Slashdot Mirror
PayPal Told Customer Her Death Breached Its Rules (bbc.com)
dryriver shares a report from the BBC: PayPal wrote to a woman who had died of cancer saying her death had breached its rules and that it might take legal action as a consequence. The firm has since acknowledged that the letter was "insensitive," apologized to her widower, and begun an inquiry into how it came to be sent.
Lindsay Durdle died on May 31 aged 37. She had been first diagnosed with breast cancer about a year-and-a-half earlier. The disease had later spread to her lungs and brain. PayPal was informed of Mrs Durdle's death three weeks ago by her husband Howard Durdle. He provided the online payments service with copies of her death certificate, her will and his ID, as requested. He has now received a letter addressed in her name, sent to his home in Bucklebury, West Berkshire. It was headlined: "Important: You should read this notice carefully." It said that Mrs Durdle owed the company about 3,200 pounds (~$4,200) and went on to say: "You are in breach of condition 15.4(c) of your agreement with PayPal Credit as we have received notice that you are deceased... this breach is not capable of remedy." According to a PayPal staff member, there were three possible explanations for how the letter was sent: a bug, a bad letter template, or human error. PayPal is continuing to work with Mr Durdle and has written off the debt in the meantime.
Lindsay Durdle died on May 31 aged 37. She had been first diagnosed with breast cancer about a year-and-a-half earlier. The disease had later spread to her lungs and brain. PayPal was informed of Mrs Durdle's death three weeks ago by her husband Howard Durdle. He provided the online payments service with copies of her death certificate, her will and his ID, as requested. He has now received a letter addressed in her name, sent to his home in Bucklebury, West Berkshire. It was headlined: "Important: You should read this notice carefully." It said that Mrs Durdle owed the company about 3,200 pounds (~$4,200) and went on to say: "You are in breach of condition 15.4(c) of your agreement with PayPal Credit as we have received notice that you are deceased... this breach is not capable of remedy." According to a PayPal staff member, there were three possible explanations for how the letter was sent: a bug, a bad letter template, or human error. PayPal is continuing to work with Mr Durdle and has written off the debt in the meantime.
Bugs and bad letter templates all have the same cause: human error.
Computers don't make mistakes.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
You can ask to to be forgiven. And then get it. Or not.
The point is, that you cannot do it to yourself!
"I murdered your mother. But I apologized. So everything is fine. Why are you still mad, you asshole?!"
... Where your spouse or children automatically inherit your debt. With 40% taxes on top because fuck you.
Yeah, if we Germans could, we would marry the concept of rules, have children with it, and raise the most insane ones as new citizens to replace our country's population.
I'm German by the way. You can tell from the comlaining and negativity. You just breached rule 27964 section q subsection MCMXVII of the BGBWTFBBQO, 2019 edition, applying retroactively to yo momma.
Did she go on a spending spree before her death? I don't think the husband knew about it.
the wording might be insensitive but notifying her husband about it isn't that unusual, is it?
No, there's a much more plausible fourth explanation: Paypal is run by dicks.
3,200 pounds from pay-pal? now that's a story
Can he still be held responsible for paying his deceased wife's debts? One of my girlfriends ran up all her mom's credit cards as she was dying of breast cancer, because she knew the debt would go away when she died.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Sending them a copy of the death certificate was nice to do. However, after that let them chase their tails trying to collect a debt from a dead person and waste their time an money in the process...
What are they going to do? Ruin a dead persons credit? Knock yourself out PayPal. Take them to court? It will be fun to see what the process server does with that....
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I'm wondering how it could be that dying could be interpreted as breach of contract.... does anyone here know exactly what it said?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
That you promise not to die?
Dying as being a breach of contract would be a TOTAL Terry Gilliam plot!
"a bug, a bad letter template, or human error. "
Or you just have crap policies where you fail to delineate other avenues of outcomes that occur but you do not consider legitimate. This leads to absurd conclusions any normal review or check would recognize as unacceptable.
PayPal is set up this way -deliberately-. They want you to give up. They don't want to be contacted. THey make many being pricks.
Get unsolicited email from PayPal, to an address you own and has never had anything to do with them? You have no easy recourse to get it removed. There is no unsubscribe since PayPal assumes they ahve the right address. They admit it's from an unmonitored email address you cannot rely to. They assume they are in the right or that you have an account or agreement with them. You cannot respond in kind in like medium (email) to get it resolved.
And if you call them, look out. They assume you are the phisher. Yeah, I'm spending 25mintues on hold telling you to contact the account holder they are using my email address, and in them eantime either temproarily blacklist the outgoing emails until thye at least verify the account. Yeah, that's a real good phish move, morons. Interesting how they won't email you to verify right then and there like a poor man's authentication sicn ethey maybe believe it's a MITM, but they'll authenticate with a plain email with an open link to verify an email account.
I'm almost tempted to try to see if I verify my address with the account that I didn't open to see if I can get a password reset. Then go in and turn off the email settings, assuming you can do that. Of course, if I did that, I'd probably be in trouble for hacking, while PP keeps sending me emails to sign up for their new credit card, or I've been preapproved for xyz.
PayPal. Oe wonly pretned to be a bank. WHat do you expect, real service?
"You are in breach of condition 15.4(c) of your agreement with PayPal Credit as we have received notice that you are deceased... this breach is not capable of remedy."
You can't win.
You can't break even.
You can't even quit the game.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Good to know death clears your debts. Time to spend spend spend.
I would like to know what this is too. Looking up the terms and conditions, there is a 15.4, but no subclause (c): :P
15.4 In the event you do not agree to the terms of a release amount, you may close your account unless otherwise prohibited under this Agreement. However, if your account is closed for any reason, we have the right to hold the amount retained in your PayPal account for up to 180 days.
Can anyone else find more?
catchpa: mystery
A computer made a mistake based on bad human input. Yawn...sorry. I thought I heard you wrong. Really, it's an amazing story. Thanks for sharing. My day is complete now.
The letter was intended for Mr Durtle, not Mr Durdle.
That’s national health care for you.
Just think a Paypal representative waiting at the pearly gates for her.
That was literally the opening plot of Brazil. Guy gets murdered during a swat-style raid looking for a guy whose name was one typo different, and as a result his family has to pay for his termination costs, despite it being the government's fault.
That movie is an excellent watch by the way, although it is hard to tell what part of it is taking part in 'reality' and what part of it is in his mind, whether crazed, or after he is broken.
Follow the link to the BBC article and read the letter. The deceased had an outstanding balance with PayPal.
They've been made aware that the person they have a contract with is no longer able to pay, so they've quite rightly put in their claim for repayment as soon as possible.
This could have been phrased in any number of non-objectionable ways.
I'd guess either: you can't falsely claim to be dead to avoid them trying to collect. In this scenario someone forgot to scan the supporting docs or click a checkbox somewhere and the effect was: account claimed to be in probate no supporting documentation == fraud attempt.
Second scenario: the above is the actual clause and the dude cleaned out the account then sent the supporting documentation. Ie: she's dead and dude or someone else continued to use the account. I worked in credit card collections for a fortunately brief period and ran into both scenarios.
Can't escape them, even in death.
How about having extra damages attach if it's due to a computer error - I bet youtube dmca takedown notices would plummet immediately...
"...this breach is not capable of remedy."
Good commet in the BBC article: "I'm in a reasonable place at the moment - I've got quite a level head on my shoulders - and am quite capable of dealing with paperwork like this," Mr Durdle said.
"But I'm a member of the charity Widowed and Young, and I've seen first-hand in there how a letter like this or something like it can completely derail somebody.
"If I'm going to make any fuss about this at all, it's to make sure that PayPal - or any other organisation that might do this kind of insensitive thing - recognises the damage they can cause the recently bereaved."
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44783779
No, dying wasn't the issue.
It's bloody clear that her account had an unpaid debt that's the issue.
Your Estate is supposed to pay your farking debts after you die.
Is that really so difficult to understand?
Why the fark should her estate get a pass?
The letter did not say what 15.4(c) was. If it had, I would not have asked the question.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
If a person is dead, whether or not there is any documentation to prove it is irrelevant, it is categorically *NOT* fraud to state that they are dead... it is only fraud to state they are dead if they are not.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The summary made no sense. I googled it, found the letter and a legit news site. The summary cuts and pastes and mutilates the original letter to pretend it's saying something else. It doesn't say
... hides a heck of a lot and the second half has nothing to do with the first.
"You are in breach of condition 15.4(c) of your agreement with PayPal Credit as we have received notice that you are deceased... this breach is not capable of remedy."
That
No shit. Brilliant.
The person was only dead, but that's just a status for their estate. The only technicality here is that after the status of death has been reached, the template should have been amended to address the 'Estate of Lindsay Durdle' instead of Lindsay Durdle. They do have the right to collect the money. Probate courts handle this sort of sorting.
Even worse are the carpetbaggers who thrive on misery. When a loved one dies, be as prepared as you can for this sort of thing -- letters commiserating with you at this terrible occasion, and offering to buy your house immediately for cash. Half of these letters will be addressed to the deceased.
In general (at least around here), the carpetbaggers are not breaking any laws, and the most you can do is write to them or call them, and ask "Does your mother know what you do for a living?" Not that that does any good with those illegitimate sons of crack whores, but it might temporarily make you feel better.
The big companies are sometimes somewhat trainable, and I comment Mr. Durdle for attempting to train Paypal. I myself have attempted to train a few companies, such as Netflix. After trying multiple times to get their customer service people to do the right thing, I finally sent an email to their general counsel:
From: Netflix <info@mailer.netflix.com>
To: xxxx@zzzz.com
Subject: xxxx, come back today to more TV shows & movies.
More TV Shows & Movies to Love
A lot has changed since you left. Come back to Netflix and enjoy newly added TV shows & movies. There's something for everyone to enjoy and we're always adding more, including Netflix original series and movies.
(ad copy, buttons, etc.)
From: yyyy <yyyy@zzzz.com>
To: David Hyman <dhyman@netflix.com>
Subject: Re: Fwd: xxxx, come back today to more TV shows & movies.
Dear Mr. Hyman:
It would be great if xxxx would come back. She could watch all the netflix she wanted and I wouldn't mind.
But she's not coming back.
(link to obituary)
I canceled her account two months ago; somehow I managed to explain the situation to one of your people. But that's not good enough; now, in order to get your system to stop sending her email, I either need to provide information I don't have (a credit card number from a bank account which I closed), or I need to get a code so I can log into her netflix account.
This is apparently done in the name of PCI compliance. Like SOX, or ISO-9000, those things done in the name of PCI compliance often don't actually help and may actually harm. E.g. I want to give her privacy, and absolutely do not want to log into her netflix account.
I have fulfilled my responsibilities here; it is up to your company to insure that you stop sending advertising to my dead wife.
It would also be great if you could empower your people enough so that issues like this could be taken care of with a single phone call, but that no longer seems to be the American way.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.
Best regards,
yyyy
The only thing I see that being from is a credit card debt through PayPal, otherwise there's no fucking way in hell a PayPal account like that should be in a negative that deeply.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
You can always refuse an inheritance, the trick is , you have to refuse it *wholesale*. Meaning you can't pick and chose. Furthermore if the debt was cosigned by *both* spouse then in some cases the other signatory still continue to hold the debt.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
and they are charging a arm and a leg for it...
I called their support and asked can i sell bitcoin and charge with pp. and they said yes you can. even talked to Us and Uk support about it.
A week after they send me a email saying we have decided to terminate your account and keep your money for 6 months (5figures) because i breached their tos. And then all of a sudden it had appeared in their tos that you cant sell crypto couuency with pp.
So they terminated my account. But thats not all!
They terminated my business accounts belonging to totally different businesses, my wifes account and even my CHILDRENS accounts!!!
All i can say is stay far away from paypal!
What matter to the law is that there is an "Inheritance". You get this inheritance by default. It is up to YOU to check whether this comes up as a positive inheritance or negative. And you can hardly do that without checking yourself carefully. Imagine the legal nightmare if the inheritance was "optional" if negative after a while, but automatic if positive ? That would make it difficult to everybody and generate a lot of work for the judge to check whether an opt out or opt in was justified. No, a standard either "opt in always" or "optional always" is justified. In this case, it is better to have always inheritance and let the person decide to reject it. The other way around people could lose inheritance they would otherwise want.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I wouldn't be surprised if they quietly deleted it, because it was stupid and they didn't want people looking it up when they read this news.
In most jurisdictions, creditors can lay a valid claim against the estate of a deceased debtor. The executor of an estate in the United States, for example, is required to notify all known creditors of the death of the debtor, and to pay all valid claims against the estate by those creditors so long as there are assets in the estate to pay them with. If the executor fails to do this and pays beneficiaries of the estate before paying valid creditor claims, they become personally liable for those debts.
Death does not get you out of paying the debts that you owe.
It seems to be from the PayPal Credit Agreement. Maybe she had a PayPal credit card or something, probably ran up the debts paying for costs associated with her treatment for cancer. Anyway, it says:
"We may close the Credit Account and demand repayment of the full amount you owe us if you die or become of unsound mind"
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The terms and conditions are likely different in different legal jurisdictions. The applicable one would be the UK version. If you are accessing PayPal from a different jurisdiction, you are probably not seeing the correct Ts&Cs.
In pretty much all common law jurisdictions (read: "English speaking") the debt of the deceased goes against any assets that the creditor had at the time of death. Even if the creditor had willed all of the assets and the debt is greater than the assets, the recipients of the will don't have to pay it, instead they will just end up with nothing as an inheritance but any excess is written off.
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
" this breach is not capable of remedy."
Seems accurate, unless you have the Doctor and his TARDIS ready to bring a cure back from the distant future, to her past. >_>
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
This employee will have no trouble getting a job at the White House... they just need to be publicly fired so we can make the connection when it happens (instead of thinking maybe 1 decent one got hired.)
The law works too-- the law says separate young children from their mothers, not us...
captcha: lucked
Wow. What an idea!
Before you die, give all of your assets away, take out a large loan and give the money to your survivors, and run up massive debt.
That'll stick it to them! Whatcha gonna do? Kill me?!
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
That would've been an epic typo.
In point of fact, if the following quote was indeed included in the letter:
> "... this breach is not capable of remedy."
then there's another way we can look at this. The breach was the lady's death. But PayPal seems to imply that there is indeed a remedy, they just won't accept it. If that's true, then I'm taking bets that there's gonna be a line-up at the door for applications of similar remedies desired by a pretty large contingent of the planet's populace.
Of course, it's already been stated, and bickered over, that the "first impression" is that "since the deceased can't remedy the condition, then we're coming after you". Sorry, that would be a Romper Room no-no. The quoted clause forecloses that process, because PayPal just stated/admitted that they recognize there is *no* remedy, period. Even offering cash to them is not acceptable, according to their statement. Case closed, regardless of how inheritance laws are formulated in various jurisdictions. Buh-bye-bye, PP.
"...Even If You Die."
Are there no other LASFS members here? Unbelievable.
In illinois, at least. He died with no will, had inherited items from my Aunt, his mom. she had a will. he had debt, she didn't.
Items from her, in the will, go to those named. Nobody wanted them, they will be auctioned. Proceeds go to my father, the closest relative.
Items from him, no will, will be auctioned. Proceeds will be used to pay the lawyer ( he's first, of course), the administrator of the estate ( my dad ). Remainder goes to settle his debt. Anything left over, My Dad gets. If the debt is larger than the proceeds, my dad gets nothing additional and the excess debt gets eaten, in this case by the credit card company.