PayPal
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| Basic information | |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1998 |
| Type | Public |
| Industry | Financial Technology |
| Official website | https://paypal.com/ |
PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers. It serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods such as checks and money orders. The company operates as a payment processor for online vendors, auction sites and many other commercial users, for which it charges a fee.
Products[edit | edit source]
Controversies[edit | edit source]
| Controversy | Year | Background Info | Aftermath | Related Article | Related Video(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PayPal will no longer refund transaction fees on refunds | 2019 | PayPal announced they would undo this policy change, and then a few months later re-implemented it. | https://eseller365.com/paypal-will-no-longer-refund-transaction-fees-on-refunds/ | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1WPDVjXDj0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nhZKqC1y1g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6APNcFOuE1g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQpfNsuTSGc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPXhzgC2ODs | |
| PayPal charges a fee for inactivity. Not sure when this was implimented. | 2022 | If you don't log in or don't have transactions for a year you will be charged $20USD each year this is the case. Then when there are no more funds in the account they will close your account. If you have not logged in how can they assume you have seen the changed terms and tacitly agree to the changes and thus the fees. | First report seem to be 3 yrs ago. https://www.quora.com/Why-does-PayPal-want-to-start-charging-Canadian-users-an-inactivity-fee |
Privacy[edit | edit source]
In 2018, the introduction of the DGPR in Europe forced PayPal to disclose a list of third party companies they share user data with. The sheer endless list includes over 600 different companies, from fraud prevention to analytics, tracking and advertising companies.[1]
Alternatives[edit | edit source]
Unfortunately, no truly privacy friendly digital payment systems are in wide-spread use at the time of writing.
The GNU Taler project is a very promising very recent option that allows for completely anonymous purchases while still relying on common currencies and preventing money laundering and tax fraud. However, it is currently only available in certain test regions.
Of the more universally available commercial payment methods, Apple Pay is among the most private, but requires the user to own an Apple device and to trust Apple Inc not to collect more data than they disclose.