerance, discriminatory …”

Yeah. There is no list of trip words. Like facebook, it’s algorithms and likely overly sensitized woke people making these decisions about pulling money out of your account…. I don’t suppose they can pull money that isn’t there?

Can that even be legally binding? Not if they won’t let you leave.

It’s funny how many times something that at a surface view causes people outrage and anger, then when you look at that thing deeper it turns out not to be so bad as the HOF (Hair On Fire) crowd thought it would be or even beneficial in result.

The world is not a simple place and human beings are very complex. Taking the simple view as the last word gives people ulcers and high blood pressure.

Well, they can’t take any of my money. I cancelled by account. When they asked why, I said because they were stupid and evil for trying to censor the Republicans and even more stupid and evil to think they could lie to us about it being a mistake. Eff Off Pay PAL.
ps, Full disclosure: the loss of my business won’t hurt them much.

Thanks to Zo for suggesting Cornerstone. I will definitely check it out. There’s also GabPay that I’m looking into, as suggested by my eldest son. I am most assuredly not going to use PayPal as soon as I can find a good alternative.

Do as I intend to, look it up for yourself. You’ll find a lot of information on the website, I’ll bet.

https://cornerstonepaymentsystems.com

That’s the URL. If you type “Cornerstone Payment Systems” in the App Store you’ll probably find it. If they make an app. Which they might not. I don’t know, I don’t use the Apple App Store. Go to that URL and check it out, if they make an app it will be somewhere on that site.

My comment is: if PayPal isn’t going to implement the fines for misinformation, they they are guilty of presenting misinformation. They should be fined $2500 to each user. Fair enough?

I closed my PP account yesterday (by telephone). I got confirmation emails of closure from PP. Yesterday their phone lines were tied up, and it was a long wait to get through…I read a book while waiting. If Zoe is correct that you can no longer close your PP account, then things have gotten very much worse. I smell a lawyer bonfire bonanza….could not happen to a more deserving pack of PP donkey butts. FJB and FPP

Canceled my PayPal account and held nothing back when they asked me why. It’s MY business how I spend MY money, what I purchase, the people/organizations I support, etc.
Also commented on WHO, as with fakebook, twit er, etc, was going to decide, what “misinformation/lies” etc. are?
Once issues like this arise they will always be there, in the back of users heads, waiting for it to raise it’s ugly head again and/or wondering if they have already been implemented sub-rosa.

There’s a bigger issue here, bear with me for a bit.

PayPal cannot legally seize money. No entity in the United States can seize your money without due process. No entity in the United States can arbitrarily or capriciously decide they don’t like something you do that is otherwise legal and take your money away from you. No entity in the United States can enforce (they can create all they want but enforcement is a different isse) any Acceptable Use Policy, Warranty restriction, or any other policy that violates the law.

Notice I said ‘due process’ above. If you have an enforceable lien against you, if you have been trafficking in drugs or stolen goods and use PayPal to handle illegally gotten gains, if you have been subjected to due process or are accused of illegal activity in the course of due process then PayPal can freeze your funds and/or must release them to a lien holder on demand, etc. You cannot use any sort of financial institution to break the law and PayPal is no exception.

Another scenario where PayPal might freeze or seize money from an account is if the account was opened under fraudulent conditions. I.E. a while back PayPal decided to close what they called “Student Accounts” for people under 18. It could be argued that having any sort of account for minors, who are not deemed to be capable of committing to a legal contract until they reach the age of majority anyway, was a dumb thing to do. So PayPal sent out a notice they were going to close those student accounts held by minors and gave +/- 60 days notice that the funds therein would have to be transferred to the parent’s account.

I’ve heard of people who failed to do that and had to jump through some hoops to get that money back but they got it back. There were people under 18 who lied about their age and opened a regular account under a new email address and were caught. That’s fraud, btw. Fraud is obtaining goods or services under false pretenses and if you commit fraud then there are consequences.

I suspect what happened in the debacle we’re addressing on this page was that some gung-ho wokinista with just enough authority decided to ‘improve’ PayPal by using it as a platform to advance their particular arbitrarily capricious political ideals. Someone somewhere in PayPal’s management personnel did this. Someone above that level noticed the hue and cry about it and crapped him/herself. Because they know they can’t do this and they knew that it would cost them a lot of business to expose this sort of policy. So they immediately rescinded it.

I’m not making excuses for PayPal, that was a dumb thing to allow happen and there’s no doubt about it. I have my doubts that they could have made such a policy stick even if they wanted to and the fact that they pulled it down so quickly shows they didn’t really want it to.

This is a symptom of a larger problem.

Companies have to hire someone to do work for them. Increasingly those someones they hire have graduated from universities that promote far Left ideologies. Because the number of those sorts of universities is increasing. So they end up with people on their payroll that have an agenda that is very likely antithetical if not downright lethal to their business operations.

Those who carry far Left ideologies fly under the radar for a while. When what they’re doing really begins to bite and thwarts the company’s success they get noticed. In some cases they get stopped, in some cases they do not, or at least not yet.

We’ve seen several examples of this. Netflix, which I have little love for, told employees what their policy is and if they didn’t like that then “perhaps Netflix is not where you should be working”. Elon Musk is presumed having an intent to clean up that kind of thing on Twitter, if and when he actually has control. This sort of crap on Twitter is the sole reason Musk gives for his acquisition efforts from the beginning. Disney has this problem with a small number of activists in positions of influence and has not remedied that situation yet.

We’re actually seeing a spectrum across the business world where at one extreme the activists are given full control and at the other extreme businesses are creating hiring policies to refuse or deny applicants from certain universities, colleges and other schools and allowing them to dismiss people who work contrary to the business’s well being.

We all know pretty much everything the Left touches it destroys and leaves things worse than they were when the Leftists claimed they needed ‘fixing’. In all things the Leftist cure is worse than the disease.

This creates its own positive feedback loop. There comes a point where the more influence these deconstructive, devolutionary Leftist have — The worse the situation becomes. The worse the situation becomes, the more people notice it. When it becomes bad enough, action is taken to change the situation. That’s a feedback loop.

As in …

“Oh isn’t it wonderful that our company is so open, accepting and tolerant? … … … Wait, what? What you’re doing is causing our profits to plummet! STOP THAT!!!”

This applies to politics as well as commercial enterprise.

The more this happens across many platforms and venues the more obvious the issue becomes. Eventually people start learning lessons from others who have imploded their area of influence, party and market. Somewhere after that point effort is made to return to normal, sane policies and practices.

The question is how much damage is incurred from a point of normality through the valley of Leftist wokenista influence and back up to normality again. The problem is that the damage didn’t have to happen in the first place. The reason the problem occurs is human nature and therein lies the real danger. The Left knows how to exploit human nature to its own advantage right up to the point where it fouls the environment so badly it drowns in its own excreta.

If you look at a graph of historic trends caused by Leftist influence you see a sine wave of increasing amplitude and frequency. It started decades back when God was kicked out of schools, the Pledge of Allegiance was quietly dropped and more and more Leftists attained faculty status in our institutes of higher learning. The latest wave only took a few years to peak at mutilating children in the name of transing them, the advocacy of killing babies up to and after the point of birth and the absurd idea that we can get by without fossil hydrocarbon energy.

Increasing frequency and increasing amplitude.

If I had to guess I’d say socially we’ve either peaked or are just past the peak of the latest crest in that sine wave. I say “socially” because the wave crest of the damage done probably hasn’t peaked yet. The damage crest will always lag somewhere behind the social wave crest because minds change faster than materials, means or policies.

Eventually just like bending a piece of metal back and forth over and over again … Something has to break. It is that break, which is collapse, that the Left is aiming for. They know if they don’t get there on this bend they’ll just wait for the next one. They bend society further, sooner and harder with each sine wave crest and the end result if they’re allowed to keep doing that is inevitable.

Something that cannot be repaired is going to break. A lot of people are going to die. A lot of institutions that have stood the test of time are going to collapse or implode. A period of chaos will follow. The Left is gambling with all of humanity that they can use chaos for their own ends and come out on top.

If you are a person of Faith this is clearly Satanic. If you’re not, it doesn’t matter because the result is still quite obvious. If you’re not a practitioner of the Judeo-Christian Faith you should still recognize real Evil when you see it. If you don’t believe real Evil exists then you’re part of what is going to cause this inevitable chaos because you’re in denial. Denial and willful blindness works for the Left every bit as good as the most rabid practitioners of the Wokenista Religious System. One compliments and amplifies the other.

I’m trying to decide if I owe you money for the information you provided or you owe me money for reading this novella. Let’s just deduct equal amounts from each other’s accounts and call it even.

Lol, fair enough. Don’t bother deducting anything either direction and call it a wash. Or call it my gift to you and yours to me. 🙂

Um, PayPal is not a United States company. Ergo, I do not think they are subject to our laws, and (I’m sure) have their hind ends covered under their user agreements. I’m all for punishing them, mind you, but it would have to be under the laws of the country they are licensed with… England, I believe.

All companies, and individuals, and for legal purposes a corporation is the same as an individual, must abide by the laws of the states and nations they operate in.

An American company cannot go to South Africa or Israel or any other country and ignore the laws of that country simply because what they’re doing is legal in America.

Go open a Colt Firearms gun store in Australia or Britain trying to operate under American laws and see what the Australians or British do to you. They won’t even care a little bit if your home office is in New Haven and the company is owned and licensed in Connecticut.

If you’re from Arizona you can’t go to Germany and walk around with a gun on your hip because it’s illegal to open carry firearms in Germany. Even though it is perfectly legal to open carry a firearm in Arizona. Even though United States law allows Arizona to make that determination and it does.

If you could do things like that then any local, city, state, province or national laws in any other country around the world would not apply to you because you’re American. If you could do that there would be no major corporations based in America at all, they’d all move to countries with laws more amenable and use that to thwart every American law unfavorable to them. They’d move to very poor countries, pay a lot of graft to get such laws passed and all be located in Guyana or Liberia or the like.

Whether you’re carrying on a business based in America or just acting as a private citizen is irrelevant. No nation on the planet has ever allowed something like that and they never will. It would mean relinquishing their own sovereignty. Business operations are not immune from national sovereignty.

The idea that foreign entities, of any sort, operating in the U.S. are not subject to the laws of the United States of America and of the several States they operate in but are ruled by the supremacy of the laws in their home nation is completely wrong. As is the reverse for American companies operating in foreign jurisdictions. Sorry. I’m not trying to slag on you but I can’t imagine where you got that idea.

Think for a little bit why that has to be absurd.

Further, companies including corporations that do business in more than one state, no matter where their home office is or their country of origin, are subject to the regulation and the laws of Interstate Commerce which are U.S. Federal Laws and regulations.

If what you say were true then China could pass a law allowing industrial espionage in America and do business in the U.S. under that condition. I assure you, that if a Chinese company is committing industrial espionage in America then that company, it’s employees and agents, are subject to U.S. Laws regarding industrial espionage.

(Getting the Biden Administration to prosecute Chinese interests might be another matter but substitute any other nation and the result is the same legally.)

Russia cannot pass a law under the guise of commerce or anything else, that makes spying on the U.S. legal, then send spies to the U.S. and demand they be allowed to do their spying with impunity because hey, Russia has a law that says it’s OK.

Britain, nor any other country, may not pass a law that says it’s OK to rob Americans of their money just because the robber is based in Britain. Well, I guess theoretically they could do that but it won’t work.

If theft, which is taking something of yours without your consent and depriving you of it, is illegal in any State or the United States as a whole then any company operating in the U.S. that violates that law can be interdicted, civilly or criminally prosecuted and punished.

As I have said several times now, user agreements that violate the law are not binding and do not cover anyone’s ‘hind end’ even a little bit. You cannot give your consent to be arbitrarily robbed, beaten or murdered even if you want to.

PayPal cannot take your money without due process. They can’t send someone to your house to take your car, they can’t put a lien on your house or business, they can’t garnish your wages or in any other manner seize any of your assets without due process. Nor can they seize your assets just because they are holding those assets. That would be the same thing. A user agreement poorly crafted with arbitrary conditions instead of very, legally specific defined conditions doesn’t make a bit of difference.

It just doesn’t work that way. I’ve already explained why that is.

Zo’s comments remind me of “The Hotel California.” Since Leftists ARE Satan worshippers (whether they realize it or not), the parallel is perfect. THANK YOU for telling me about Cornerstone!

I’ve got to give you a Sgt. Schultz on that: “I know NOTHING!” LOL I never even heard of it before this video, and I haven’t had a chance to look into Cornerstone, yet. I HAVE cancelled my Paypal account, though.

I also cancelled my PayPal account after 15 years. Apparently, they have been deluged with well-earned cancellations. Play stupid games – win stupid prizes.

+++ For an excellent use of Carlin reference.
And you are correct, even if this came from a working group, it had gone through layers of legal.
The problem is not that it was released, the problem is someone found it so quickly and brought it to people’s attention.
I don’t have a PP account, but my wife does. I am going to send this to her to watch and have her look at the one Zo mentioned.

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but how is it illegal given the ubiquitous acceptance of the EUA? By continuing to use the service, one implicitly accepts the agreement. How can there be legal recourse for the pending “thefts”? If the user agrees to the contract — regardless of how that contract is created — then one is assumed to be bound by its content.
Please don’t confuse my question in the context of ethics or morality — rather one of legality. I think that this is completely unethical and immoral; however, that is often irrelevant in the technical sense of the law.

David – I believe the legal issue here is the lack of definition of terms. In order to have a binding agreement, both parties need to be able to fully understand and define the “breach”.
The way they have worded this basically says that they get to decide after the fact if something falls into these categories.
This type of grey area is what makes litigators so rich.
It is also why Scott’s reference to George Carlin is so appropriate.
If PP had in their agreement:
You cannot call a transwoman and man, we consider that hateful speech. If you do that on a SM platform we will fine you.
That might be legal.
But something so nebulous as if you say something we deem to be hateful speech would not pass legal muster IMO.
I am sure there are actual lawyers on this site who can comment, but having read hundreds of contracts in my professional life, that is where I fall at the moment.
Of course, it is unethical as all get out and I encourage everyone to do as Scott Furst has done and cancel their PP. I will look into the one Zo mentioned.

Well, this is all fine and good, but I still don’t read the End User Agreement (EUA) like that of everyone who is claiming offense. As far as I can tell, any $2500 fine is applicable to sellers [1] who actually use the PayPal services in violation of the Acceptable Use Policy. This does not appear to apply to any and all social media content a user may post online. Even the paragraph [2], which has been oft-referenced in news bites and online ranting as recently edited, is specifically applied to the PayPal service, so I still cannot fathom the extent of the public outrage — aside from a desire of many to make headlines in a world of information overload. Please note that the references I provide here are dated September 2021, so the exact wording will vary from the more recently-retracted version.
If my assessment of this EUA language is correct, then this will not affect the vast majority of PayPal’s users who don’t use PayPal services to post social media commentary and/or editorials. Still … I may be wrong.
—
[1] https://www.paypal.com/us/legalhub/acceptableuse-full “If you are a seller and receive funds for transactions that violate the Acceptable Use Policy, then in addition to being subject to the above actions you will be liable to PayPal for the amount of PayPal’s damages caused by your violation of the Acceptable Use Policy. You acknowledge and agree that $2,500.00 U.S. dollars per violation of the Acceptable Use Policy is presently a reasonable minimum estimate of PayPal’s actual damages …”
[2] https://www.paypal.com/us/legalhub/acceptableuse-full “You may not use the PayPal service for activities that:

  1. violate any law, statute, ordinance or regulation.
  2. relate to transactions involving (a) narcotics, steroids, certain controlled substances or other products that present a risk to consumer safety, (b) drug paraphernalia, (c) cigarettes, (d) items that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity, (e) stolen goods including digital and virtual goods, (f) the promotion of hate, violence, racial or other forms of intolerance that is discriminatory or the financial exploitation of a crime, (g) items that are considered obscene, (h) items that infringe or violate any copyright, trademark, right of publicity or privacy or any other proprietary right under the laws of any jurisdiction, (i) certain sexually oriented materials or services, (j) ammunition, firearms, or certain firearm parts or accessories, or (k) certain weapons or knives regulated under applicable law.

…”

You’re both correct but the issue is simpler than that. It is not binding to place anywhere in a contract or agreement that a condition of the agreement being that one or the other parties violate the law. It may be placed therein but if challenged in court would be ruled as non-binding and null. Therefor not sufficient reason for one party to take from the other party, or guarantee performance, based on that non-binding aspect.

For instance — You and I enter into an agreement that you’re going to deliver to me one cow in reasonable health and serviceable condition for “x” sum of money. I stipulate that you have to procure said cow from the ranch of my competitor without his knowledge, consent or compensation. You have to steal the cow. You agree and go find a healthy cow, which you procure by legal means and deliver it to me. The contract was to provide a cow, I’m obligated to pay you for fulfilling the contract because that was our agreement: 1 cow for one predetermined payment. You are not bound by any agreement to break the law in order to fulfill that agreement.

So makinging that contract with you I opened myself up to paying for a cow not stolen from my neighbor’s ranch because stipulating that was illegal and non-binding. I don’t get to not pay you for the cow and you don’t have to break the law to provide the cow. The court would enforce the legal terms of the contract and throw out the illegal terms.

You cannot enter into an agreement wherein either party is explicitly permitted to or forced to do something illegal. Taking your money without due process is illegal. PayPal can ‘say’ that there is an assumed minimum of $2,500 in damages that must be paid to make PayPal ‘whole’ again. If you say “Bullshit, I didn’t do any damages to your business at all! We’re going to court.” … You’ll win.

You’ll win because this is a foundational principle of Common Law: One party cannot break the law then use the law as a defense or to punish the other party.

There might also be some grounds involving your freedom of peaceful speech being infringed or denied as being an illegal component of the agreement too.

The most they could do is refuse to render any further service, cancel your account and send your balance by wire to your registered bank account. Which they have if you’re using PayPal.

If they go any further than that, then they’ll lose in court. They already know that.

It’s not illegal for them to say you can’t use their financial system to buy something that is otherwise legal. If you violate those terms and they have sustained no obvious damages then they can close your account and give you back whatever money is in there.

The important part of the rules you posted above in this regard is …

” … the promotion of hate, violence, racial or other forms of intolerance that is discriminatory or the financial exploitation of a crime …”

The legal beagles know they would have to support the definition of “discriminatory” in court if it came down to brass tacks. The definition is “what any reasonable person would assume is discriminatory”. A court would likely not buy that being a Trump Voter is discriminatory and there would be no question of discrimination if you posted a sales site that explicitly stated “no black people may purchase these goods”.

(You might get some numbnutz Leftist Judge but that’s what appeals are for.)

Note that the rule stated does not include hate, violence, racial or other forms of intolerance that are not discriminatory. That’s because PayPal’s legal team knows they would have to meet the definition of ‘discriminatory’ that I explained above. For instance, if you took the position that you despise Democrats regardless of their race but would still do business with anyone including them … That’s hateful but not discriminatory. If you posted something to the effect of Russian soldiers are rightfully referred to as Orcs by Ukrainian fighters (which btw they are so named) and deserve every bullet that pierces them … That’s endorsing violence but isn’t particularly discriminatory. Because it’s a war. Etc.

Of course the “financial exploitation of a crime” is pretty much self explanatory and this is more than long enough already.

All of that said, this is an area that because it involves people’s own funds, their business operations and capital, and directly impinges on the livelihood of individuals — This is an area that should be seriously examined and regulatory powers adopted to prevent any spurious, capricious, arbitrary theft under color of law. PayPal has certainly shown the need for tighter regulation of their business and opened that can of worms themselves.

ok, but how does this work? Among the things they listed as ‘verboten’ was the buying or selling of firearms and ammunition. Since those transactions are not necessarily illegal, would they still be able to steal the $2500?

Would they still be able to steal the $2500?

Not unless they’re willing to go to court and make the argument that they’ve suffered some sort of monetary damages to that amount.

If you violate their Acceptable Use Policy they have the right to close your account … and return all your money. Even if what you were doing was otherwise legal. That’s their prerogative as business operator. To keep any of your money they have to supply legal argument to do so. Damages to their business would be a legal argument. I can’t see how buying a box of .22 LR online would constitute any sort of damage.

Taking your money without due process is theft. The legal definition of theft is — … the taking of another person’s personal property with the intent of depriving that person of the use of their property.

Which pretty much describes taking your money without any legal reason to do so.

You can’t legally agree either explicitly or implicitly to being robbed. Robbery is theft and illegal. It’s not a binding legal contract if one party is breaking the law to perform the conditions of the agreement.

Can you imagine if a convenience store chain, like say 7-11, decided that due to losses from shoplifting every debit or credit card with a chip would automatically be billed $10 upon entering the store? Without the owner’s consent or knowledge? That would be stealing $10 from everyone who entered the store, whether they bought anything or not. Entering the store does not somehow magically allow them the legal right to do that, notice of policy or not. Even if they posted their intent in some tiny print at the end of some sort of store policy pasted to the front door. Because you can’t just deprive someone of the use of their property, or their money, no matter how sneaky you go about it.

You cannot consent to be robbed. Robbery is illegal, consent or not.

Regardless of the user agreement editing, I can no longer trust Paypal with my money. Theft is the only way to describe what they tried to include in the new user agreement. I canceled my account. I also wrote them so that they would know why. There are many choices for electronic payment processing. I am really disturbed that they are apparently monitoring customers social media activity. They process financial transactions. What part of a financial transaction involves my opinions and misinformation?

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