For those of you that still use PayPal, you should stop immediately. While in the past we were forced to use them on eBay, they shut down our payment processing and seized around $13,000 in our account saying we had violated their Acceptable Use Policy. Here's the thing, nothing we sold on eBay violated that, because well they use the blanket statement "Certain Firearm Accessories and Parts are banned from Sale". Don't tell you what parts, because then they can choose at whim what to shut down a small business for. Held our money for six months, well last week they changed their policy stating they would no longer absorb violation fees that they pay to the U.S. Government. Oh and these "violations" are $2500 a pop. They have NO ACTUAL PAPERWORK on what we violated, and refuse to give us anything. Only $2500 violation I can think of would be ITAR, and we don't ship outside of the US. So they kept our $13,000 dollars saying it was fees for violations, haven't told us what it was nor will tell us, and because of the current political climate we can even get our own Sheriff's Department to file charges. They say somewhere buried in the legalese will be clauses that they can do this. Add in that PayPal is super friendly with our current governor and they are in the same f'ing building as our state Attorney General means that money is gone forever. A few months payroll for one employee gone. Bonuses for employees gone. All highly criminal behavior, but completely legal because our illustrious Government has allowed corporations more rights than actual people. Think we were the only ones? Nope, everyones favorite grip appliqué Tractiongrips, Type 01 FFL Dealer has had their eBay account suspended, and I would guess at this point their account drained as well. Don emailed us this morning with Google Ad Sense terminating his account without ANY PRIOR VIOLATIONS OR REASON, stating it is due to a change in their policies. Wake up people, Big Brother doesn't have to ban shit, they're getting their corporate lackeys to do all the work for them.

Wow!

Have you discussed with an attorney? Maybe one who will sue for actual plus punitive damages?

Does paypal fall under any usual banking regulations? FTC?

They took $300 of my funds in an ebay scam years ago. I spent days arguing with paypal/ebay and never got any reason why even after they determined I had done nothing wrong. There is no higher up level to appeal to.

It had nothing to do with guns or gun parts, it was about a fraudulent motorcycle auction scam by a hacker using my account name. And I was the one who reported it!

Cancelled my paypal account months ago, kept getting emails from them to login and change password as someone was trying to use my account.

Closed it and left.. Adios Mo-Fo's

I thought maybe Venmo would be a good option but it's owned by PayPal...

They can also hold payment to vendors for up to 31 days for "review," with no other reason required or specified. No one is apparently policing their business policies, or holding them accountable.

$13,000?

That's THEFT, pure and simple.

Lawyer up.

For $13K? Lawyer. Federal District Court. Looks like you're in NC, correct? You could do much worse than NC and worse than the 4th Circuit if it ends up somehow at the appellate level.

-Rob

I was unaware that anyone still used Paypal at all anymore.

quote:

Originally posted by Fenris:
I was unaware that anyone still used Paypal at all anymore.

I wouldn't, but for my incessant need to acquire work related items for a decent price. The default payment method, often REQUIRED PAYMENT METHOD on ebay, is PayPal.

Between them and Amazon I dump a LOT of money to save, on average, about 25% for the types of things I buy. I wish there were other options, but alas, not right now.

Now one thing I do to protect myself as a buyer on ebay/PayPal, is use a CC to pay, which allows me to contact the CC company if necessary, to dispute a payment.

Hope you guys find a way to make things right at Galloway.

Lawyer time.

Or maybe Small Claims Court.

I started pointing this out about six years ago.

I've posted about this on SIGforum several times.

And was roundly derided each time as having my tin foil hat to tight or knowing nothing about the law.

So, I'm taking advantage of GallowayPrecision's misfortune to say

"See??!?!? I told you so!!!!"

Oh, and GallowayPrecision... Sorry about them stealing your money.

PayPal is claiming it was violation of some federal or state statute or regulation simply to make you go away. The fed.gov has no grounds to assess fines against PayPal for any ITAR violation by your firm, the fed.gov must come after you. The same for violations of 27 CFR 478.

Hidden in the User Agreement is an arbitration provision. I highly recommend invoking it. At least that way they must tell you exactly what you did wrong.

ETA: I sent an email to the eddress in your profile.

I read their EULA or whatever and decided not to go with them years ago.

Don't feel alone. A few years ago B of A tried to foreclose on my house, wrongly of course. I settled for a few thousand payoff and release of my note.

If they violated the agreement with you, you should sue them.

Your post doesn't give enough information to decide whether they did or did not. I understand that you believe they did, but - as is always true - there are almost always two sides to a commercial dispute.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
Wow!

Have you discussed with an attorney? Maybe one who will sue for actual plus punitive damages?

Punitive damages are almost never available in commercial, contract disputes.

He would have to be able to allege some tort (fraud, for example) to be eligible to make a claim for punitive damages. Fraud or theft/conversion are usually hard to establish in the context of pre-existing relationships already governed by a contract. Hard, but not impossible.

Ummm.... 13K? Lawyer time. Even if your attorney fees take a bite out of any recovery, it might be worth the cost to shove this up their ass.

Any remaining desire to ever use PayPal again has been removed.

It's easy for them to pick on a retailer or two. They have done this enough to warrant a class action suit from several vendors. The only way to combat this is to fit them in the pocketbooks...via lawsuits and punitive judgement.

quote:

Originally posted by Fenris:
I was unaware that anyone still used Paypal at all anymore.

I use paypal all the time, including to purchase firearms. It goes through as a gift, no explanation as to what's bought. It's none of their business. I've bought a few dozen firearms that way.

I think you folks advising GallowayPrecision may not know how much lawyers cost nowadays. With no clear path to victory, and there rarely is in these sorts of disputes, it could very well end up good money after bad. GallowayPrecision, proceed with caution; don't let emotion govern your next moves.

"small claims court" will end up being a paper judgement with no manner of collection in many states. So he's still out his $13,000.

I asked previously, does anyone know if paypal falls under any government regulatory agency?