PayPal leaving FSO Voluntary Jurisdiction on 1st December 2022

MoneyLooser

Hi,

I had the below email from PayPal recently:-

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We're making some changes to our legal agreements that will apply to you.

Important notice to all UK customers

As part of PayPal’s continued efforts to manage some necessary changes arising from the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union, we will be withdrawing from the UK Financial Ombudsman Service’s (FOS) Voluntary Jurisdiction on 1st December 2022. Due to changes to UK rules, since 1st January 2021, we have been, and continue to be, subject to the Compulsory Jurisdiction of the FOS and complaints about acts or omissions occurring on or after this date can be referred to the FOS under the Compulsory Jurisdiction. Our withdrawal from the Voluntary Jurisdiction will not affect any rights you may have to refer a complaint to the FOS under the Compulsory Jurisdiction.
If you have a complaint about an event that occurred before 1st January 2021 and you have not yet submitted that complaint to PayPal, you should contact us as soon as possible. You can contact us by clicking Contact Us at the bottom of any Help page.

Where you have a complaint that relates to an event that occurred before 1st January 2021 and you are dissatisfied with how PayPal has resolved that complaint in our final response, then you must refer that complaint to the FOS before 1st December 2022 if you would like FOS to look at it – unless our final response says that you must refer your complaint to FOS by any earlier date.

You can find the notice regarding our withdrawal from the Voluntary Jurisdiction on our Policy Updates page, as well as further information about other changes that may apply: <link to paypal changes>

You can also view these changes by visiting PayPal.com, clicking ‘Legal’ at the bottom of the page and then selecting ‘Policy Updates’.

If you have questions about any of these changes or your account, please don't hesitate to <link to get in touch with Paypal> with us.

Thank you for being a PayPal customer.

Sincerely,

PayPal

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I have been trying to find out what this actually means and have so far drawn a blank. The linked page (which MSE wont let me post) does not contain anything about the change (least not as of 29 Aug 2022) and the FSO page about the voluntary jurisdiction just has stuff about joining it.

Unfortunately the MSE forum search isn't showing me items in date order, so apologies if this has been discussed already.

Has anyone any idea what this withdrawal will mean for people using PayPal to purchase items?

sarah1972

pmd the team to move this post to an actual board x

Buster_Danog

I don't know either but since ebay do business out of Luxembourg it would not surprise me if Paypal are acting in line with laws and regulations in EU countries and consider the UK Ombudsman might be less inclined to consider laws in EU countries than the appropriate authorities in the EU. Again, I am going off of my experience with ebay.

kaMelo

I read it as:
Since the 1st January 2021 Paypal are subject to compulsory jurisdiction of the UK FOS, as such they no longer need to voluntarily be subject to UK FOS jurisdiction and are removing that term from it's T&C's on 1st December 2022.

If you have a complaint that pre-dates 1st January 2021 you must have referred that complaint to the FOS before 1st December 2022, any later and the FOS will not be able to look at the complaint.

MoneyLooser

OP here - Thanks for the replies and moving the post I had no idea where it would fit.

I have to admit that I read this as there are 2 levels(?) of jurisdiction. The compulsory - which is covered by UK law and a voluntary one, which is the one that PayPal has withdrawn from. Of course I could be completely wrong but I cannot work out is what this actually means. Does it mean that consumers are less protected and if so in what way? Does it even matter?

Honestly I have no idea. Anyone?

Buster_Danog

"Which?" didn't seem to think much of Paypal in the first place. https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/how-paypal-fails-fraud-victims-aHeco9C4dGN4

Also, I don't think money in Paypal accounts is covered by the FSCS so there is no protection in that regard. Lastly it is difficult to tell if UK consumers can seek redress with foreign authorities and expect Paypal to abide by those rules. I had such a run in with ebay but never followed through with the complaint. It all seems to be a muddle with UK laws supposedly governing companies in the UK but with ebay following the financial laws of Luxembourg. Again, I don't know the answer to your question. Hopefully someone will.