Hello kantorkel and Tor ops,
To put a little meat on the bone of this situation, I did not receive an email from PayPal--I was informed that I was banned when I tried to make a payment for VPS hosting. During the week before this ban, I had sent funds to both Flokinet for an exit relay in Finland and to ITLDC.com for VPS hosting in Poland--both exit relays. I used the PayPal support email to ask for the reason I was banned and to ask for re-instatement. I have heard nothing back.
I had surmised that someone was monitoring payments to off-shore hosting companies and maybe they assumed I was supporting a news agency--I don't know really. If that is the case, why haven't the hosting sites been banned as well?
The message in my PayPal account referred to a violation of the user agreement. Here is the full text of the message:
-We're unable to continue offering our services -Thank you for using PayPal as your payment partner.
-Unfortunately, we are unable to continue offering our services -to you at this time due to the nature of your business and/or -activity in your account and the risk it poses to PayPal. This -decision can't be overturned.
-If you owe refunds to any of your buyers, you can use the money -in your PayPal account to refund them.
-Money in your PayPal account will be held for 180 days. After -180 days, we'll email you information on how to withdraw your -money.
The only transactions on this account over the past 3-months were VPS lease payments off-shore. I looked up the user agreement to determine where I had violated the rules and found only a single reference to operating servers:
-Service Requiring Pre-Approval: -Providing file sharing services or access to newsgroups; or -selling alcoholic beverages, non-cigarette tobacco products, --e-cigarettes or prescription drugs/devices.
I have a zoom meeting with two attorneys from EFF.org on March 18. Stay tuned....and maybe ban PayPal.
--potlatch
Sent with ProtonMail Secure Email.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ On Thursday, March 11, 2021 12:06 AM, Matthias Marx kantorkel@hamburg.freifunk.net wrote:
Hi Potlatch,
would you mind sharing PayPal's email / full message with me?
Regards from Hamburg kantorkel
Am 3/11/21 um 12:42 AM schrieb potlatch:
Today I received a message from PayPal that paying for Tor relay server leases was a direct violation of my usage agreement. I have been paying off-shore VPS hosts for my Tor server leases with PayPal for at least ten years. Very interesting that they act now. They specifically state the ban was for: Providing file sharing services or access to newsgroups; or selling alcoholic beverages, non-cigarette tobacco products, e-cigarettes or prescription drugs/devices. They further state that the ban is permanent and not reversible. I liked using PayPal because it was a safe way to pay and didn't expose my credit card information. Before PayPal I used a prepaid card which I will probably go back too. --Potlatch Sent with ProtonMail https://protonmail.com Secure Email.
tor-relays mailing list tor-relays@lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-relays
Hello again,
did you talk to the hosting companies? Maybe they know about other customers facing the same issue.
Best kantorkel
Am 3/13/21 um 4:33 AM schrieb potlatch:
Hello kantorkel and Tor ops,
To put a little meat on the bone of this situation, I did not receive an email from PayPal--I was informed that I was banned when I tried to make a payment for VPS hosting. During the week before this ban, I had sent funds to both Flokinet for an exit relay in Finland and to ITLDC.com for VPS hosting in Poland--both exit relays. I used the PayPal support email to ask for the reason I was banned and to ask for re-instatement. I have heard nothing back.
I had surmised that someone was monitoring payments to off-shore hosting companies and maybe they assumed I was supporting a news agency--I don't know really. If that is the case, why haven't the hosting sites been banned as well?
The message in my PayPal account referred to a violation of the user agreement. Here is the full text of the message:
-We're unable to continue offering our services -Thank you for using PayPal as your payment partner.
-Unfortunately, we are unable to continue offering our services -to you at this time due to the nature of your business and/or -activity in your account and the risk it poses to PayPal. This -decision can't be overturned.
-If you owe refunds to any of your buyers, you can use the money -in your PayPal account to refund them.
-Money in your PayPal account will be held for 180 days. After -180 days, we'll email you information on how to withdraw your -money.
The only transactions on this account over the past 3-months were VPS lease payments off-shore. I looked up the user agreement to determine where I had violated the rules and found only a single reference to operating servers:
-Service Requiring Pre-Approval: -Providing file sharing services or access to newsgroups; or -selling alcoholic beverages, non-cigarette tobacco products, --e-cigarettes or prescription drugs/devices.
I have a zoom meeting with two attorneys from EFF.org on March 18. Stay tuned....and maybe ban PayPal.
--potlatch
Sent with ProtonMail Secure Email.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ On Thursday, March 11, 2021 12:06 AM, Matthias Marx kantorkel@hamburg.freifunk.net wrote:
Hi Potlatch,
would you mind sharing PayPal's email / full message with me?
Regards from Hamburg kantorkel
Am 3/11/21 um 12:42 AM schrieb potlatch:
Today I received a message from PayPal that paying for Tor relay server leases was a direct violation of my usage agreement. I have been paying off-shore VPS hosts for my Tor server leases with PayPal for at least ten years. Very interesting that they act now. They specifically state the ban was for: Providing file sharing services or access to newsgroups; or selling alcoholic beverages, non-cigarette tobacco products, e-cigarettes or prescription drugs/devices. They further state that the ban is permanent and not reversible. I liked using PayPal because it was a safe way to pay and didn't expose my credit card information. Before PayPal I used a prepaid card which I will probably go back too. --Potlatch Sent with ProtonMail https://protonmail.com Secure Email.
tor-relays mailing list tor-relays@lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-relays
Potlatch:
Thanks for not accepting PayPal nonsense and seeking legal advise.
Some bot so call "AI" got in the way I assume.
When you try and talk to a human at Paypal or any of these mega corporations, they behave as bots and cannot move off script. But you are not often allowed to talk anyway, and directed all the time to FAQs, not allowed to email, mailing and addresses hidden away and sometimes not present at all. To have one is legal requirement in the UK at least. An abuse of their monopoly powers.
The funny thing is Paypal is allowing Bitcoin on their US site in a limited way.
Payments for VPS by bitcoin or any other digital currency is not an option with many providers yet, and I regard Bitcoin itself as a store of value, long term, not to trade or use to buy stuff.
Gerry
-----Original Message----- From: tor-relays tor-relays-bounces@lists.torproject.org On Behalf Of kantorkel@hamburg.freifunk.net Sent: 13 March 2021 09:32 To: potlatch potlatch@protonmail.com; tor-relays@lists.torproject.org Subject: Re: [tor-relays] I was banned from PayPal
Hello again,
did you talk to the hosting companies? Maybe they know about other customers facing the same issue.
Best kantorkel
Am 3/13/21 um 4:33 AM schrieb potlatch:
Hello kantorkel and Tor ops,
To put a little meat on the bone of this situation, I did not receive an email from PayPal--I was informed that I was banned when I tried to make a payment for VPS hosting. During the week before this ban, I had sent funds to both Flokinet for an exit relay in Finland and to ITLDC.com for VPS hosting in Poland--both exit relays. I used the PayPal support email to ask for the reason I was banned and to ask for re-instatement. I have heard nothing back.
I had surmised that someone was monitoring payments to off-shore hosting companies and maybe they assumed I was supporting a news agency--I don't know really. If that is the case, why haven't the hosting sites been banned as well?
The message in my PayPal account referred to a violation of the user agreement. Here is the full text of the message:
-We're unable to continue offering our services -Thank you for using PayPal as your payment partner.
-Unfortunately, we are unable to continue offering our services -to you at this time due to the nature of your business and/or -activity in your account and the risk it poses to PayPal. This -decision can't be overturned.
-If you owe refunds to any of your buyers, you can use the money -in your PayPal account to refund them.
-Money in your PayPal account will be held for 180 days. After -180 days, we'll email you information on how to withdraw your -money.
The only transactions on this account over the past 3-months were VPS lease payments off-shore. I looked up the user agreement to determine where I had violated the rules and found only a single reference to operating servers:
-Service Requiring Pre-Approval: -Providing file sharing services or access to newsgroups; or -selling alcoholic beverages, non-cigarette tobacco products, --e-cigarettes or prescription drugs/devices.
I have a zoom meeting with two attorneys from EFF.org on March 18. Stay tuned....and maybe ban PayPal.
--potlatch
Sent with ProtonMail Secure Email.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ On Thursday, March 11, 2021 12:06 AM, Matthias Marx kantorkel@hamburg.freifunk.net wrote:
Hi Potlatch,
would you mind sharing PayPal's email / full message with me?
Regards from Hamburg kantorkel
Am 3/11/21 um 12:42 AM schrieb potlatch:
Today I received a message from PayPal that paying for Tor relay server leases was a direct violation of my usage agreement. I have been paying off-shore VPS hosts for my Tor server leases with PayPal for at least ten years. Very interesting that they act now. They specifically state the ban was for: Providing file sharing services or access to newsgroups; or selling alcoholic beverages, non-cigarette tobacco products, e-cigarettes or prescription drugs/devices. They further state that the ban is permanent and not reversible. I liked using PayPal because it was a safe way to pay and didn't expose my credit card information. Before PayPal I used a prepaid card which I will probably go back too. --Potlatch Sent with ProtonMail https://protonmail.com Secure Email.
tor-relays mailing list tor-relays@lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-relays
_______________________________________________ tor-relays mailing list tor-relays@lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-relays
tor-relays@lists.torproject.org
-
gerard＠bulger.co.uk -
kantorkel＠hamburg.freifunk.net -
potlatch