The thing is, noone can be told of this freeze/hold, that would be mean tipping off the party that made the suspicious transaction - from what I gather, it’s actually illegal to reveal it’s frozen, so they invent all kinds of meaningless/dumb reasons why the transaction (or the account) can’t be used right now.
So, lack of transparency and accountability IS the purpose of the system in that case.
Great article on how the US does that: https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/debanking-and-debunki...
No, the bank cannot explain why SARs triggered a debanking, because disclosing the existence of a SAR is illegal. Yes, it is the law in the United States that a private non-court, in possession of a memo written by a non-intelligence analyst, cannot describe the nature of the non-accusation the memo makes. Nor can it confirm or deny the existence of the memo.
It’s not just illegal to disclose a SAR to the customer. It is extremely discouraged, by Compliance, to allow there to be an information flow within the bank itself that would allow most employees who interact directly with customers, like call center reps or their branch banker, to learn the existence of SAR. This is out of the concern that they would provide a customer with a responsive answer to the question “Why are you closing my account?!” And so this is one case where in [Seeing like a Bank] the institution intentionally blinds itself. Very soon after making the decision to close your account the bank does not know specifically why it chose to close your account.For all the things people want the. To do, the most important one to me is the "not your keys, not your coin".
I don't trust banks as neither. One time a bank i use to get paid decided to "block" my accounts for 'suspicious avtivity" (i made a transfer to an account number they deemed high-risk). I ended up having to go to a specific physical branch, and literally BEG the clerk to activate the account where they had MY FREAKING MONEY.
I've learned since that, once you give it (lend it actually) to banks, it is not your money.
Internet anonymity might be a temporary defence, until AI doxing analysis improves or one's government decides to change their rules (good luck securing against that).
I don't have any crypto: firstly because I lack the opsec skills. Also because I travel to other countries, and the best defense is to actually not have anything worth being stolen (or limited financial exposure e.g. my physical wallet was stolen last time I was in Brazil).
People immensely more skilled than I will ever be, still have security failures (e.g. Troy Hunt fell for a phishing attack recently).
These days I'd only use Paypal if they didn't offer any better options and then only as a proxy to debit/credit card (which has purchase protection so no need to deal with Paypal itself ever).
I'm not a lawyer, but theft under pretenses of "protecting your account" (from being accessed by you, that is) is still theft.
In cases where the victim just gives up, which seems incredibly common, they get to steal the money and they avoid the cost of having to review most cases, so it's obviously still a winning strategy.
Paypal even has a banking license where I live. A paypal transfer may or may not be a bank transfer, I don't know, but it has a banking license so I can understand it if people assume that they can trust it like a bank.
I'm not saying victims are dumb; they're ignorant, and the solution is self-education. Hopefully before you start leaving 5+ digits in their care...
Banks have particular protection in the modern financial system. When states grant that, they should IMO protect banks against impersonation.
Bunch of customers were screwed by the bankruptcy of the upper layer. Maybe there is some hope for at least the FDIC cracking down on this deceptive fintech trick in the future.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2025/04...
Is it, really?
It would not matter to the local court where PayPal's HQ is.
PayPal needs to be licensed in your country to handle money transfers. They can lose the right to operate in your state if they aren't compliant with the laws.
In the US, the licenses are required even on the state level: e.g., here are the requirements for California Money Transmitter License:
https://www.jwsuretybonds.com/states/california/money-transm...
Fraud and theft are one fun way to lose such a license.
Really?
I doubt you have tried checking all countries' regulations. Or any, for that matter.
Because there isn't a country where money transfers aren't regulated. Go prove me wrong.
To save you some effort: in the US, you need to have a money transmitter license issued by your state, e.g. in California'
https://dfpi.ca.gov/regulated-industries/money-transmitters/
>Filing a lawsuit against a foreign company and getting anything out of it is even more of a gamble.
Are speaking from experience, or hypothetically?
In any case, filing a lawsuit and raising a complaint with the regulator is an action that can cause the foreign company in question to lose the license to operate in your state.
And unlike your local bank, they don't have direct ties to politicians.
I checked it for my country before writing anything. They don't have a license, nor does Revolut for that matter. I'm not pulling this out of my ass, go check it yourself: https://www.bsi.si/sl/nadzor-bancnega-sistema/izdana-dovolje... (Hint: look in the 4th column where the 2nd column says "Dovoljenja za opravljanje storitev bank in hranilnic")
They definitely do business here, just like Revolut, which has the authorization to do banking in the UK, but not here.
> To save you some effort: in the US, you need to have a money transmitter license issued by your state, e.g. in California'
That's the US, not the entire world.
> In any case, filing a lawsuit and raising a complaint with the regulator is an action that can cause the foreign company in question to lose the license to operate in your state.
They _don't_ have it in the first place, there's nothing to lose for them, only for you as their customer. Furthermore, there's no legal entity of theirs in my country which the court could liquidate to pay me back in such a case. Please consider the fact that not every country has the same legal system as the US before you start lecturing me on how the legal system of my own country, which I dare assume you don't live in, works.
> And unlike your local bank, they don't have direct ties to politicians.
But they have ties to international politicians, which is no better.
I had to create a paypal account because an online shop used it as the only method for payment, first time I could pay without registering but the second time they forced the use of an account so I registered.
I still used my card to pay, I didn't add any funds to the paypal account or did any other transactions or anything else really but after some time they froze my account for violating ToS. No actual reason, nothing. And it's next to impossible to find any support contacts, just redirects to useless FAQs everwhere.
Oh how I dream of paypal going bankrupt. The world would be a better place.
I run a SaaS platform where I sell plugins for WordPress. Recently, my PayPal account was suspended, and a balance of €80,000 was frozen. The stated reason is a violation of the Terms of Service. However, no specific explanation has been provided — neither what rule I allegedly violated, nor how I violated it.
I’ve searched through the lengthy documentation, but without clear guidance, this is an impossible task. My support tickets are no longer being answered, and your phone support refers me back to written communication — which, again, receives no response.
This lack of transparency and accountability is extremely concerning.
Due to repeated experiences like this, I now use fintech platforms only as proxy banks. All funds are immediately transferred to a traditional bank account, and only daily operational expenses remain within the fintech environment.