The dangers of buying bitcoin thru Paypal - real life example

[ABCbits]

In the defense I guess of Paypal, I think that they are just preventing possibilities of money laundering.

If you read the reddit post carefully, u/TheCoolDoc never withdraw the Bitcoin (PayPal don't allow their users to do so anyway) and he buy/sell Bitcoin with PayPal.
So obviously there's no money laundering.

[daarul50]

In the defense I guess of Paypal, I think that they are just preventing possibilities of money laundering.

If you read the reddit post carefully, u/TheCoolDoc never withdraw the Bitcoin (PayPal don't allow their users to do so anyway) and he buy/sell Bitcoin with PayPal.
So obviously there's no money laundering.

True, they are fooling innocent people but unluckily they faced a crypto enthusiast that know things quite well about crypto.
Cannot imagine if regular guy treated like this , they might accept whatever their decision , crazy.
The service is broken since the beginning launched , nothing you can expect from paypal crypto.
The paypal employee that taking this case are completely ignorant , i can imagine how frustrated he is.

[kayvie]

This is the reason why I never intended to use Paypal to buy bitcoin. They don't actually mean to let their users to buy and sell bitcoins. They just want to make money for themselves and control the activity of their users. They have more strict rules than any other wallet. This is the reason why I don't like to use this centralized wallet.

[Vishnu.Reang]

If you read the reddit post carefully, u/TheCoolDoc never withdraw the Bitcoin (PayPal don't allow their users to do so anyway) and he buy/sell Bitcoin with PayPal.
So obviously there's no money laundering.

It is not that simple. PayPal still have a clause, which states that PayPal accounts can't be used for purchasing cryptocurrency from peer-to-peer platforms. I guess they haven't changed this rule, despite integrating Bitcoin to their platform. Anyway, millions of PayPal users have invested in Bitcoin during the last few weeks. Let's wait and watch whether other users are facing any issue.

I have a feeling that there is something fishy here and the user is not being 100% honest.

[Broly46]

Meh, this remind me of bithumb, I didn’t know PayPal could go this low because bithumb has banned my account for over three years just because I signed up a user and send some fund and being a loyal user for just less than 2 months, that’s also come with spam email and kyc crap and threatening letter from them from time to time, absolutely horror story to tell my little nieces.

[zeingrind777]

This is the reason why I never intended to use Paypal to buy bitcoin. They don't actually mean to let their users to buy and sell bitcoins. They just want to make money for themselves and control the activity of their users. They have more strict rules than any other wallet. This is the reason why I don't like to use this centralized wallet.

It is true. If we want to buy and sell bitcoin with a centralized platform, we should choose purchases that have a high rating such as Binance or Coinbase. Although it is not necessary to believe completely, at least both of them are more recommended than the other.

[Asuspawer09]

According to this reddit post by u/TheCoolDoc, his account gets banned by Paypal and then limited because of too much activity, buying/selling bitcoin in a week.

I let your read the rest of the story.

In any case though be reminded, "Not your keys, not your coins". So anytime this centralised services can either ban you or selectively close your account, and not good if you have some funds on it.

This is a big disadvantage of using a custodial wallet like Paypal and at the same time Paypal was just getting started in crypto so maybe they don't know what to do if their users are buying and selling crypto means Paypal is possibly losing profit here.

In my experience in using a custodial wallet, I mean it's not really that bad as long as you do KYC and everything it's very unlikely to encounter any issue when it comes to your account but still, the possibility of freezing your account is always there.

Most of the custodial wallet does this thing when the market price of bitcoin is pumping they are limiting the transaction because it just means they could lose profit here which is really a bad thing for us and makes you feel that you don't have control to your own wallet. It also happened to me in a different custodial wallet they disable to sell your bitcoin when the market price is so high.

[zasad@]

I am ready to say thank you to this company for promoting Bitcoin to the whole world. But I do not recommend using their services to buy cryptocurrencies.
Users need to read a lot of small print in their user agreements.
It is sad that many people will get the first negative experience when using large custodial services.

[yhiaali3]

This is what I said when I heard Paypal accepting bitcoins within the payment services, it is absolutely correct to say: You do not have your private keys = You do not own your currencies, Paypal does not allow you to own your private keys and this means that you do not in fact have your currencies and you can be banned or your money seized in any time.
Personally, I had a bad past experience with PayPal before it allowed Bitcoin to be used. They suddenly blocked my account and I couldn't use my money and I think this is the same situation that hasn't changed after using Bitcoin.

[error08]

They don't know how things work in the crypto-world, Paypal should hire some people who understand how to manage the business 'buy and sell crypto'.
If they don't want all of the hassle to handle buy at a lower price and sell at a higher price, they should announce that people are not allowed to trade, but to spend crypto on the merchants.

[bekti3]

therefore, I thought of doing transactions on the exchange only. other than that it minimizes the unexpected. Paypal is still very inefficient. In addition, many people have experienced things like their accounts being washed for no apparent reason. for me personally this is a very disturbing thing ..

I think it's better to let PayPal run its transaction system for a year, to find out how good PayPal is in terms of service and security that guarantees investors ..

[Kakmakr]

In the defense I guess of Paypal, I think that they are just preventing possibilities of money laundering.

If you read the reddit post carefully, u/TheCoolDoc never withdraw the Bitcoin (PayPal don't allow their users to do so anyway) and he buy/sell Bitcoin with PayPal.
So obviously there's no money laundering.

That is why this is making no sense... Why create a service for people to buy & sell bitcoins and not allow them to trade with it? I think their operating license does not allow them to be a financial service that offers trading .... but rather to be a payment processor. So if people use it as an exchange... they might get into regulatory trouble.  

The question is ... How do they make money... if they do it like that? (Not being a payment processor using bitcoins and also not being a trading platform?)

I think they buy low and then sell it at a premium price for a profit?

[Chris Barth]

I still don't understand why the adopted bitcoin... To make more money or what? I don't even know if to believe that the bitcoin in a user's account is real or some figures they are manipulating in their back-end database.

[Reid]

Thanks for the share.
That was hilarious and sad.

First, why is their customer support doesn't even know about the recent update. That's fucked up.
Is this really a business with an office or just a bunch of freelancers helping Paypal with a minimum wage? Maybe even lower.
Sad that he lost all his money because of the lack of knowledge of whoever conducting the review.
Okay, I am not trying this anymore. Maybe this could be a part of the reason Bitcoin price is going to hell again.

Suggestions:
Put a limit on how much bitcoin will be converted in a day or a month. Then refresh.

[ChiBitCTy]

I'm glad to see that someone has brought up some truth about paypal.  Yes the bull run up to 19k was in large part due to PayPal.  Yes apparently paypal is buying up 70% of new coins being produced on the market..but most importantly YES PayPal is a scumbag organization that lives to their or "moral code" just as Coinbase does.  PayPal first of all doesn't allow for sending or receiving bitcoin, which is half ass bull shit, but they will ban your account for anything they deem appropriate and don't necessarily have to tell you why.  PayPal has long been known to be a horribly corrupt company and as thankful as I am for them adding bitcoin to the platform..I know the truth about them and you all should too.

[Fesatmas]

PayPal is not a trading platform for Bitcoin. He only facilitates us to make it easier to buy Bitcoin using a PayPal balance or credit card.
If we have already bought it we are not advised to hold it there, better withdraw it directly to a personal wallet.

I agree with you, because if our bitcoins are left for too long, it will trigger an event where the account will be locked. I still don't really understand why there is some kind of account lockdown, if the reason is due to too much activity, in my opinion it's only natural. because in general, paypal is only limited to making it easier for us to buy bitcoin with a paypal balance.
so if the purchasing activity exceeds the maximum, then paypal will automatically detect transactions that are not fair.

For example, in one day paypal makes purchasing rules a maximum of 10x a day. if it exceeds 10x, paypal will lock and check the account. and reopen it when it is free from suspicious activity.

[coolcoinz]

I just spent 40 minutes on the phone with a nice lady (Jennifer) on PayPal's phone and went through our transaction history/activity, tons of explanations of crypto terms (since she didn't know PayPal even has crypto) and I basically begged for the account back, but still no luck because apparently you cannot appeal a final reviewed decision.

She genuinely wanted to help me and I believe she understood how crazy this ban was because I didn't sell items to anyone except PayPal (PayPal shows as the buyer and seller when you purchase from 'PayPal Crypto'). She finally understood it was a daytrading like thing and even after that there's no appeal option (she tried) and its final.

This part is the most disturbing IMO. They have a support office where a group of people sits and answers tickets, right? When one person makes a decision, you can't appeal to a supervisor. Even when the decision is questioned by another employee on the same level, they can't do anything. That's crazy if you ask me. In big companies you have multiple supervisors within a group. There's a junior support, senior support, a manager and a ticket can be escalated.

[imstillthebest]

I still don't understand why the adopted bitcoin... To make more money or what? I don't even know if to believe that the bitcoin in a user's account is real or some figures they are manipulating in their back-end database.

they say that users cant withdrew thier btc inside thier paypal account and im also thinking that paypal doesnt really implement the whole crypto thing but like you said , it can only be figures and they do this to make more money .

the guys feedback can be a reference to us that plans to invest in crypto inside the paypal in the future if what to expect .

this was still early and paypal can change the way the work for once and for the sake of crypto .

[ReiMomo]

~snip~
this was still early and paypal can change the way the work for once and for the sake of crypto .

Yes, because PayPal helped us to achieve the global adoption but it may not be absolute yet however they still contributed a huge part to the adoption when they started accepting bitcoin in their services.

However, we barely knew that PayPal is a centralized financial platform and it abides by the regulations given to them by the state and for some reason, it is not only PayPal that is implementing such banning or locking an account due to high transaction rates made by the account holder.

Moreover, we cannot blame PayPal for this if this has been given to them by the authority which can help avoid Ponzi schemes or money laundering and can make the criminals fall back to the authority. It will be better if you want to trade better use other platforms that were designed for trading purposes.

[Chris Barth]

I still don't understand why the adopted bitcoin... To make more money or what? I don't even know if to believe that the bitcoin in a user's account is real or some figures they are manipulating in their back-end database.

they say that users cant withdrew thier btc inside thier paypal account and im also thinking that paypal doesnt really implement the whole crypto thing but like you said , it can only be figures and they do this to make more money .

the guys feedback can be a reference to us that plans to invest in crypto inside the paypal in the future if what to expect .

this was still early and paypal can change the way the work for once and for the sake of crypto .

Another way you could tell is the blockchain. If I send 1 BTC to you, it will show on blockchain that I actually had a balance of 1 BTC, and that I sent it to a wallet who now holds the 1 BTC. But PayPal's trasanctions can't be seen on blockchain (as they allegedly said).