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Paypal Slips 'No Class Action' Clause Into Policy Update
First time accepted submitter Guru80 writes "PayPal recently posted a new Policy Update which includes changes to the PayPal User Agreement. The update to the User Agreement is effective November 1, 2012 and contains several changes, including changes that affect how claims you and PayPal have against each other are resolved. You will, with limited exception, be required to submit claims you have against PayPal to binding and final arbitration, unless you opt out of the Agreement to Arbitrate (Section 14.3) by December 1, 2012. Unless you opt out: (1) you will only be permitted to pursue claims against PayPal on an individual basis, not as a plaintiff or class member in any class or representative action or proceeding and (2) you will only be permitted to seek relief (including monetary, injunctive, and declaratory relief) on an individual basis. With so many privacy policies changing to include such wording, does it really hold any weight if some obscure and buried opt-out option isn't checked?"
Could this possibly hold up in court? Isn't it our right to sue?
EULA: You cannot sue us for any reason.
Agree to use our product.
God spoke to me
Article/poster should discuss how to opt out and what if any, the consequences are.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
*IANAL* of course.
Not everything written in an agreement will hold up in court, if/when tested. For example, you can't write an agreement that expressly violates laws. In particular, the purpose of class action suits is exactly to allow group action where individual "wrongs" are not large enough to prosecute, but combined are sufficiently big. Trying to circumvent the law the way PayPal is doing is by itself probably a good ground for a class action suit (but got to wait until some actual harm is done, afaik) :)
We need to start pressuring Congress to create a law stating that access to the courts is a fundamental right that cannot be denied as the terms of a contract.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Opt-Out Procedure.
You can choose to reject this Agreement to Arbitrate ("opt out") by mailing us a written opt-out notice ("Opt-Out Notice"). For new PayPal users, the Opt-Out Notice must be postmarked no later than 30 Days after the date you accept the User Agreement for the first time. If you are already a current PayPal user and previously accepted the User Agreement prior to the introduction of this Agreement to Arbitrate, the Opt-Out Notice must be postmarked no later than December 1, 2012. You must mail the Opt-Out Notice to PayPal, Inc., Attn: Litigation Department, 2211 North First Street, San Jose, CA 95131.
The Opt-Out Notice must state that you do not agree to this Agreement to Arbitrate and must include your name, address, phone number, and the email address(es) used to log in to the PayPal account(s) to which the opt-out applies. You must sign the Opt-Out Notice for it to be effective. This procedure is the only way you can opt out of the Agreement to Arbitrate. If you opt out of the Agreement to Arbitrate, all other parts of the User Agreement, including all other provisions of Section 14 (Disputes with PayPal), will continue to apply. Opting out of this Agreement to Arbitrate has no effect on any previous, other, or future arbitration agreements that you may have with us.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Unless you opt out...
Best option IMHO is to opt out - as in, completely. As in, don't use Paypal, ever, for anything. There are alternatives.
Deja Moo: The distinct feeling that you've heard this bull before.
Not that I am defending it.
A Class action should be raised against this clause! Seeking punitive damages for even putting something like this in a contract.
Binding Arbitration is contract legalese for "meet our FOAF, the arbitrator...".
Think about it. Who is the arbitrator and who does he / she want to please / not piss off? Whose circle does he / she run in? Who is in a position to provide work / favors / introductions / etc. for him or her? Who does he or she identify with? The whole science of jury selection that lawyers apply them to so assiduously is based on the answer to those types of questions. And yet in "binding arbitration" you're being "paranoid" and "unreasonable" if you ask them. Oh, and you have no choice. Yeah, that's fair. Paypal effectively excludes itself from our centuries old year old legal system and does what it wants.
PayPal is guaranteed that *most* customers will not not select PayPal on account of this contract change. The only blow back they'll ever feel is if , for decades the most outrageous shit goes down under the name of "binding arbitration" that finally even the type of regressive reactionary Congress we have is forced to DO something about it.
What this means is you shouldn't base anything important on the allegedly contractually obligated behavior of PayPal. Be ready to walk away and be able to walk away.
And yes, I DO understand the deleterious effects frivolous lawsuits have on companies; see my posts under WoofyGoofy->Software Patents for details.
Binding arbitration.
most major multinational corporations preserve the tradition of arbitration as your only means of recourse as theyve found the courts rule far too often in the favour of the users. Court time is reserved strictly for corporations to battle other corporations for control of consumers but once that control is entrenched? your arbitrator should you elect to meet with one will likely be from a limited pool of closely guarded individuals with close ties to the corporations for whom they arbitrate. Your ruling, statements, and even the case itself will remain entirely confidential with rarely any record of it transpiring. Most importantly, Arbitration allows a corporation to remain blameless. Never having admitted fault, they secure their public image and in turn their investors confidence as arbitration amounts to nothing more than a kangaroo court.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Opt-Out Procedure. You can choose to reject this Agreement to Arbitrate ("opt out") by mailing us a written opt-out notice ("Opt-Out Notice"). For new PayPal users, the Opt-Out Notice must be postmarked no later than 30 Days after the date you accept the User Agreement for the first time. If you are already a current PayPal user and previously accepted the User Agreement prior to the introduction of this Agreement to Arbitrate, the Opt-Out Notice must be postmarked no later than December 1, 2012. You must mail the Opt-Out Notice to PayPal, Inc., Attn: Litigation Department, 2211 North First Street, San Jose, CA 95131. The Opt-Out Notice must state that you do not agree to this Agreement to Arbitrate and must include your name, address, phone number, and the email address(es) used to log in to the PayPal account(s) to which the opt-out applies. You must sign the Opt-Out Notice for it to be effective. This procedure is the only way you can opt out of the Agreement to Arbitrate. If you opt out of the Agreement to Arbitrate, all other parts of the User Agreement, including all other provisions of Section 14 (Disputes with PayPal), will continue to apply. Opting out of this Agreement to Arbitrate has no effect on any previous, other, or future arbitration agreements that you may have with us.
Here is where collective power would be of use. On the market side, we can exert pressure on paypal by making efforts to drive their customers to the competition (and reaching out to the competition to help them highlight their lack of this phrase). This approach does require there is actual viable competition, and that they don't pull the same crap (so in many markets it wouldn't be effective).
The second side is government. This is where regulation shines! Let's lobby Congress (and hell, local government) to pass laws forbidding private arbitration as a binding substitute for lawsuits. Let's use the power of the law to slap Paypal down and say "no, you are NOT allowed to do this to your customers".
This is OLD news: the announcement from PayPal went out over a month ago, and I mailed a signed opt-out declaration back to Paypal myself more than four weeks ago.
More important is that fact that Paypal actually had the decency - ??? - to include the opt-out exception in the first place. Do you have any idea how pervasive these clauses are now? ALL the corporate kids are doing it. If it's a business that provides a service and uses one-to-many type contracts - service agreements, terms of service, etc. - to establish the service, then you can bet such a clause is imminent if not already present. Valve added one months ago, AT&T did the same before PayPal, etc. EVERY service agreement will have one by the end of this year.
It's all thanks to yet another corporate-friendly ruling last year from the same Supreme Court that gave us the Citizens United ruling and allowed the upcoming election cycle to be fully bought.
Gone are the days when companies invested in bettering their products and protecting their customers.
It's now cheaper to invest in lawyers and better contracts, at which point these companies can continue to provide sub-par products or customer service with no ill consequence.
PayPal .. I use them everyday with no complaints ... heck I even like the product ... but with this latest update it reads like they are preparing for armageddon ... virtually every change leaves the customer worse off than before ...
Ranting a bit ... products are manufactured to fail ... customer service is designed to exhaust you ... contracts are designed to cheat you ... yet we keep pouring money into this stuff ...
How is that even considered evil?
Hm, let's check how to do this...
At least you don't have to deliver your opt-out notice in person and wrestle a grizzly to get inside their offices.
Yeah. My copy of the notice arrived a day earlier, even. As with Valve's change and eBay's, I thought they already had a no-CA clause anyway. All the Cool Kids, EULAs=sign away your first born and their virginity, class actions=free coupons for their service, et cetera.
So meh.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Yeah. An uphill battle with millions of lobbying dollars coming at you like flak towards a B52.
For laws that are good for people instead of artificial people there has to be a huge change in direction first.
"We are not responsible for anything that happens to your vehicle in this parking lot" or those gravel trucks with the sign, "Stay 200 feet back, not responsible for damages."
Bullshit, you are still responsible. The sign do not form a valid contract, they are there so stupid people won't sue.
This one is particularly bad because there is no "obscure and buried opt-out option" to check. The process to opt-out requires you to mail a physical signed letter to some office. I'm pretty sure none of these terms are actually legal and enforceable, particularly in California where the courts have already struck down binding arbitration clauses before, but it's a deterrent to actual justice being served. My wish would be that the "Severability" clause was found illegal, so if the corporation decided to put something illegal in the contract, it voids the whole contract. That would be the only way to get the corporations to stop doing these things.
I have serious doubts that any agreement which lessens a parties status in law can stand up to the Federal Courts system. In essence your rights are your rights even when you don't want them to be. The notion that some people might be limited in relation to redress of a grievance in a court of law offends our constitution.
Your rights include the right to make binding contracts. Any case that stays in civil court abides by contract law, which is why the AT&T case was upheld. If Paypal was charged/found to be in violation of criminal law, the government would step in, and a class action would not be needed. Thus, the window for where someone could argue that a class action suit is their right is extremely limited, especially for small claims (which is where class actions are effective).
In the case of Paypal, a lawyer would do much better to pursue interstate commerce infractions, banking regulations, or outright fraud laws than to attempt a class action contract suit.
Then again, IANAL, and this view obviously holds no water in many countries (especially those where class action suits aren't legal in the first place).
You can't just override laws. That's why they're laws!
Remember how they scammed Notch (Minecraft maker) out of $300,000 because suddenly there was a lot of money coming to his "account", and they called it "(probably) illegal activity", and just took it all!
They could do that, because PayPal is not a bank! So they don't even have to adhere to the already ridiculously lax bank laws.
But THIS they cannot do. It's illegal. And if they try it, they go to jail. End of story.
I call for a global boycott of their criminal asses.
Seriously, FUCK PAYPAL!
As it was pointed out several times when Sony pulled this crap, EULAs < Law.
The problem is not these EULAs, but the fact that regardless when you go to court, he with the more money wins.
Guess what? The one with the more money is pretty much always going to be paypal.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
They are a third party biller and as such, you can't dispute a billing error with your credit card company or bank. You must go to PayPal. That's why I stopped using them. All this other crap is just irrelevant silliness.
As for eBay, I bid/buy things from sellers that take other forms of payment. However, eBay makes it very hard for vendors to accept other forms of payment.
Who would of thunk that the selling of cute little Pez dispensers could lead to such evil.
.
It's interesting that PayPal can change the agreement unilaterally without a signed statement but the user must provide a signed statement to get out of their unilateral change.
So since the courts have already decided that corporations can unilaterally change these agreements does that same reasoning extend to users changing them unilaterally? So if I don't agree to section 1.4 I can simply rewrite it to suit me and send a notice to the company stating they can opt out of this change only in the next month in signed statement. Cool!
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
"Lastly, the agreement must be accompanied by six Unobtainums (TM) breakfast cereal boxtops (15 lb. boxes only), each featuring a Notary Public seal from the Third Bank of Neptune. The agreement must have been written on parchment during the reign of Charlemagne."
It already did stand up. See AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
The original heading was Paypal jumps on the "No Class Action" bandwagon with privacy change. Editors gonna edit.
Hey penix! Long time no see! (draeath on BU)
Unfortunately I don't think it works this way. Only if you have an army of lawyers and some rather large coffers.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Unfortunately the reason they can do it is because the original agreement included a clause saying they could do it, so by using their service you have agreed to allow them to unilaterally change whatever and whenever they want. The original agreement did not include an ability for you to do, so no. And since it is 'signed' on a read-only web page it is not possible to alter it and send it back.
The government laughs in your general direction. Corporations, more rights than people since 1776.
Not to sound resentful, but I submitted this a month ago when it was first published. Actually, I do intend to sound a little resentful... What I submitted was the Ebay policy change, which is apparently being kept separate from the Paypal one. More importantly, you only have until Nov. 9th to opt out of the new Ebay policy.
Sounds like a recipe to get you to screw it up and mark you opt-out as "invalid."
You should be able go to their web site and check a box. Anything else is shenanigans.
Curious how opting out is so difficult when opting in is effortless. This seems to me as bordering on self help; and would be done better by sending out a form that required users to choose to give up their rights to a fair trial.
Don't use PayPal
AT&T vs. Concepcion is what allowed companies to get away with this crap. The California Supreme Court rightly ruled that such clauses are "unconsionable" where there is disparate baragaining power between the two parties. Even before reading this case, I had the exact same train of logic. When I am negotiating with a peer, it is fine to agree to such clauses. When I have the upper hand, the court should not recognize such abusive clauses.
If the Supreme Court (led by Scalia in a 5-4 decision) won't shoot down suck idiotic clauses, then it is up to our Congress to do so. How many of you want to hold your breath waiting for that to happen.
if you are interested in more details, read the ruling here: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/09-893.pdf
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Your statement boils down to: "It's legal for an entity that hold massive amounts of power over you and your life to hold your needs for ransom and force you into a contract and for it to be binding."
People wonder why I think corporate rights should be subordinate to the rights of the individual. This is it. This might not be quite as serious as paypal has "competitors" (I disagree with this view... they hold the keys to one of the most important online marketplaces. There is no other way to gain access.), but think about if your water or electric company did this.
The Consumerist has links to template letters for eBay (by November 9) and PayPal (by Dec. 1). You need to fill out, print and mail them by the deadline to opt out. That's physical, actual paper, snail mail. No online forms, no emails, no calls.
More info and speculation on whether you'll be deemed a troublemaker, persona non grata, communist, vegetarian, etc., etc. if you opt-out.
I am not a crackpot.
if you have problems with paypal, your first mistake was to use paypal. They are not a bank.
After suffering with all of Paypals issues and hearing horror stories from other PayPal customers, this was the final straw.
The best way to make them reform their practices isn't to whine and complain, they figure as long as you put up with it, then no worries. The best way to get them to change their practices is to vote with your feet and let them know why you're leaving.
I closed my PayPal account last week and if it makes getting stuff on EBay harder, so be it. It's on them if they insist on me using it and they'll lose my business as well.
Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
Your statement boils down to: "It's legal for an entity that hold massive amounts of power over you and your life to hold your needs for ransom and force you into a contract and for it to be binding."
People wonder why I think corporate rights should be subordinate to the rights of the individual. This is it. This might not be quite as serious as paypal has "competitors" (I disagree with this view... they hold the keys to one of the most important online marketplaces. There is no other way to gain access.), but think about if your water or electric company did this.
It's really more a matter of when they will do it, not if.
Opt-Out Procedure. You can choose to reject this Agreement to Arbitrate ("opt out") by mailing us a written opt-out notice ("Opt-Out Notice"). For new PayPal users, the Opt-Out Notice must be postmarked no later than 30 Days after the date you accept the User Agreement for the first time. If you are already a current PayPal user and previously accepted the User Agreement prior to the introduction of this Agreement to Arbitrate, the Opt-Out Notice must be postmarked no later than December 1, 2012. You must mail the Opt-Out Notice to PayPal, Inc., Attn: Litigation Department, 2211 North First Street, San Jose, CA 95131. The Opt-Out Notice must state that you do not agree to this Agreement to Arbitrate and must include your name, address, phone number, and the email address(es) used to log in to the PayPal account(s) to which the opt-out applies. You must sign the Opt-Out Notice for it to be effective. This procedure is the only way you can opt out of the Agreement to Arbitrate. If you opt out of the Agreement to Arbitrate, all other parts of the User Agreement, including all other provisions of Section 14 (Disputes with PayPal), will continue to apply. Opting out of this Agreement to Arbitrate has no effect on any previous, other, or future arbitration agreements that you may have with us.
Okay, I'm going to waste 10 stamps, who's with me?
Instead of a KickStarter Campaign I'm calling this a KickAss Campaign. I will make up 10 names, etc, and send them off to PayPal with fake info, making them waste untold time and effort on opening a mountain of paper, sorting through it, checking it for validity against the accounts, etc., costing them a ton of money.
Maybe they'll get the message.
Of course, I'll also send them my real opt-out. So, for $4.50 in stamps, a few envelopes and a few minutes of fun, it will cost them about an hour or so of employee time.
Let's see if we can't cross post this everywhere and multiply it by 10,000!
HexaByte - he's a square and a half!
Your statement boils down to: "It's legal for an entity that hold massive amounts of power over you and your life to hold your needs for ransom and force you into a contract and for it to be binding."
People wonder why I think corporate rights should be subordinate to the rights of the individual. This is it. This might not be quite as serious as paypal has "competitors" (I disagree with this view... they hold the keys to one of the most important online marketplaces. There is no other way to gain access.), but think about if your water or electric company did this.
Paypal is not a bank... eBay is not an auction...
I admit to having accounts for both, but I haven't really used them in the past 5 years. Craigslist is a more important online marketplace than eBay. Hey... even Kijii is a more important online marketplace than eBay these days. There's almost no reason to try to buy/sell through eBay these days; others do both better. So the Paypal lock-in is irrelevant.
For Paypal, because they don't have banking protections, they're open to all sorts of interstate criminal offences if they make the wrong move. So while I somewhat agree with your view as far as corporate rights go, PayPal/eBay don't really stand up as an argument, as there are plenty of controls in place for them already.
For me, corporate rights aren't that big of a deal -- it's corporate protections that are a big deal. I really dislike that my tax money is going to protect/support an entity whose purpose is to extract as much money from me as possible. If I refuse to let them do this, they just grab it via the government instead (through a combination of laws, treaties, levies and bailouts).
Once again, we're seeing that Corporations have more rights than American citizens. These corporations can influence politics, influence elections, yet pay no income taxes (or practically nothing), provide nothing back to their host country, and yet have gamed the legal system so that they hold all the cards and it's like gambling against the house to go against them. Only when we've risen up with pitchforks and torches will things be able to change. It's going to take an act of civil war or something akin to the French Revolution to get us our country back from those greedy bastards that have stolen it from under our noses.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Not sure how it is in the USA, but here in the Netherlands this is basically a nogo for corporations. By Dutch law a contract can never , ever go above the law and starting a lawsuit is a basic right by law. There is even a real danger for the corporation in questions that having such a clause in he contract invalidates the whole contract and the transaction falls back to "standard" terms. maybe i am a bit optimistic here but would this principle not also apply in any country, include the US of A?
Paypal is doing nothing more than protecting themselves against greedy and stupid people and nothing else.
Fuck you
Xbox Live updated, and the new TOS include this same crap.
Good to see you too draeath. :-)
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
That's physical, actual paper, snail mail. No online forms, no emails, no calls.
I wonder about this. TL;DR: Is there *any* reason why they can demand this?
Firstly: As a PayPal customer I have received no explicit notification of any kind regarding this change. My potential email to them would be the only substantial correspondence between us regarding this matter. Of course their arbitrary conditions are just included to make it seem difficult to "opt-out", but how does it carry any validity?
Secondly: If this flies, what's to stop a company from including arbitrary conditions, something like the brilliant quip by ThatsNotPudding above suggested: "Lastly, the agreement must be accompanied by six Unobtainums (TM) breakfast cereal boxtops (15 lb. boxes only), each featuring a Notary Public seal from the Third Bank of Neptune. The agreement must have been written on parchment during the reign of Charlemagne." If companies could actually get away with this, they would do it. Since they don't I suspect it's not that simple.
Thirdly: Email seems to be an acceptable channel for sending legal notifications these days, see for instance DMCA notifications. If I demand that they send any objections via Telex, would that carry the same weight? We actually have a Telex terminal somewhere at work, although I suspect it's not connected and in working order. Telegram service still exists in our neighbour country, though, that might be an option :)
As for the clause itself: Where I live you can't contract away a basic right in this way. I can sue anyone I want to [although almost nobody ever does, as opposed to some other nations I've heard of :)]. The court might decide to throw me out, someone I'm doing business with can't. Class actions are uncommon here, but not unheard of. There is no legal reasons anyone can bring to bear that makes me unable to join one if it surfaced. Someone coming to court whining that an EULA precluded my participating in a potential legal dispute would certainly not improve their case.
Are you a grammar Nazi? I'm trying to improve my English; please correct my errors!
I noticed the same thing when I got a dashboard update. IMHO, the companies should be able to change their legal policies on the fly -- as long as they are willing to refund you for all of the equipment/software/etc you have purchased if you don't find it acceptable.
Evolution: love it or leave it
No, seriously. Here is the email I received from PayPal on 10/10/2012 at 1am:
No, I didn't. I suppose that they wouldn't want to send it to customers in countries where a company can't deny you access to the legal system.
Are you a grammar Nazi? I'm trying to improve my English; please correct my errors!
One of the many atrocities on the American Justice system already committed by this Supreme Court...
Eff Paypal.
I understand the reasoning behind class action suits perfectly well, and don't object to the theory in the least bit.
The problem I have with them is the fact that no matter how small a compensation is eventually awarded the "settlement class", the attorneys who brought the suit get a huge payout for themselves.
In normal court cases, there's a reasonable expectation of the wronged party receiving fair to excellent compensation when their case is won or settled. If the attorney felt he/she couldn't get you very much, you'd likely decide not to file suit in the first place. Many times, the attorney's pay is directly tied to the winnings as a percentage, motivating him/her to get as much as possible for you.
With class actions, it seems like any law office with some spare time can simply hear about some dissatisfaction out there with a product or service, ask people to email or call them if they've experienced it themselves, and put together a case. As long as they're awarded some big dollar figure as their own compensation in the eventual settlement, they can ask for VERY little for the rest of the settlement class.
I recall several of these class actions in the past where the eventual award was nothing more than a discount coupon off the purchase price of another product from the company. Why would I want to buy something else from the company that sold me a dud the last time?! That sounds to me like the lawyers just wanted to make sure the settlement went through so they'd get paid, so they asked for the smallest compensation possible for everyone else.
Paypal cancelled my account, because I wouldn't give them direct (i.e. ACH) access to my checking account. I don't think they do that any more, but my d'bag meter tends to stick once it gets in the red.
All of which is my way of saying that I'm not one bit surprised by this move.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
http://www.docdroid.net/1i67/paypal-opt-out-letter.odt.html
Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-rms
I think a clause like would be likely to fail in the UK as unfair (especially for EXISTING account holders).
Is this actually legal or are they just trying it on?
Insert
So what's the proper procedure to make sure that they received my latter and actually recognize it?
Oh, sorry. Delivery Confirmation just means you sent a letter to us. It doesn't mean it was actually an opt-out, was signed correctly, was simply a blank piece of paper, etc.
Opting out of this Agreement to Arbitrate has no effect on any previous, other, or future arbitration agreements that you may have with us.
Thanks for letting me know you can add an arbitration agreement at any time at your discretion, because my opt-out only applies to the arbitration clause in this policy update.
Just because the EULA says so, doesn't mean the courts agree.
I for one is pretty confident that the courts in my country will aprox... 5 min to rule that the user cannot be expected to understand or even read the EULA, and that agreement-by-click is in anyway binding.
So let them write what they want... If you have sane laws and court system, it'll bite them in the ass, as the courts will probably find the entire EULA invalid, due to a single section...
First off, I couldn't agree with you more on just about every point you make.
I got a notification from both eBay a while back, and PayPal twelve days ago by email, so you might check what email your account(s) use and their associated spam buckets. And as you say, email seems to be an acceptable channel for this sort of communication, but apparently only one way. Ironic in the traditional sense, yes. I could rant all day about this, but I think everything that can be said has been by now.
Perhaps, you didn't get the notice because for reasons you've stated the change may not be enforceable in your country (NB, this is a wild-ass guess on my part). A US Supreme Court ruling last year cleared the way for this sort of crap here. If you're curious, here's the text of the PayPal email I received:
Notice of Policy Updates
Dear So-and-So
PayPal recently posted a new Policy Update which includes changes to the PayPal User Agreement. The update to the User Agreement is effective November 1, 2012 and contains several changes, including changes that affect how claims you and PayPal have against each other are resolved. You will, with limited exception, be required to submit claims you have against PayPal to binding and final arbitration, unless you opt out of the Agreement to Arbitrate (Section 14.3) by December 1, 2012. Unless you opt out: (1) you will only be permitted to pursue claims against PayPal on an individual basis, not as a plaintiff or class member in any class or representative action or proceeding and (2) you will only be permitted to seek relief (including monetary, injunctive, and declaratory relief) on an individual basis.
You can view this Policy Update by logging in to your PayPal account. To log in to your account, go to https://www.paypal.com/ and enter your member log in information. Once you are logged in, look at the Notifications section on the top right side of the page for the latest Policy Updates. We encourage you to review the Policy Update to familiarize yourself with all of the changes that have been made.
If you need help logging in, go to our Help Center by clicking the Help link located in the upper right-hand corner of any PayPal page.
Sincerely,
PayPal
I am not a crackpot.
Monkey see, monkey do.
They deliver everything to me electronically but I have to write a letter to opt out, jerks.
Opt-Out Procedure.
You can choose to reject this Agreement to Arbitrate ("opt out") by mailing us a written opt-out notice ("Opt-Out Notice"). For new PayPal users, the Opt-Out Notice must be postmarked no later than 30 Days after the date you accept the User Agreement for the first time. If you are already a current PayPal user and previously accepted the User Agreement prior to the introduction of this Agreement to Arbitrate, the Opt-Out Notice must be postmarked no later than December 1, 2012. You must mail the Opt-Out Notice to PayPal, Inc., Attn: Litigation Department, 2211 North First Street, San Jose, CA 95131.
The Opt-Out Notice must state that you do not agree to this Agreement to Arbitrate and must include your name, address, phone number, and the email address(es) used to log in to the PayPal account(s) to which the opt-out applies. You must sign the Opt-Out Notice for it to be effective. This procedure is the only way you can opt out of the Agreement to Arbitrate. If you opt out of the Agreement to Arbitrate, all other parts of the User Agreement, including all other provisions of Section 14 (Disputes with PayPal), will continue to apply. Opting out of this Agreement to Arbitrate has no effect on any previous, other, or future arbitration agreements that you may have with us.
Less *is* more.
That's physical, actual paper, snail mail. No online forms, no emails, no calls.
I wonder about this. TL;DR: Is there *any* reason why they can demand this?
It depends on what the law states. If the laws don't say that Paypal has to allow opting out in the manner most convenient to you, then they could choose snail mail, and I doubt the courts are willing to rule at this time that a postal letter is onerous. It's not like "this request must be made in person at our corporate headquarters during business hours."