814 points by I_am_tiberius 1507 days ago | 311 comments on HN
| Moderate positive
Contested
Editorial · v3.7· 2026-02-28 12:21:43 0
Summary Due Process & Property Rights Advocates
This article reports on a federal class-action lawsuit against PayPal for freezing customer accounts and seizing funds without explanation or due process. The story documents substantial financial harm to three affected users engaged in legitimate commerce (eBay sales, business operations, non-profit work) and advocates for their legal remedies. The reporting centers on violations of due process, property rights, and the right to engage in trade, emphasizing the need for corporate accountability and consumer protections.
Thing that amazes me is that people leave huge amounts of money in their PayPal instead of withdrawing it regularly. Why not just withdraw it, and then PayPal has nothing to seize!
“using PayPal to buy and sell clothing on eBay, to exchange money for a poker league she owns and for a non-profit that helps women with various needs. “
I can see one of those things causing an issue (poker league)
We use PayPal for membership fees for our nonprofit. This year they’re limiting us to 2000 a month transfer out which is annoying to us, but we’re small enough to get by.
Very good news, especially the potential class action.
Something that I find very interesting is how the individual lawsuits will end. I remember (but can't find) a David vs Goliath case from some time ago, where a user brought Google to the small claims court. He won the case in that venue, but subsequently lost when Google followed up an brought a huge amount of documentation and won. The guy's conclusion was that Google knows _a lot_ of stuff and can leverage it; I think that the events could play similarly, here.
I've been battling dumb Paypal problems both on the end user and the merchant side so often that I'll never again use it if at all possible, especially in shops. It's just not worth the time and effort to try and trick them into doing their job.
The problem is that usually anti-money laundering laws give the operator and the compliance officer an infinite protection even on a suspected money laundering. As long as the compliance process is followed, no matter how stupid the process is, there is no legal basis to go after account freezer and the company is protected. Thus, the company has no incentive to be reasonable with account freezes.
I'm so happy to see this. I am working on publishing a book on leanpub, and leanpub disburses payments using paypal. Yesterday, I logged into my paypal account and I remembered that this happened to me and my funds and account were frozen since 2010 (something I must have put out of my mind :p).
I was searching for this issue and found this lawsuit and cannot wait to be part of it.
Dealing with Paypal during the time was borderline abusive and I felt helpless every step of the way. In 2010 when they froze my account they mailed me a physical letter with an activation code which took weeks, and when I called to confirm my account I was told that the code was incorrect...
I had very very little money in my account < $100 and I can't imagine how frustrating it would be for someone who needed paypal for their income.
I'm happy to be in a position where I can choose to never use paypal again and I hope they are punished for the way they treat their customers.
We are Europe's largest site for RFID and pentesting hardware (lab401.com)
We are in the exactly the same situation.
PayPal has conducted a personalised, manually executed war of attrition against our company and shareholders.
Eight months ago, PayPal froze our account, seizing 15kEU.
They refused to give any justification for the action, despite discussions with C-level staff.
After the 180-day "withholding" period, we were informed that they would not release the funds, for undisclosed reasons.
We immediately engaged legal counsel. PayPal refused to interact with our counsel, and so a C&D was issued.
Within one week of the C&D, PayPal did the following:
- Froze the account of our sister company (in Hong Kong), seizing 35k EU
- Froze the personal accounts of all shareholders of the EU and HK corps (~1,5k EU)
- Froze the business accounts of all shareholders by name search (different corporate entities, different businesses) - 5kEU
- Froze the business accounts that the shareholders held (again, different corps, different businesses) - another 5kEU
Our policy is to empty accounts on the 28th of each month.
PayPal froze and seized funds in all accounts on the 27th of the month.
Based on the time-stamps of the emails, and the order in which the accounts we closed, it's obvious that it was a targeted, manual process (2 - 3 minutes between closing each personal account, 15 minutes to find the next company account, 3 - 5 to close the personal accounts, and then 10 - 15 minutes for the next company accounts).
We engaged secondary legal counsel in Luxembourg (PayPal's EU headquarters).
Again, PayPal refused to disclose any reason, justification or proof, replying with typo-ridden copy-pasted document from a low-level legal peon, concluding that no funds would be returned, the businesses and personal accounts were deemed 'illegal', and as such, PayPal would confiscate all funds.
All KYC was performed. All accounts had been "audited" by PayPal (when you reach the 5k, 50k, 100k+ processing tiers).
Needless to say, operationally - we have shipped 50kEU of hardware to customers, and face losses of the hardware, and costs of replacing stock.
I agree with the standpoint: this is purely racketeering - an online equivalent of Civil Forfeiture.
For extra context, as the points have been raised in other comments:
- In a perfect world, no merchant would use PayPal. In our experiments, disabling PayPal cuts revenue by ~30% in our industries.
- Pentesting products could include illegal products: keyloggers, etc. We sell no such products for obvious legal and compliance reasons. All the products we sell are sold by countless other resellers that use PayPal. We have processed Visa/MC with Stripe for over 6 years with no problems (legal, chargeback, etc)
- We empty accounts regularly, to minimize fallout. However, you have to keep a healthy minimum in accounts when dealing with large volume, or accounts get limited automatically (presumably to avoid merchants pulling cash to avoid chargebacks / refunds)
- We have already 'invested' over 20k in legal fees. I justify this cost in (perhaps falsely) believing that we could establish some case law that could benefit other merchants.
It's unfortunate that we cannot join the class action in the US, or we'd be into it.
With that said, if anyone merchant in the EU has similar issues, it could be interesting to investigate if a similar action can be mounted in the EU. Feel free to reach out: simon at sn dot cm (not a typo).
I'm happy that this is happening. Small buisness owners, Twitch streamers etc. can get their PayPal account locked pretty easily for "suspicious" activity (i.e chargebacks or a few thousand dollars). Then PayPal locks their account for 180 days with little to no recourse. The big Twitch streamers register an LLC which PayPals gives more leniency to AFAIU.
> Lena Evans, one of the plaintiffs who'd been a PayPal user for 22 years, said the website seized $26,984 from her account six months after it got frozen without ever telling her why.
Wait, what? They're actually taking the money? I thought the article was just being careless with the terms "frozen" and "seized".
On what power are they doing so? It's understandable when the relevant authorities (be it a tax authority, or a financial supervisory authority, or a court, or whatever) seize money, but they are not an authority.
Furthermore, if the money in question actually were illicit, then by what fantasy argument would they be allowed to keep it themselves rather than having to hand it over to the goverment? The entire point is that the money is dirty and nobody may keep it.
This has been happening to folks for ages. I'm looking forward to understanding why Paypal thinks it can steal from it's customers without facing repercussions. I wouldn't do anything serious with Paypal for this exact reason.
Great to see this! Not to the same scale as seizure but using buymeacoffee.com for OSS donations PayPal would lock my account every month or two until I uploaded a bunch of documents (which were always the same docs each time). Each time it was a little uncertain if I'd be able to get my money out or not. Meanwhile PayPal would happily continue to receive money in my name that I didn't have access to.
This is devastating to those users affected by this, but I believe that the blame doesn't lie solely with PayPal. Unfortunately there are many laws they must comply with that delegate enforcement to private companies like PayPal rather than where is belongs - the government.
From the article:
PayPal allegedly sent his wife a letter that says she "violated PayPal's User Agreement and Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) by accepting payments for the sale of injectable fillers not approved by the FDA."
If PayPal DOESN'T freeze the account and hold the money, they can get in far larger trouble with the government. Why should PayPal be involved in this enforcement at all? If the FDA doesn't like what this seller is doing, let the FDA themselves go after the seller and leave PayPal out of it. But the law doesn't work that way.
I had $10k's in an account with BofA that was frozen and nearly killed the closing on a house I was buying at the time. Because they had a mailbox address on file for me, rather than my home address. It was horrible for me, but that's what the says that they had to do, and if they didn't the could end up in trouble with the feds facing huge penalties.
Let's try to empathize with all parties and think rationally about the incentives and constraints that they face.
Recently I've been suspended from an "online bank". It's a traumatic experience, especially if you need the money held in that account.
Fortunately the amount I had there was not that big but the abusive procedure is trumatic. I can't imagine how someone would feel like to have all his rent money blocked in an online bank.
Basically you are told that unless you provide whatever documentation they want you loose the access to your own funds. Of course providing them documentation is no guarantee they will lift the restrictions. The support is via email only. The boarding and verification process it's really just a bite and switch scheme. I don't know how someone would feel safe to keep money in such a bank after they put your account/transactions on hold for days.
I start to like the "crypto currency" concept of owning your money more and more.
When I worked at PayPal, some of the execs would say "we don't make money by giving it back to people". These were the execs that worked directly with Theil and Musk and I'm sure they're long gone, but it was definitely Theil and Musk who pushed for these types of policies right from the start (well Musk agreed when he showed up, he wasn't a founder of PayPal despite what he wants you to believe).
Hearing the stories in this thread makes me wonder if anyone has ever tried to get a decree that PayPal owes them the money, and if PayPal refuses to pay show up to confiscate their property.
I know things like this have happened to banks[1]. That would probably get them to start paying attention.
PayPal refuses to let heirs access, or even know if there is a balance on accounts after people die, regardless of death certificates. I wonder how much money is being held by this tactic?
I refuse to use paypal for any nontrivial amounts of money for this exact reason. I once had $10k frozen for no reason at all. I really needed that money back then. Was an absolute nightmare and took weeks to unfreeze.
The only thing I now trust for "quick" payments of larger amounts of money is bank wire.
Cryptocurrencies don't exactly solve this problem since you need to convert back to the fiat currency and you then have exchange rate volatility + withdrawal delays (and crypto exchanges also are notorious for freezing withdrawals).
In the past at least, PayPal has also been known for simply taking funds from your linked banked account.
So maybe it's better to not link a bank account at all, which means leaving funds in your PayPal account until you can spend them (since you have no way of withdrawing).
Paypal still makes it hard for you to automatically transfer out money, so you have to remember to do it manually every so often. And then they'll block you anyway because you tried to transfer out
- too much
- too often
- too seldomly
- too little
Or any combination thereof. The only winning move it to not use it in the first place.
Well if that's in their T's and C's that's fine, to a point, but they can't just silently close an account and take money from people. They need to return the money - it's not their job to play police and judge and seize illicit gains, a court has to decide whether it IS illicit and what happens to it first - and to give an explanation as to why they no longer want to do business with them.
I mean not wanting to do business is every business and person's right. But taking someone else's money without a court order or mandate is theft.
Freezing the account or booting the user from the service is one thing, but seizing the money as a result without any due process seems pretty messed up IMO
PayPal has worked hard to not be a “bank” so they are long overdue for being sued about this. I know countless vendors who have had their funds stolen.
AML/KYC laws are a travesty to a free society. Wealth transfer shouldn't be illegal. Prosecute the underlying crimes and let the judicial process seize proceeds of crime after due process. In the meantime, various electronic systems continue to provide adequate avenues for those seeking minimized exposure to KYC/AML.
They offer the worst currency conversion rate imaginable when you go to withdraw to your non-US bank, so some people prefer to keep it in PP as a USD spending account i guess.
See my comment below: they just seized (not frozen, seized) 50k EU from us in a targetted attack against our company and shareholders because we took legal counsel when they froze the accounts.
EDIT: From PayPal's AUP in the Complaint.. yowch! "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 - including, but not limited to, internal administrative costs incurred by PayPal to monitor and track violations, damage to PayPal’s brand and reputation, and penalties imposed upon PayPal by its business partners resulting from a user’s violation - considering all currently existing circumstances, including the relationship of the sum to the range of harm to PayPal that reasonably could be anticipated because, due to the nature of the violations of the Acceptable Use Policy, actual damages would be impractical or extremely difficult to calculate. PayPal may deduct such damages directly from any existing balance in any PayPal account you control."
> We immediately engaged legal counsel. PayPal refused to interact with our counsel, and so a C&D was issued. Within one week of the C&D, PayPal did the following:
- Froze the account of our sister company (in Hong Kong), seizing 35k EU
- Froze the personal accounts of all shareholders of the EU and HK corps (~1,5k EU)
- Froze the business accounts of all shareholders by name search (different corporate entities, different businesses) - 5kEU
- Froze the business accounts that the shareholders held (again, different corps, different businesses) - another 5kEU
how can any of this be legal? aren't there laws prohibiting such actions from PayPal?
Because they've been doing it since last millennium, and the competing services that didn't steal from their customers went bankrupt because of fraud and reversed payments.
> In our experiments, disabling PayPal cuts revenue by ~30% in our industries.
I’m curious- have you considered adding other third party gateways (Apple Pay/Amazon Pay/something else)? I personally try to avoid entering my card number, so my general order of precedence is Apple Pay > Amazon Pay > Paypal > card entry.
Before Paypal launched, only companies had relationships with payment processors and could directly accept major credit cards. Individuals had basically nothing.
Paypal was a huge catalyst for online auctions and small business, and it took took time for behavior like this to develop. And as others have said, they worked hard to not be a bank.
> It was horrible for me, but that's what the says that they had to do, and if they didn't the could end up in trouble with the feds facing huge penalties.
Except that most likely isn't true. The law does not require banks to have your home address. The law does require banks to verify your identity, but there are many ways to do this without requiring a "home address".
The "home address" rule is self-imposed by banks and is yet another way that our country makes life unnecessarily difficult for homeless or itinerant people.
Edit: This is regarding USA law, and I realized I am not where you reside. I assumed USA because of the FDA mention but I realized that was referencing the article so may not be a good clue.
I have (almost) no issue with accounts being frozen.
At the end of the day, it's a private company, they can chose if they want to do business with you or not. Likewise, holding for 180 days is aligned with most credit card chargeback limits, so they protect themselves. (There are other ways to go about this, which most other processors handle in a frictionless fashion, ie Stripe).
Having an account frozen is more than annoying, but it's their choice.
However seizing (stealing) funds is completely unacceptable, no matter how it's dressed up. Hell, even if they gave seized funds to charity it'd be slightly more palatable than lining their pockets from proceeds they deemed as "risky".
I can recall reading many PayPal horror stories, but as I recall, they were all accounts frozen and then usually closed and paid out 6+months later. This story and others in comments suggest PayPal has decided not to pay out the frozen accounts anymore. Damages from freezing the money for 6 months are real, but may not be realistically legally actionable; damages from not paying the funds are clearly actionable.
For over a decade I've heard tons of stories about PayPal freezing accounts for questionable reasons. I've heard of events that were cancelled because the organizers suddenly couldn't access the money people paid to the event, and PayPal wouldn't release the money until they could prove they'd organized the event for which people paid, for which the organizers of course needed that money.
I will never ever use PayPal. Everything I've heard about them makes them sound like an extremely unreliable payment provider.They're not an organization you should trust with your money.
Every time I've read about someone making a fuss about PayPal freezing their account, as you get into the details of their business, it quickly becomes apparent that knowingly or otherwise, they're doing something risky enough that it triggered something related to terms and conditions that they didn't bother to read. I realize that's just my anecdote, but when you're working with money, there's a lot of boring reading you should do. Quickly becomes apparent why that opportunity to fill a seemingly obvious hole in a market isn't the opportunity you thought it was.
No sympathy here. They've been steali..err..seizing funds for decades, and dodging the lawsuits by leveraging their clout. Sure, maybe they have some regulations to follow, but they willfully choose to ignore the folks they're stealing from, instead of helping them to understand the process of getting their stolen money back, and prevent money from being stolen from them in the future. I hope they're squeezed hard on this one.
Yeah... I've been hearing these horror stories about paypal for a very long time now and it makes my blood boil knowing that nothing's ever been done about it. I really hope that a big change is about to happen.
Core issue. Complaint directly alleges due process violation and unequal treatment. Article documents inconsistent application of rules to different plaintiffs.
FW Ratio: 50%
Observable Facts
Complaint directly alleges 'widespread business practice of unilaterally seizing funds from its clients' financial accounts, without cause and without any fair or due process.'
Different plaintiffs received different treatment: one told the problem was IP-sharing, another told it was pricing below retail, another told it was multiple accounts.
Inferences
The inconsistent application and unilateral actions described represent a direct violation of equality before law and fair process principles.
The article documents corporate practices that deny users equal and consistent application of stated rules, violating the principle that all must be treated equally before law.
Property rights central. Article documents unlawful seizure with specific amounts ($26,984, $42,000, $172,000) and complaint language 'unlawfully seizing their personal property.'
FW Ratio: 50%
Observable Facts
Article documents PayPal seizing $26,984 from Lena Evans, $42,000 from Roni Shemtov, and $172,000 from Shbadan Akylbekov—their own personal property held in their accounts.
Complaint quoted in article describes PayPal's conduct as 'unlawfully seizing their personal property' and refers to funds as 'Plaintiffs' own money.'
Inferences
The documented seizure of substantial personal property without due process represents a direct violation of property rights protections.
The article advocates for protection of individuals' property rights against unilateral corporate seizure, emphasizing the importance of legal process.
Work and right to engage in trade central. Three detailed case studies of individuals engaged in legitimate commerce (eBay sales, yoga clothing, hyaluronic pens) directly harmed by account freezes.
FW Ratio: 60%
Observable Facts
Lena Evans used PayPal 'to buy and sell clothing on eBay, to exchange money for a poker league she owns and for a non-profit.'
Roni Shemtov 'sold yoga clothing,' with explanation that she allegedly sold 'at 20 to 30 percent lower than retail,' allegedly violating policy.
Shbadan Akylbekov 'used the account of a company his wife owns to sell Hyaluron pens.'
Inferences
The three detailed case studies demonstrate how PayPal account freezes directly prevent individuals from engaging in legitimate commerce and earning livelihood.
The article advocates for protection of individuals' right to work and engage in trade, showing the concrete harm when these rights are violated.
Central to lawsuit. Article emphasizes PayPal's failure to inform plaintiffs of reasons for account limitations, denying them legal recognition and fair process.
FW Ratio: 50%
Observable Facts
Article states plaintiffs had 'accounts frozen and funds taken...without explanation' and were denied information about the reasons for PayPal's actions.
Complaint quoted in article: PayPal told plaintiffs they would 'have to get a subpoena' to learn why their accounts were being frozen.
Inferences
The denial of explanation and information represents a failure to recognize plaintiffs as legal persons entitled to information about decisions affecting them.
The reporting advocates for recognition of individuals' right to be treated as legal persons capable of understanding and challenging corporate decisions.
Fair and public hearing is central to lawsuit. Complaint emphasizes PayPal's systematic failure to provide explanation or hearing.
FW Ratio: 50%
Observable Facts
Article quotes complaint: 'PayPal has failed to inform Plaintiffs and members of the class of the reason(s) for the actions PayPal has taken.'
Complaint states PayPal told plaintiffs they would 'have to get a subpoena' to obtain explanation, denying them access to information about decisions affecting them.
Inferences
The systematic denial of explanation and hearing represents a violation of the right to fair and public hearing on decisions affecting one's interests.
The reporting advocates for the right to understand and challenge corporate decisions, foundational to Article 10's protections.
Article extensively covers due process violations, property seizure without cause, and legal remedies. Central to UDHR principles of human dignity and rights protection.
FW Ratio: 50%
Observable Facts
Article reports on federal class-action lawsuit filed by three PayPal users against PayPal Inc. for freezing accounts and seizing customer funds without explanation.
Complaint quoted in article alleges PayPal engaged in 'widespread business practice of unilaterally seizing funds from its clients' financial accounts, without cause and without any fair or due process.'
Inferences
The article's focus on violations of due process, property rights, and corporate accountability demonstrates engagement with foundational UDHR principles protecting human dignity.
By documenting harmful corporate practices and legal remedies available to harmed individuals, the reporting advocates for human rights protections in commercial relationships.
Describes process where individual was sanctioned (funds seized) before receiving explanation, violating presumption of fair process.
FW Ratio: 50%
Observable Facts
Akylbekov's account was limited without initial explanation, remained frozen for six months, and only after funds were seized did PayPal provide post-hoc justification referencing AUP violations.
The timeline described (freeze first, explanation later) represents the inverse of fair trial procedure: sanction before hearing.
Inferences
The article documents a process where individuals were punished before receiving notice or opportunity to respond, violating presumption of innocence principles.
The temporal inversion of decision and notification demonstrates the absence of fair trial procedures that protect individuals from arbitrary punishment.
Financial security and social welfare discussed implicitly. Seizure of funds directly threatens plaintiffs' ability to meet living expenses and maintain essential activities.
FW Ratio: 50%
Observable Facts
Article documents PayPal's seizure of funds that plaintiffs needed for living expenses and maintaining businesses: poker league operations, non-profit work, and commercial sales.
The frozen accounts prevented individuals from accessing their own funds for six months or more, directly affecting their economic security.
Inferences
The seizure and inability to access funds directly threaten individuals' ability to meet basic living needs and maintain economic activities.
The article's documentation of this impact highlights how corporate practices can undermine financial security necessary for social welfare.
Documents unequal and inconsistent treatment of PayPal users subject to same policies, with different explanations provided for similar violations.
FW Ratio: 50%
Observable Facts
Article documents three different plaintiffs receiving different treatments and explanations for account freezes, despite all being PayPal customers subject to the same policies.
Different customer representatives allegedly gave different reasons: IP-sharing for one plaintiff, pricing below retail for another, multiple accounts for the third.
Inferences
The inconsistent and arbitrary treatment described demonstrates violation of equal dignity principles across a user population.
The reporting frames these discrepancies as evidence of unfair corporate practices, implicitly advocating for equal treatment of all users.
Class-action lawsuit represents collective association of users against corporate practice. Article covers the aggregated legal action.
FW Ratio: 33%
Observable Facts
Article covers the filing of a class-action lawsuit, explicitly uniting multiple users: 'Three PayPal users...are accusing the company' and 'proposing a class-action lawsuit on behalf of all other users.'
Inferences
The class-action lawsuit represents a collective exercise of association and aggregated power against corporate misconduct.
The article's coverage of collective legal action demonstrates how groups form to exercise their rights.
Standard of living and health implicitly addressed. Seizure of funds impacts plaintiffs' ability to maintain adequate living standards.
FW Ratio: 50%
Observable Facts
Article documents that seizure of funds (totaling $26,984, $42,000, and $172,000) impacts plaintiffs' ability to access resources for living expenses and business operations.
Lena Evans used the frozen account for a non-profit helping women, suggesting dependency on these funds for providing assistance to vulnerable populations.
Inferences
The reported seizures directly impact individuals' ability to maintain an adequate standard of living and sustain economic activities.
The article documents how corporate practices can undermine the material conditions necessary for adequate standards of living.
Lawsuit seeks to establish legal and social accountability for corporate practices, implicitly advocating for order where corporations are accountable to law.
FW Ratio: 50%
Observable Facts
Article documents a lawsuit seeking to establish legal accountability for PayPal's business practices, requesting 'damages and other relief available at law and in equity.'
Complaint proposes class-action remedy 'on behalf of all other users' affected by the practice, suggesting effort to establish systematic accountability.
Inferences
The lawsuit represents an effort to establish a legal and social order where corporations are accountable for their treatment of customers.
By reporting on the lawsuit, the article advocates for systems of corporate accountability necessary to a just social order.
Article documents seizure of substantial funds threatening plaintiffs' financial security and ability to maintain essential activities.
FW Ratio: 50%
Observable Facts
Article documents PayPal seizing $26,984, $42,000, and $172,000 from three users' accounts, directly threatening their financial security.
Lena Evans used the account for her poker league and non-profit work, suggesting the frozen funds directly affected her ability to support dependent activities.
Inferences
The seizure of substantial funds directly threatens individuals' ability to maintain financial security and meet basic needs.
The reporting demonstrates how corporate practices can undermine the material conditions necessary for security and dignity.
Article documents selective and inconsistent treatment that could constitute discrimination, though not explicitly framed as such.
FW Ratio: 50%
Observable Facts
Article documents discriminatory treatment where some PayPal users received explanations for account freezes while others did not, and explanations varied inconsistently.
Inferences
The selective and inconsistent treatment suggests potential discrimination in how PayPal applied its policies to different users.
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