You do not need a phone number to do business through PayPal. I have one but it is an old unused number and have never been asked to provide a working number. So I assume that if people do away with their PayPal account it is because of principle and not because they will be doing robocalls or text. There are so many ways around this (adding the number to spam numbers, blocking, giving a fake number or even a number at all. My old number on file was never even confirmed) for me to want to give up my account. If I did not need PayPal it would be one thing but I do a lot of online shopping. Some sites there are other options to pay but with Ebay its not that easy unless you can work something out with the seller. Do away with your account if you feel the need but I don't feel the need yet. Do I like the new Policy? no, but there are a lot of things I do not like about many companies, sites and even people but I make it work and still interact with them because sometimes there is no other choice.

Now let the ....... replies begin.

JC...supplying a phony phone (oh well, sorry for that) is a violation of their TOU...and they'll kill your account. Hasn't happened up 'til now because they never had the need to contact you...but now, count on it.

They won't be contacting me because I did not supply a phony number. If you read again what I wrote I said it was an old number or to be more specific a sim card I no longer use. As to providing a phony number it may be a violation but were are the examples of anything being done about it. Besides that was only one option that I listed and there are many others for the ethically or morally conscious. I will deal with it if they out right tell me that I need to provide a working number and I am willing to bet that they won't.

Lets be clear on one thing, there is a difference between members and non members. "When a non-paypal member wishes to make a purchase they are presented with mandatory fields to enter their telephone number. For paypal members this option may be turned off (indeed there is a warning that turning it on may have a negative effect on conversion to sale - ie people don't always want to give their number.)

Right...the intent is clear, however.

If you call them at any time from your phone (mobile), they'll have that number (it says in their Agreement they can do that), also, they can share that number with their affiliates and you'll be getting their numbers, too.

In fact, they might just make you update your account on July 1st...then where will you be? 

Look I know you will talk about intent again with this response but if it concerns you that much here is what you do. Go buy yourself a cheap pay as you go phone or purchase a new sim card and designate these as your PayPal only phones. use them to call PayPal or to receive text or calls from PayPal. Yes they are still making contact with you but they are doing so on a phone that is not your daily user. I would have no problem doing this with a clear conscience and it would be worth it to me because of the amount of PayPal transactions that I do.

I guess time will tell what approach I will need to take.

I've been using Paypal for years, and will continue to do so. This is a total non-issue for me. Even if I did suddenly get flooded with robo calls (I won't, by the way, because it makes no sense) I would just use one of the many call blocking apps to weed out the advertisers.

Consider Square Cash as an alternative, for person-to-person payments, anyway.  Haven't looked at their TOU but I don't receive calls from them.  We use PayPal for a fair number of online purchases as a convenience, but it's hardly necessary and certainly not worth intrusive marketing harassment.  If it happens, I'll close the account for them.

^ That. 

This is the sort of thing that I don't care about being in a ToC. When they start doing it, I'll react. Until then it's not important to me.

It is necessary for some people if they want to shop online who have no credit cards. In those cases PayPal uses your bank account. So your choice is to not shop online and try to buy your purchase locally or keep using PayPal. I like the ability to shop online because there are things I can buy that I cannot buy locally. I will continue to use PayPal for its convenience not to mention the quite good protection if a transaction goes bad. I really do not see a problem after June 30th but feel free to tell me I told you so if there is, I know some will.   

Square Cash currently links only to a debit card, not directly to your bank account the way PayPal can.  So, yes, that's currently PayPal's leverage/advantage.  Pushback to the TOU changes may change that, however, and encourage Square (&/or others) to expand into the online payment processing market.

JuniorCrooks

reply 1

You do not need a phone number to do business through PayPal. I have one but it is an old unused number and have never been asked to provide a working number. So I assume that if people do away with their PayPal account it is because of principle and not because they will be doing robocalls or text. There are so many ways around this (adding the number to spam numbers, blocking, giving a fake number or even a number at all. My old number on file was never even confirmed) for me to want to give up my account. If I did not need PayPal it would be one thing but I do a lot of online shopping. Some sites there are other options to pay but with Ebay its not that easy unless you can work something out with the seller. Do away with your account if you feel the need but I don't feel the need yet. Do I like the new Policy? no, but there are a lot of things I do not like about many companies, sites and even people but I make it work and still interact with them because sometimes there is no other choice.

Now let the ....... replies begin.

 

also note that they may (will) use phone numbers they obtain by other means.... and our data is very easy to get by web sleuths... so don't count on 'hiding' your 'other' phone number.... paypal is hungry!  and copying the Google approach...

I doubt very much that will happen seeing how the number they have on file will be the number that they will use to contact you. If I have a dedicated paypal number (which may sound silly to some) that will be the number they use to make contact, not the number they don't have on file. Like NGC7000 says this is a non issue for me because there are many options. I also do not believe that they will be flooding anyone's phone with text or calls, more likely only if there is a problem with your account such as not enough funds in your account and so on.

I had trouble with PayPal some years ago when Microsoft closed the linked email address due to it being hacked and used for nefarious purposes.  When I next tried to use Paypal for a transaction it was blocked.  The reason given was that I no longer had a viable email addrees.  However, every time I tried to edit my account with a new email addy it wouldn't take because I already had another registered.  I tried several times without success to edit the account, and no amount of contacting them resolved it... so my final email to them said: "Shove yer fechen PayPal up yer fechen arse.

Now, whenever they send emails for me to sign up/rejoin, I just delete them.  Given how much bad shit I've read/heard about Paypal, and the bullshit they put me through,  I point blank refuse to ever use them again.

I actually have a question regarding the above...

I've also noticed that ebay is also changing its TOS in the same way:

Oh, and there's this:

So everyone's cancelling their paypal accounts, but not their ebay accounts?