PayPal

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PayPal is one of the more diverse digital payment platforms around and has 4 agreements or policies that comprise their overall User Agreement. The PayPal User Agreement, Privacy Policy, Acceptable Use Policy, and Electronic Communications Delivery Policy form the main agreement and an index of the product specific provisions is provided on the main legal page. As you may expect, PayPal asks that you recognize that they are an intermediary and your payment processing depends on factors out of their control, and thus they should not be held accountable for errors out of their control. As an intermediary they also have extensive sharing agreements, but the good thing is that they indicate and you can infer that most of the information shared is protected personal information that they are not permitted to disclose outside the purpose of the transaction or initial consent. Still, you should know if you opened your account on a vendor website and not directly through PayPal, all of your information is shared with the vendor when you create the account and it is subject to their privacy policy as well. One final note for those who maintain large balances in their PayPal account, those balances are uninsured and do not earn interest for you, but they are pooled together to earn interest for PayPal.

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Representations & Warranties

 

 "No warranty

The PayPal services are provided “as-is” and without any representation or warranty, whether express, implied or statutory.  PayPal specifically disclaims any implied warranties of title, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement.

PayPal does not have any control over the products or services provided by sellers who accept PayPal as a payment method, and PayPal cannot ensure that a buyer or a seller you are dealing with will actually complete the transaction or is authorized to do so.  PayPal does not guarantee continuous, uninterrupted or secure access to any part of the PayPal services, and operation of our websites, software, or systems (including any networks and servers used to provide any of the PayPal services) operated by us or on our behalf may be interfered with by numerous factors outside of our control.  PayPal will make reasonable efforts to ensure that requests for electronic debits and credits involving bank accounts, debit cards, credit cards, and check issuances are processed in a timely manner but PayPal makes no representations or warranties regarding the amount of time needed to complete processing because the PayPal services are dependent upon many factors outside of our control, such as delays in the banking system or the U.S. or international mail service.  Some states do not allow the disclaimer of implied warranties, so the foregoing disclaimers may not apply to you.

 

Release of PayPal

If you have a dispute with any other PayPal account holder, you release PayPal from any and all claims, demands and damages (actual and consequential) of every kind and nature, known and unknown, arising out of or in any way connected with such disputes. In entering into this release you expressly waive any protections (whether statutory or otherwise, for example, California Civil Code § 1542) that would otherwise limit the coverage of this release to include only those claims which you may know or suspect to exist in your favor at the time of agreeing to this release."

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Limitations on Liability

 

"PayPal’s liability is limited with respect to your PayPal account and your use of the PayPal services.  In no event shall PayPal be liable for lost profits or any special, incidental or consequential damages (including without limitation damages for loss of data or loss of business) arising out of or in connection with our websites, software, systems (including any networks and servers used to provide any of the PayPal services) operated by us or on our behalf, any of the PayPal services, or this user agreement (however arising, including negligence), unless and to the extent prohibited by law.

Our liability to you or any third parties in any circumstance is limited to the actual amount of direct damages.  In addition, to the extent permitted by applicable law, PayPal is not liable, and you agree not to hold PayPal responsible, for any damages or losses (including, but not limited to, loss of money, goodwill, or reputation, profits, or other intangible losses or any special, indirect, or consequential damages) resulting directly or indirectly from: (1) your use of, or your inability to use, our websites, software, systems (including any networks and servers used to provide any of the PayPal services) operated by us or on our behalf, or any of the PayPal services; (2) delays or disruptions in our websites, software, systems (including any networks and servers used to provide any of the PayPal services) operated by us or on our behalf and any of the PayPal services; (3) viruses or other malicious software obtained by accessing our websites, software, systems (including any networks and servers used to provide any of the PayPal services) operated by us or on our behalf  or any of the PayPal services or any website or service linked to our websites, software  or any of the PayPal services; (4) glitches, bugs, errors, or inaccuracies of any kind in our websites, software, systems (including any networks and servers used to provide any of the PayPal services) operated by us or on our behalf or any of the PayPal services or in the information and graphics obtained from them; (5) the content, actions, or inactions of third parties; (6) a suspension or other action taken with respect to your PayPal account; or (7) your need to modify your practices, content, or behavior, or your loss of or inability to do business, as a result of changes to this user agreement or PayPal’s policies."

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Indemnification

 

"You must indemnify PayPal for actions related to your PayPal account and your use of the PayPal services.  You agree to defend, indemnify and hold PayPal harmless from any claim or demand (including attorneys’ fees) made or incurred by any third party due to or arising out of your breach of this user agreement, your improper use of the PayPal services, your violation of any law or the rights of a third party and/or the actions or inactions of any third party to whom you grant permissions to use your PayPal account or access our websites, software, systems (including any networks and servers used to provide any of the PayPal services) operated by us or on our behalf, or any of the PayPal services on your behalf."

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Key Definitions

• "Unauthorized Transaction"- when money is sent from your PayPal account that you did not authorize and that did not benefit you.

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Sharing Agreements

 

How We Share Personal Information with Other PayPal Users

When transacting with others, we may provide those parties with information about you necessary to complete the transaction, such as your name, account ID, contact details, shipping and billing address, or other information needed to promote the reliability and security of the transaction. If a transaction is held, fails, or is later invalidated, we may also provide details of the unsuccessful transaction. To facilitate dispute resolution, we may provide a buyer with the seller’s address so that goods can be returned to the seller. The receiving party is not allowed to use this information for unrelated purposes, such as to directly market to you, unless you have agreed to it. Contacting users with unwanted or threatening messages is against our policies and constitutes a violation of our User Agreement.

If someone is sending you money and enters your email address or phone number, we will provide them your registered name so they can verify they are sending the money to the correct account.

We work with third parties, including merchants, to enable them to accept or send payments from or to you using PayPal. In doing so, a third party may share information about you with us, such as your email address or mobile phone number, to inform you that a payment has been sent to you or when you attempt to pay a merchant or third party. We use this information to confirm that you are a PayPal customer and that PayPal as a form of payment can be enabled, or to send you notification of payment status. Also, if you request that we validate your status as a PayPal customer with a third party, we will do so.

If you link your loyalty or gift card of a PayPal merchant to your account, we may share your card number with that merchant when you pay using PayPal.

Please note that merchants, sellers, and users you buy from or contract with have their own privacy policies, and although PayPal’s user agreement does not allow the other transacting party to use this information for anything other than providing PayPal Services, PayPal is not responsible for their actions, including their information protection practices.

Regardless, we will not disclose your credit card number or bank account number to anyone you have paid or who has paid you using PayPal, or with the third parties that offer or use PayPal Services, except with your express permission or if we are required to do so to comply with credit card rules, a subpoena, or other legal process.

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How We Share Personal Information with Other Third Parties

We may share your personal information we collect from you, including your name, contact details, and transactions and activities, with:

• Members of the PayPal corporate family, such as PayPal Credit, Venmo or Braintree, to provide joint content, products, and services (such as registration, transactions and customer support), to help detect and prevent potentially illegal acts and violations of our policies, and to guide decisions about their products, services, and communications. Members of our corporate family will use this information to send you marketing communications only if you have requested their services. Financial institutions that we partner with to jointly create and offer a product (including but not limited to, the PayPal Extras credit card where we share information with Synchrony Bank, for example, in connection with pre-approved offers for the PayPal Extras credit card). These financial institutions may only use this information to market PayPal-related products, unless you have given consent for other uses.

• Credit bureaus and collection agencies to report account information, as permitted by law.

• Banking partners as required by credit card association rules for inclusion on their list of terminated merchants (in the event that you meet their criteria which includes having PayPal close your PayPal Account due to your breach of the PayPal User Agreement).

• Companies that we plan to merge with or are acquired by. (Should such a combination occur, we will require that the new combined entity follow this Privacy Policy with respect to your personal information. If your personal information could be used contrary to this policy, you will receive prior notice.)

• Law enforcement, government officials, or other third parties pursuant to a subpoena, court order, or other legal process or requirement applicable to PayPal or one of its affiliates; when we need to do so to comply with law or credit card rules; or when we believe, in our sole discretion, that the disclosure of personal information is necessary to prevent physical harm or financial loss, to report suspected illegal activity or to investigate violations of our User Agreement.

• Other unaffiliated third parties, for the following purposes: 

• Fraud Prevention and Risk Management: to help prevent fraud or assess and manage risk.  For example, if you use the PayPal Services to buy or sell goods using eBay Inc. or its affiliates (“eBay”), we may share account information in order to help protect your accounts from fraudulent activity, alert you if we detect such fraudulent activity on your accounts, or evaluate credit risk.

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• As part of our fraud prevention and risk management efforts, we also may share necessary account information with eBay in cases where PayPal has placed a hold or other restriction on your account based on disputes, claims, chargebacks or other scenarios regarding the sale or purchase of goods. Also, as part of our fraud prevention and risk management efforts, we may share account information with eBay to enable them to operate their programs for evaluating buyers or sellers.

• Customer Service: for customer service purposes, including to help service your accounts or resolve disputes (e.g., billing or transactional). 

• Shipping: in connection with shipping and related services for purchases made using PayPal. 

• Legal Compliance: to help them comply with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing verification requirements.

• Service Providers: to enable service providers under contract with us to support our business operations, such as fraud prevention, bill collection, marketing, customer service and technology services. Our contracts dictate that these service providers only use your information in connection with the services they perform for us and not for their own benefit.

• Other third parties with your consent or direction to do so.

• Please note that these third parties may be in other countries where the laws on processing personal information may be less stringent than in your country.

• If you open a PayPal account directly on a third party website or via a third party application, any information that you enter on that website or application (and not directly on a PayPal website) will be shared with the owner of the third party website or application. These sites are governed by their own privacy policies and you are encouraged to review their privacy policies before providing them with personal information. PayPal is not responsible for the content or information practices of such third parties.

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