A friend of mine who runs an NCAA pool every year informs me he got a nastygram from PayPal accusing him of running an illegal gambling operation. After receiving 20 $5 payments via the oft-maligned payments company, they wrote to him:
Dear xxxxxx,
We appreciate the fact that you chose PayPal to send and receive payments for your transactions.
A recent review of your account indicates that you may be in violation of PayPal’s Acceptable Use Policy.
Please refer to:
– Transaction xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
– Transaction xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
– Transaction xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
– Transaction xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxUnder the Acceptable Use Policy, PayPal cannot be used to send or receive payments for activities that involve gambling and/or gaming activities, including but not limited to sports betting. Although participation in is a widespread practice, the use of PayPal to facilitate these payments is prohibited.
My friend adds:
Not sure why these transactions in particular were flagged. At least a couple include notes that say “for ___’s brackets” or “thanks for running the pool”.
This is what leads me to believe that Paypal is scanning the text of notes attached to payments. I suppose they could just be looking for people with a bunch of payments clumped together around tourney time, but they would still probably get a few false positives from that and needlessly annoy their customers (more so than they are now, that is).
Anybody using Paypal or its competitors for NCAA pools? And have any of you been hassled by PayPal for being terrorists, drug lords, gamblings kingpins, or the like?
I think you’re right on track here. A friend and I use paypal all the time to settle expenses from travel, restaurants, etc. The only time my friend ever had an issue was when he sent me a payment with the word “Cuba” in the text notes. Paypal decided to flag and freeze that payment, I assume it was due to the restrictions on using U.S funds to purchase travel to Cuba or Cuban goods.
My friend contacted paypal and once he mentioned that his payment was for settling our tab at a local Cuban restaurant the freeze was lifted.
This was the only time he’s ever seen such an issue and I am pretty sure it was based on the text notes.
Wow! That is fascinating and irksome, thanks for sharing.
I not only use PayPal for payment for my basketball pool, my email address that I use for this specifically says “pool” in the name. Didn’t get any nastygrams from PayPal though. Received around 25, $20 payments and have been taking payment this way for several years.
PP scans transaction notes. A few years ago, a “friend” collected some money of a raffle whose proceeds would fund scholarships for graduating high school students and someone wrote “For the raffle” in their note. Within 24 hours, PP sent a letter that the account was frozen. It was unfrozen after making assurances to PP that the account would not be used in that manner anymore. So people have been asked not to make reference to a “raffle” ever since. No problems since.
Paypal has been doing this a while – had them lock down an account for collecting basketball pool money at least five years ago.