UK || PayPal urged to block essay firm cheats

A recent development in the UK, a lot of freelance writers here use PayPal with a business account that could implicate them. I would assume PayPal would start with the lowest hanging fruit, big companies such as ukessays.com first to be hit, but the potential is there.


bbc.com/news/education-47629043 - BBC - PayPal urged to block essay firm cheats

I've read similar sentiments, especially from news sources in the UK, for a few years now. The presented theory is that "it is unethical for these companies / freelance writers to profit from this dishonest business." If Paypal or banks fall to these pressures, it would make very dangerous precedents for businesses and entrepreneurs. Depending on whom you ask, thousands of companies from various business niches can be considered "unethical." Let's start from lobbying or donations to political parties ;)

Even if Paypal fails to protect UK freelance writers and businesses from the attacks, they will find a way to accept money elsewhere, let's see: 2Checkout, Payoneer, Skrill, Stripe, Sage, Authorize (and hundreds of places that offer credit / debit card payments through merchant accounts), Transferwise, Amazon cards, Google Checkout, or regular bank transfer / check transactions. If Paypal decides to target UK businesses only, they could open an US or EU account and have money transferred there.

Besides, oftentimes a business or a freelancer offers multiple services, like essay editing / tutoring, paraphrasing, translations, data entry, article writing, marketing, etc. What would Paypal do in such cases? Would they investigate each and every transaction to determine whether the transaction was related to "essay editing" vs "essay writing" vs "SEO content writing" vs "dissertation revision" vs "statistical analysis," etc? If they ban a business that doesn't fully violate their terms, they can be sued and lose.

It seems EU organizations trying to pressure US companies has become fashionable these days, so I'd not expect Paypal to risk both losing business and getting into possible legal troubles.

As a non-governmental entity, they could freely ban any business that offers academic ghostwriting (or that seems to offer academic ghostwriting, notwithstanding "TOS" provisions that are obviously just intended to create plausible deniability).


No. They wouldn't have to do anything but ban any entity that offers any kind of academic ghostwriting, regardless of what other services they may also provide. Paypal already bans transactions to pay for various types of legal products that they wouldn't be able to ban if they had to comply with the same standards as government entities, such as "collectable" Nazi paraphernalia and both real and replica firearms that are perfectly legal in many states, and without any obligation to permit such transactions in states where firearm ownership may be perfectly legal.

There are replica firearms or Nazi "gifts" available to purchase on both Amazon, Ebay, and other stores - banks haven't banned them yet. Still, I don't get it - do you actually agree with the BBC editor that working as an example research academic ghostwriter (your daily job, as I assume) is a crime and should be banned?

I wasn't expressing any opinion at all about what the editor said or about what I think PayPal should or shouldn't do. Obviously, it would be very bad for me if they decided to prohibit payments for essay writing, just as it would be very bad for your essay company. I was simply explaining that, as a non-governmental entity, PayPal cannot be "sued" for its decision to prohibit whatever types of products it chooses to prohibit, as long as they don't discriminate against a constitutionally-protected class, such as by prohibiting books about some religions or races but not others. However, if they choose to prohibit payments for all books or for all virtual services, that's entirely their prerogative.

digitaltrends.com/web/guns-drugs-and-timeshares-14-things-paypal-wont-let-you-buy/

The point is, Paypal is protected from anti-discrimination laws only if they don't arbitrary discriminate against one group of businesses or freelance writers. If they decide to ban companyX, but choose not to ban companyY that provides a similar service, it would be an illegal / discriminatory act. So they could either ban all services and all freelance writers providing academic ghostwriting services, or none of them; selective ban may result in a successful lawsuit against them.

I have no idea what you're talking about. I believe the only issue was PayPal prohibiting payments for any and all academic essay writing, not prohibiting payments to some essay companies but not others. My only point was that PayPal has the prerogative to prohibit payments for any type of product, including academic essays, whether or not you or I agree with or like that policy. They would not, as you suggested earlier, have to know or prove which specific projects constitute ghostwriting and which specific projects constitute some other kind of writing. They could simply choose to prohibit all "writing for hire" if they want to, as well as payments to any company that offers academic essays, regardless of what other kinds of writing projects that company also provides.

Nobody is talking about prohibiting payments to some essay companies but not others. I merely qualified my earlier point so that nobody would assume that I was saying there's no limit at all to their freedom to prohibit payments, such as if they were to discriminate against a constitutionally-protected class. It should be more than obvious that I wasn't suggesting that they could target some companies while accepting payments from other companies engaged in the same kind of work.

PayPal to reject essay-writing firms

Could this be the beginning of the end?

"Last month, UK Education Secretary Damian Hinds called on PayPal to stop processing payments for such firms, in a bid to beat academic cheating. But this will not be an "overnight ban" - as there will be debates over which services are helping students to cheat and which are offering legitimate tutoring assistance. This is a business that operates across national borders - so PayPal says there will need to be an international response."

bbc.com/news/education-47800531

Meanwhile, after May 1st, PayPal will no longer be refunding their fees on refunded payments.

Well, Paypal knows such move could give them business disadvantage because freelancers will go elsewhere. Btw - what do the Kenyan writers think about that, Paypal alternatives?

So - what about Upwork, Freelancer, Fiverr, Guru and a dozen of other freelance job services that offer the "Writing / Research" category? I've just checked and they all allow Paypal payments. It would mean they would police all transactions? If not they will drop these categories? One way or another, if a ban is really imposed, I'm going to make sure that these big boys don't allow Paypal payments either by contacting proper authorities.

Such blanket bans only serve to push freelance writers and companies underground which changes nothing in the long run. I can think of many services only one google search away.

Ironically, in my experience, internet black bāzārs provide a better overall experience for shoppers. Word of mouth reviews left on seller pages establishes the trustworthiness of that seller on that marketplace. For example, one particular site (now closed) which I won't name but primary function was the selling of illegal substances, provided better quality products overall than street dealers simply because of the reviews left by customers establishing trustworthiness.

Speaking of going underground.
I have also noticed that tracing essay writing sites (should PayPal truly go through with these policies) are generally difficult. A lot of these sites do not have the necessity to specify what form of service the person has done freelance writing for. Like what was said earlier in this discussion, there are a few freelance writers who hide in the guise of being a content writer (or any other form of freelance writing). I have also noticed that a few would try to come out as researchers rather than academic writers as both can technically fall under the same spectrum. There's so many overlapping details here that it truly is hard to tell.

Well, Paypal made good on its threat. It has cancelled the accounts of several writing companies that I know of. I am sure there are others out there that I am not familiar with who also got their business accounts cancelled. Luckily, Paypal no longer holds the torrens title to being the only digital money channel out there. The companies and their writers were able to find alternative money transfer methods that, now that most writers think about it, gives them more benefits with regards to money transfer than Paypal ever did. Gone are the days of writers having money transfer problems because PayPal did not exist in their home country. They can get paid easily for their hard work now. Academic writing companies and their writers are here to stay, the money channels and academic institutions will just have to learn to accept that truth.

I think Paypal is done. They charge how much, 3-4% per transaction when a Certificate Deposit in your bank pays 4% per year. It is a rip-off and the new generation of buyers found much more economical ways of sending/receiving money online.

@formerstudent I agree that there are more affordable digital payment channels existing today. There are even country based ewallets that allow for remittance payments at this point. So PayPal is really facing stiff competition. They are not out of the game though. Even with their steep middleman fees there are still those who prefer to use this traditional payment channel because of (1) tradition, (2) familiarity, (3) country remittance partners. The other players have yet to break into the international payments market. PayPal's stiffest competition, as far as I can tell, is Payoneer which offers its own atm / debit card to properly registered business partners.