The problem is in the attitude. Being French, I'm well-trained in dealing with soulless bureaucracies; but with the French administration (or probably any public administration in most countries) there is always a way to escalate the issue; and if you were right, you very usually win.
But these companies are judge, jury, police and executioner. This can't go on forever.
The company obviously realizes it has a large number of false positives, and it's probably decided that it's worth it.
This would be akin to having airport security send anyone who sets off the metal scanner to a maximum security prison without right of appeal.
Not so loud, TSA will hear you.
I try not to buy of ebay or use paypal now (it wasn't difficult to open a another account - different card/address), I would rather pay a little more and buy off Amazon who in my experience have the best customer service I have ever experienced.
In my mind, this behaviour can be explained as the one of a monopoly. PayPal is probably a great service in the vast majority of cases, but the behave unacceptably in a number of exceptions. And it would not even be very hard to solve, because it seems to be mostly about process, transparency and communication.
This is quite similar to the treatment you get from many government services, which happen to be organized monopolistically as well.
Once there is a true choice for these basic services like text ads, auctions and online payment, this would likely end quite quickly.
There is probably something in the structure of these businesses that makes them come pretty close to natural monopolies. Maybe internet users should actively start to pick always the second biggest provider for everything in this space. But I would not be able to tell you a name for payment service and auctions site that was to fit that description.
But then, how do we fix this?
I can also see why you're being downvoted here.
And that's why things are not changing.
Down-vote away.
It'd be easy to implement a set of rules that could make it fair. For example, limit the rate of change on any given post so that it can't be attacked by a barrage of down votes by fan boys. This would open up a post to a wider non-ideological audience and allow it to float or sink on its merits rather than whether or not the author pandered to the fan-boy culture's point of view on all fronts.
Further to that, nobody should be allowed to down-vote silently. That's chicken-shit. If you down-vote you need to state why you are doing so and subject your view to the same peer review, if you will.
Another interesting idea is that down-voting costs you a significant amount of karma points. And, if you go below a certain number you are ejected from HN. Now people are likely to think twice before down-voting on ideological basis because they'll stand to loose something.
All said, HN is still tolerable but it really is frustrating to be down-voted when purely on ideological basis rather than on based on the merit, accuracy or veracity of a post.
Anyhow, the PayPal, Google, eBay, etc. problem is not likely to be solved by yelling and screaming on blogs and HN. I firmly believe that massive legal action, and, more than likely, in the US, Congressional action, is the only light at the end of the tunnel. They are too big and just can't be hurt or bothered with any other approach.
Be careful what you wish for. Congressional action forcing PayPal, Google, et. al to provide better customer service sounds great for consumers, but unless the legislation is very narrowly focused, it will just end up being another piece of regulation that protects incumbents and punishes newcomers (e.g. by imposing an untenable customer support burden on bootstrapping companies).
I always said that the service of all online companies is great until something goes wrong. How they handle mistakes and problems is the real test.
It's a totalitarian hit-them-with-a-hammer approach that truly needs to end.
I don't know what it will take for this to change but it has to change. For example, AdSense alone has left a trail of destruction like no other service out there. You read stories all the time about legitimate businesses being cutoff for no apparent reason without even the possibility to engage in dialog.
This thing with PayPal is downright scary. Having done tens of thousands of dollars of business with PayPal its one of those things that can keep you up at night.
The problem isn't the suspension of accounts for investigation. I welcome a responsible approach to preventing fraud at all levels, as a consumer and a vendor.
No, the problem lies in the fact that they don't engage in any kind of mutually-constructive dialog in order to try to determine whether or not there's a real problem. By not doing so they can ruin people's lives and, because they have so much money, they don't really care because it causes them no pain at all.
I for one hate government burrowing too deeply into anyone's affairs. However, this is one case where I find myself really hoping that one day we'll see Congressional action here in the US in order to protect us from the monsters that these huge corporations have become. Remember, vendors are customers too, not just the end-users/buyers of products and services.
This, very plainly, is wrong and evil.