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PayPal Denies Teen Reward For Finding Bug

Posted by timothy on from the alice-in-wonderland-rules dept.

itwbennett writes "You have to be 18 to qualify for PayPal's bug bounty program, a minor detail that 17-year old Robert Kugler found out the hard way after being denied a reward for a website bug he reported. Curiously, the age guideline isn't in the terms and conditions posted on the PayPal website. Kugler was informed by email that he was disqualified because of his age."

2 of 318 comments (clear)

  1. Too young for what ? by Alain+Williams · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If he is too young to receive money for finding a bug, is he also too young to be criminally prosecuted for exploiting a bug ?

  2. Debtor cannot dictate form of payment by Animats · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The rules say that "Payment is paid out through a verified PayPal account, once the bug is fixed." It's not required to have a PayPal account to win. That's just the payment mechanism eBay prefers. Once someone has won, PayPal owes them money. PayPal is a debtor here.

    Debtors do not. in general, get to require that their creditor jump through hoops to get paid. Whether eBay is entitled to require payment via their own system is a legal issue which eBay would probably lose. Any collection lawyer or collection agency should be able to take this case and win.

    On top of that, this is a "contest", and in the US, contests are regulated by the FTC's Contest Rule. Federal law limits what a contest operator can require after they've told someone they've "won".