PayPal Comments and the Term Syria(n) May be Hazardous to Your Account!

[ssjones]

With trusted sellers, I always say "Happy Birthday!"

 

[condorlover1]

Thank goodness Standard Tobacco never produced Hezbollah Mixture or Arafat's PLO Blend or we would have given PayPal and absolute mental melt down! Like an earlier poster I live in an analogue world, write checks, use only one credit card which I pay off in full each month and prefer to use cash. I keep every receipt which I date stamp and then log in excel spreadsheet, run manual cash ledgers. Got audited by the government boys once and the chap who audited me asked if I had any other hobbies other than advanced book keeping!

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Some pretty interesting language has been used in this thread. It is my duty as an American to detain you all for further questioning.

 

[bullet08]

Somebody try USSR and see if it triggers a flag!

 

[Sloopjohnbee]

EDIT: Fixed Capitalization in Title (See Rule 9)

I know there has been a lot of issues going around with PayPal, and here is another obscure one!

Myself and member @Pipenwheels went on a wild ride this past week.
He agreed to purchase some Vintage Syrian from me, and paid via PayPal.
I never request Friends and Family payments, but he is newer to the platform, and sent payment via F&F and left a remark "thanks for the Syria" (or something close to that).

They basically instantly froze the transaction and I thought my account was dead for using F&F.

But it turns our it was the term Syria that caused the hold, that took about a week to lift and he had to write and explain to PP what was up. Both ironically, and helpfully, it turns out he lives like 20 min from me, so it probably doesn't look that shady and I don't use my PP account for a bunch of selling anyway.

The rule is always no comments if you are going to send F&F (which I don't advise), but def don't mention Syria, lol!
(And I wouldn't mention it even in a Goods and Services exchange at this point!)

wow thanks for the heads up - some of my ancestry is from Syria - apparently some people call syrians s.y.'s (ess-whyz)like this Austrailian I met in New York once - guess like the derogatory term "leb" - but will def not use that term(syria) any longer for anything payment related. thanks again

 

[rx2man]

Yeah, but....
Buyers run scams, too. If you use goods and services as opposed to friends and family, the buyer has six months to file a complaint. My favorite tale is from one of the cigar boards from a few years back. Seller put a sampler of various Dominican and Nicaraguan sticks together, offered it at a good price. Deal was done. Four months pass, then buyer files a complaint. Fortunately the seller had kept the link to the USPS tracking on file, sent that to PayPal showing delivery. Game over, right? Wrong. Buyer then claimed that his 15 year old son had grabbed his credit card, somehow found this cigar forum, and ordered the cigars. Guess who lost that dispute.

I have some baccy listed in the FS area and we had a new member sign up so he could buy 4 bags of Esoterica. 1st red flag he's new, 2nd it's going to a drop ship place in DE...3rd I told him F&F and he just could not figure out how to do it...refunded his money and he has not bothered me since...just seemed too risky from a unknown overseas buyer.

 

[Sloopjohnbee]

I have some baccy listed in the FS area and we had a new member sign up so he could buy 4 bags of Esoterica. 1st red flag he's new, 2nd it's going to a drop ship place in DE...3rd I told him F&F and he just could not figure out how to do it...refunded his money and he has not bothered me since...just seemed too risky from a unknown overseas buyer.

You did the right thing

 

[tzinc]

The poison of political correctness/cancel culture is ridiculous.

 

[Pipenwheels]

this was so crazy!! I am the one who commented on friends and family. Seriously my first purchase EVER of tobacco from a P2P sale. I didnt know about not commenting etc. I bought 1 tin of "HH VINTAGE SYRIAN" and in the comments wrote, "thanks for the Syrian". PAYPAL sent me this whole thing saying I had a suspicious purchase etc. It took over 10 days to remedy. It worked out and @coyja was more than gracious. Since then he has become a friend but not before us both being put on some "watchlist", re-educated and deemed innocuous by the POWERS THAT BE!??

 

[tzinc]

Our society is spying on us. I cannot believe we allowed this to happen and it gets worse every day.

 

[coyja]

this was so crazy!! I am the one who commented on friends and family. Seriously my first purchase EVER of tobacco from a P2P sale. I didnt know about not commenting etc. I bought 1 tin of "HH VINTAGE SYRIAN" and in the comments wrote, "thanks for the Syrian". PAYPAL sent me this whole thing saying I had a suspicious purchase etc. It took over 10 days to remedy. It worked out and @coyja was more than gracious. Since then he has become a friend but not before us both being put on some "watchlist", re-educated and deemed innocuous by the POWERS THAT BE!??

Man, I know everyone is posting how this is the gov't spying and what not... and it no doubt IS, lol!
BUT, Pipenwheels and I did discover that we were like 10 miles away from each other and went on to share much McClelland (and other) leaf between us, so I still call it a win!

This was one of those situations where I could have just been an over the top jerk about a payment not going well, but I chose to figure out what went wrong here instead, and it ended up being very beneficial.

So, don't get it twisted, sometimes life throws us a curve to see how we can take it.
If any of you want a (short but) great read on the subject of coincidence, in a fabulous fable-like form, check out The Alchemist from Paul Coehlo. This reminds me of one of those moments.

Or, if you feel obliged, this video of a commencement speech from David Foster Wallace has a pretty decent similar payoff, too.

 

[kschatey]

Our society is spying on us. I cannot believe we allowed this to happen and it gets worse every day.

Yes, financial institutions are required to "spy" on all transactions and abide by the OFAC sanctions. Failure to do so will result serious fines and consequences. This type of thing is covered in the EULA/T&C/privacy agreements that everybody must accept, but few actually read when signing up for services.

 

[tzinc]

Every major agreement that comes down the pike since the early 80s takes away individual's rights and freedoms in favour of corporate benefits.