I know there are plenty of legitimate PayPal horror stories, but this I’m not sure this quite qualifies. The first parts of the story are vanilla PayPal evil, sure.
But at the end, PayPal accuses them of offering an aggregation service. They say they are building a “a global marketplace” that “enables a brand new community of merchants and transactions”. There is not a lot of detail, but it sounds like they are taking money from customers and paying it to sellers, which sounds like an aggregation service to me.
They compare themselves to Etsy. But Etsy doesn’t accept PayPal payments themselves. You pay to the seller’s PayPal account.
There may be something I’m missing—it’s not entirely clear, so maybe they do in fact operate more like Etsy—but from the account provided it seems like PayPal has a case.
You make a good point, I'd agree that this would seem to align with what PayPal is alleging in their letter.
However, it does also seem that Airbnb, which they mention as a comparison, is doing the same thing -- Airbnb is serving as an aggregator for its individual lodging vendors, and THEY offer PayPal as an option ...
Any Airbnb folks still here on HN who could explain if they've gotten around this particular hurdle with PayPal?
In the article, Paypal's letter doesn't say you're not allowed to be an aggregator, just that you're not allowed to be an aggregator that lets merchants get around Paypal's acceptable use rules. Maybe Airbnb has assured Paypal that it does not let merchants circumvent these rules.
Airbnb allows only one kind of "merchant"---the type who wants to offer living space for you.
This product on the other hand lets anyone offer "experiences". To put it lightly, you could have someone offer the "experience of sex" (illegal) or the "experience of touring the porn studios of the San Fernando Valley" (legal but against Paypal AUP).
So, it's not just because they're worried about what you sell, you're not allowed to process payments on behalf of others at all ... which makes the whole Airbnb-PayPal thing that much more interesting.
But at the end, PayPal accuses them of offering an aggregation service. They say they are building a “a global marketplace” that “enables a brand new community of merchants and transactions”. There is not a lot of detail, but it sounds like they are taking money from customers and paying it to sellers, which sounds like an aggregation service to me.
They compare themselves to Etsy. But Etsy doesn’t accept PayPal payments themselves. You pay to the seller’s PayPal account.
There may be something I’m missing—it’s not entirely clear, so maybe they do in fact operate more like Etsy—but from the account provided it seems like PayPal has a case.