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Adult game developer’s PayPal funds held for over a month despite being legitimately sold on Steam [80k GBP]
(www.gamepressure.com)
this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2025
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PayPal can and will steal your money because fuck you, that's why, and you're left with basically zero recourse.
That's why I deleted my PayPal account last year. Fuck them
Yep, same, I did some competitions with a friend, they sent me my half of the winnings via PayPal, his account is hacked and the hacker for some reason tries to claim back all the winnings. Even though the hacker only got access once and my friend was in constant contact with PayPal, they still dragged it out for months and months, every week sending me warning about my account being in debt despite the fact my friend had already told them about the hack and proven his identity.
It's funny that a hacker with a random IP and no verification can fuck my life up for 6+ months with a single click, but my friend with all is documents and login history can't convince PayPal they need to stop trying to take ~£60k off me.
As soon as it was finally sorted I deleted my PayPal.
Use crypto wherever you can.
Are there more legal protections for crypto payment processors than traditional payment processors? My understanding is that there's less regulation in the crypto space these days.
Cryptocurrencies themselves are automated, self sustaining systems - no regulation applies at that level at all. In reality crypto "payment processors" provide services of instant exchange to regular currencies, and aren't even mandatory (but they're very convenient).
So regulation applies, but only to optional middleman that perform conversion and send regular currency to the merchant
So when dealing with volume purchases via a secondary store front (as established in the article) doesn't need any kind of intercession from Steam or another processor to deal with any and all purchases? It's all completely autonomous with no intervention needed by anyone at all?
As long as merchant doesn't need to convert from crypto to regular currency, no third party is involved in the transaction, it's a direct P2P system - in other words - perfect digital cash
So you just need to say "I give this person .001 bitcoin" and they magically get it? That's wild to me.
Well, you take their address, sign a message with your private key saying .001 bitcoin goes there and propagate it over the network. But in very simple terms yep, bitcoins magically land on their address. Whole thing sustains itself on economic incentives and cryptography, without any central authority
So there is a network and backbone to it. And you need to do something more than "I give this person a bitcoins for my game" especially when working through a separate storefront. Both to ensure that the person receives their game and you receive their currency.
The problem with current transactions isn't the money itself, it's the services that use that currency.
Yes, Bitcoin is not a currency, it's an open permissionless network of trust secured not by access right managment and opacity but game theory and past energy. Very useful to build currencies. I recommend you Andreas Antonopoulos work, his content age very well and everything is under CreativeCommons. A great video to start is : What is Bitcoin and why does it matters?
It really depend where you live. For Venezualian, Lebanese, Turkish and many more people there is huge problem with their currencies and banking services. Also in Africa many ex-french colonies are forced to use Franc CFA which is basically an economic-leash by the french government. We can debate on the many issues with the USD currency but these are little (for now at least) compared to others.
Yes, it's a permissionless P2P network.
Signing and sending transaction is exactly it. Transaction says that you send your bitcoins to an address controlled by the other person.
Crypto doesn't ensure you get the product. Like with real cash, other party might just run away with money
Which is why intermediaries exist and why crypto isn't in any way a solution for the problem this entire post is about. And why bringing it up randomly is complete tech bro wankery.
Are you concerned that Valve runs away with your money?
Valve? Not concerned. Random company selling something I need for a good price? Sure.
The intermediaries are useful when dealing with less trustworthy merchants.
You know you can build an escrow out of a smart-contract (even on Bitcoin) using multi-sig to ensure both parties are satisfied ?
Yes, simply put, that's how it works. You should read the whitepaper: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
The first sentence:
Bitcoin and Monero fixes this!
Oh boy, less accountability!
All transactions are public and verifiable. How is that less accountability?
And what recourse do you have?
The same as paypal, but you'll have more freedom & responsibility, since You ARE the bank now
More than using Paypal, obviously. Depending on the amount, you can take them to small claims court, or get lawyers involved for larger sums. The great thing is that they cannot claim you didn't pay, and you have proof of services rendered, or products purchased. And if you don't trust the merchant, don't buy from them.
LOL. You've done this, I presume?
Yes, in fact I use the Lightning Network almost daily.
That's a weird name for a small claims court.
I've never had to take any company to court, because we have consumer protections. That covers purchases with crypto.
So why would you bring up small claims court if it's not even necessary? Can't keep track of your own story?
You asked what recourse you have, I assumed you realised we have consumer protections in Canada. Then you tried to twist it into whether I've personally taken someone to court. That's irrelevant since the point is that consumer protections already exist, so your whole argument falls apart. You're just baiting at this point. And yes, I have returned stuff after paying with cash, crypto and credit card. This is not uncommon.
No, you've never actually shown that there's recourse against bad actors. You brought up small claims court, but dropped the subject - likely because there's no legal framework for that; then you mentioned nebulous "consumer protections," but still can't manage come up with any description of how a bad actor would be held to account in such a situation.
With a credit card, for example, this is typically a very easy process that can be accomplished via one's bank's website, supported by financial regulatory frameworks.
What "bad actors"?
How does this differ than using cash? Or credit card. You are not being clear. What recourse do you have when using cash, for example?
Are you trying to make a joke? Have you actually completely forgotten what the original post is even about?
The post is about the *payment processor* being the bad actor. In that case, crypto is an alternative because it bypasses processors entirely.
If the bad actor is the *merchant*, then you already have consumer protection laws, and beyond that the legal system, same as with cash, crypto or credit cards.
You haven't shown how cash or credit cards are inherently less risky than the Lightning Network. With cards, you can be debanked or have your account frozen by the processor (which is what happened in this post). With cash, a merchant can just take it and not deliver. Crypto doesn't make this worse. In fact, it removes the risk of being debanked while functioning like digital cash (crypto payments can be made directly, not just through custodial processors).
Chargebacks exist with cards, but they're double-edged (e.g. fraud, arbitrary reversals, censorship).
If you don't understand crypto or don't see the problems it solves, that’s fine, no one’s forcing you to use it. But dismissing it as "less accountability" doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.
Why ?
Because the problem isn't with the currency itself, it's with the intermediaries necessary for large scale mercantile interactions like selling games on an independent storefront.
Just because you use crypto doesn't mean someone who holds that crypto in trust for you can't just not give it to you if they don't feel like it. And as there is less regulation covering that currency, you have less recourse in getting it back from them.
I can't speak to all the positives and negatives of crypto, but I can say it is not in any way a cure-all that you can just inject into capitalism to fix everything.
As far as I know both of them are also payment processor, not only currencies.
Why would I use a third-party to store or process my Bitcoin payment? That's the whole point you're not forced to use a trusted third-party to store or pay. I don't, never did.
As a swiss citizen I can tell you that there is way enough regulation covering that currency, in fact it is regulated as foreign currency (currency of cyberspace hehe). I don't know how it is outside but also looks heavily regulated in EU and probably is in America.
I know, I'm not that stupid :D It was for the meme cuz this is the internet.
The main issue is that regular payment processors don't do what they are suppose to do (process payment and nothing else), they freeze account for no reasons (GrapheneOS, flipper-zero, etc...) censor payment because they don't like an industry (closed an entire plateform (UTip) because of one adult content creator), industries that already are regulated by law. Holding users funds longer than needed, or censoring for political opinion etc.
In this regard Bitcoin is neutral : You have the money, it's a valid transaction. You pay enough fees your transaction will be confirmed sooner. Who you are, how you get this money and why you are sending it is none of the payment processor business.