No, PayPal Isn’t Planning to Fine Users $2.5K For Posting Misinfo

In October 2022, a document providing advance notice of changes to PayPal user policies included a new rule about misinformation on the app, spurring news headlines and messages to Snopes asking what, exactly, the purported change could mean.

The document outlining PayPal’s Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) enraged some users by adding “the sending, posting, or publication of any messages, content, or materials that … promote misinformation” to its list of prohibited activities beginning Nov. 3, 2022.

Come that date, users who supposedly violate the new guideline could be subject to monetary damages of $2,500 per violation — fines that “may be debited directly from your PayPal account(s) as outlined in the User Agreement,” according to the document’s wording. (PayPal’s existing user agreement — in other words, the terms to which current users have agreed — includes guidelines about people paying $2,500 should they violate other rules.)

However, users concerned about the purported change can relax; no such provision about misinformation was actually being added to the service’s User Agreement, according to a PayPal spokesperson. In an email to Snopes, the spokesperson said the document wasn’t an accurate telling of upcoming changes to the platform’s policies.

An AUP notice for the U.S. recently went out in error that included incorrect information. PayPal is not fining people for misinformation and this language was never intended to be inserted in our policy. We’re sorry for the confusion this has caused.

It’s unknown if, or to what extent, other portions of the document were indeed upcoming changes to the platform’s User Agreement. Additionally, we asked PayPal for an explanation of how, and why, the erroneous language about misinformation on the app was posted, but we received no reply apart from the boilerplate statement quoted above.

As of this writing, PayPal had deleted the entire document from its website (Snopes obtained and reviewed it using the Internet Archive). Nonetheless, enough people had already seen it, or heard of it, to create a social media campaign condemning PayPal. In an Oct. 8 tweet, former PayPal President David Marcus said the document “goes against everything I believe in”:

Elon Musk, an erstwhile CEO of PayPal, agreed: