a reddit user shared their story
Just woke up to an Email from PayPal stating that my account was permanently limited, thinking it’s a scam I check and lo and behold: I was limited.
But what had I done? Well my only purchases using PayPal were through Itch.io, that’s the only thing I use it for.
It seems I was limited for breaking “the policies of our partners” mentioned in the first paragraph of the notice. It’s no secret that PayPal are quite close with Mastercard and Visa, who have been pushing hardest for this porn ban (sorry, specifically the NSFW Games sphere).
So this is a PSA: if you’re using your PayPal account for anything else, don’t use it for Itch.
Why do you need an intermediary, you can use bank transfers and cards.
paypal has a more robust chargeback mechanic and is also more widely supported by the world than a swift bank account. it also handles metadata and checking who you’re paying/getting paid from better than a swift bank account. there are definitely benefits to it, even if it’s financial hell on earth. just recently i managed to do a full chargeback for something expensive, after the seller didn’t give me my money back after sending the item back within the 14 days and the item also being defective. the seller was fully uncooperative, but paypal managed to claw the money back. I’d call that a win. I also find it weird how if a company has your bank or credit card details it’s trivially easy for them to falsely charge you. That’s insane. I know a chargeback is similarly easy, but still. Having a way to make sure to only allow charges with specific intent on your part is amazing.
(i don’t use credit cards, the closest i am to debit cards is using google pay. stores here usually support credit and debit cards, yes, but also checking accounts using the aforementioned swift system.)