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a reddit user shared their story

Just woke up to an Email from PayPal stating that my account was permanently limited, thinking it's a scam I check and lo and behold: I was limited.

But what had I done? Well my only purchases using PayPal were through Itch.io, that's the only thing I use it for.

It seems I was limited for breaking "the policies of our partners" mentioned in the first paragraph of the notice. It's no secret that PayPal are quite close with Mastercard and Visa, who have been pushing hardest for this porn ban (sorry, specifically the NSFW Games sphere).

So this is a PSA: if you're using your PayPal account for anything else, don't use it for Itch.

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[-] breadsmasher@lemmy.world 96 points 6 days ago

PSA is wrong.

Correct PSA is

Stop using Paypal ffs

[-] TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works 14 points 6 days ago

What do you recommend as an intermediary between banks and people, who can't use crypto?

[-] zammy95@lemmy.world 20 points 6 days ago

I've used zelle for years, it's built into every bank app I own and goes directly from my bank to my friends banks. I thought PayPal and Venmo and all that was just used for buying strangers feet pics or whatever nowadays

[-] TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works 6 points 6 days ago

I've never heard of that. Is that a European thing?

[-] grue@lemmy.world 17 points 6 days ago
[-] zammy95@lemmy.world 9 points 6 days ago

Nope, I'm from Pennsylvania lol

[-] CluckN@lemmy.world 30 points 6 days ago

I've never heard of Pennsylvania. Is that a European thing?

[-] violetsoftness@piefed.blahaj.zone 17 points 6 days ago

yes! a british colony from 1681 named after the european religious extremist and slaver William Penn. After eradicating most of the natives with european diseases they stirred shit for 100 years before throwing in with a bunch of other rich white slavers in a complex tax avoidance scheme called The United States.

[-] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 8 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

zelle is an immediate transfer from a bank to another person's bank. It's had some issues with fraud and scams, but I've never had an issue personally. It's in the US and maybe abroad too, idk.

[-] dogs0n@sh.itjust.works 13 points 6 days ago

Looks like it's only in the US.

Can I use Zelle® internationally?

In order to use Zelle®, the sender and recipient must have U.S. bank accounts.

https://www.zellepay.com/faq/can-i-use-zelle-internationally

[-] pillowtags@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 6 days ago

Afaik the scams mostly involve people being convinced to zelle money to strangers, which is a non reversible process.

[-] eatham@aussie.zone 8 points 6 days ago

Why do you need an intermediary, you can use bank transfers and cards.

[-] baguettefish@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

paypal has a more robust chargeback mechanic and is also more widely supported by the world than a swift bank account. it also handles metadata and checking who you're paying/getting paid from better than a swift bank account. there are definitely benefits to it, even if it's financial hell on earth. just recently i managed to do a full chargeback for something expensive, after the seller didn't give me my money back after sending the item back within the 14 days and the item also being defective. the seller was fully uncooperative, but paypal managed to claw the money back. I'd call that a win. I also find it weird how if a company has your bank or credit card details it's trivially easy for them to falsely charge you. That's insane. I know a chargeback is similarly easy, but still. Having a way to make sure to only allow charges with specific intent on your part is amazing.

(i don't use credit cards, the closest i am to debit cards is using google pay. stores here usually support credit and debit cards, yes, but also checking accounts using the aforementioned swift system.)

[-] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 days ago

Why can't they use crypto?

[-] TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works 5 points 5 days ago

There's a high barrier to entry and most shops don't accept it. I support crypto becoming mainstream and simple to use, but it's not there yet.

[-] user224@lemmy.sdf.org 31 points 6 days ago

Isn't PayPal kind of known to find any reason to at least freeze your account?

I stopped using them even for card payments when they shadow banned me (always redirected to "We're sorry..." error page), probably for using single-use virtual cards. Their support simply told them that's not supported (even though it worked).
People on Discogs where I wanted to pay basically told me "Just open a PayPal account, bro.", so I contacted the seller to cancel my order and deleted my account.

[-] Crozekiel@lemmy.zip 23 points 6 days ago

Yes. Their business model is basically stealing money from people that use their service over and over, eventually getting taken to court and strike a settlement for pennies on the dollar.

They have been known to just go empty out attached accounts. They will definitely take any money left in a PayPal "account".
They will freeze your account and refuse any appeals.

Do not use PayPal. For anything. Ever. As far as regulation and protections go, you have none. They are not a bank. Legally speaking (ianal) giving them money and expecting it back (or given to who it is supposed to go to) is the same as giving money to some bloke named Dave down the street and expecting the same.

[-] SoupBrick@pawb.social 33 points 6 days ago
[-] Lyra_Lycan 28 points 6 days ago

the policies of our partners

Lol I couldn't care less about the policies of a handful of pathetic old women, disconnected from reality, who live 17,000km away from me. I'll not have some crackpot old fools dictate my life. Their sphere of influence should never have extended past their little congregation.

[-] Deathgl0be@lemmy.world 18 points 6 days ago

I just deleted my PayPal I’ve had since 2012 fuck these shit heads. We need some alternative payment system or away to cut these middle man’s

[-] Luffy879@lemmy.ml 4 points 6 days ago

Its called monero and Wero.

[-] Deathgl0be@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago

Wero isn’t here in the states. And crypto is a required disclosure on tax forms.

[-] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 3 points 5 days ago

You just have to disclose that you've used it, not how much or who you paid.

[-] devilish666@lemmy.world 8 points 5 days ago

Gladly i stop using paypal before 2012 because some shit happened to me.

[-] j4k3@lemmy.world 14 points 6 days ago

Anyone with scientific skepticism has no right to enjoy the fruits of technology, or dictate any of their backwards conflicted masochistic cultural norms. They belong under the rock they crawled out from under.

[-] fruitcantfly@programming.dev 7 points 6 days ago

Wouldn't scientists be the ones employing "scientific skepticism"?

[-] andioop@programming.dev 4 points 6 days ago

A quick search of the phrase brings up more the "make sure the science done is credible and that you did not massage your data to end up with a specific result" type of skepticism, but I'm guessing the person you replied to meant the type of person who says vaccines do not work and they are just skeptical of all this science stuff in general.

[-] j4k3@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

No scientists are skeptical of all of science, so no. Skepticism is part of the scientific process, but that is totally unrelated to skepticism about the validity of the scientific method of rigorous documentation, observation, and unbiased repeatability by humans that are demonstrably the best and brightest among us. Scientific skepticism is really the plague of ignorant narcissism, the self aggrandizement of crackpots, and the populist fools that follow them.

[-] fruitcantfly@programming.dev 6 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

What you are describing is something I would label "skepticism of science", rather than "scientific skepticism".

So out of curiosity, I did a bit of digging. As andioop mentioned, the term "scientific skepticism" has been used to denote a scientifically minded skepticism for a long time. For example, the Wikipedia article on Scientific Skepticism dates back to 2004 and uses this meaning. Similarly the well known skeptic (pro-science/anti-pseudoscience) wiki, RationalWiki, has linked the scientific method and "scientific skepticism" as far back as 2011, and currently straight up equates skepticism with scientific skepticism. You can also find famous skeptics like Michael Shermer using the term back in the early 2000s, in his case in his 'The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience', published in 2002. It was also used in papers such as this sociology paper by Owen-Smith, 2001. This is the meaning of the term that I am familiar with.

However, since about 2020, there has been more of the term "scientific skepticism" as a parallel to "climate skepticism" and "vaccine skepticism". For example, this paper by Ponce de Leon et al is just one of many I could find via a quick Google Scholar search. This, I take it, is how you use the term.

Personally, I'm probably just gonna keep using "scientific skepticism" to mean "scientifically minded skepticism", but will keep in mind that it can also mean "skepticism of science"

[-] sukhmel@programming.dev 2 points 6 days ago

Oh, it's this ‘let's call absolutely different things or even polar opposites the same name’ trope again, I hate it. Thanks for digging it up and informing us

[-] fruitcantfly@programming.dev 8 points 6 days ago
this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2025
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