It may have started in 2020, but it has been picking up steam ever since. It also started with Chris Moneymaker but now without him in the lawsuit, poker player and Poker League of Nations (PLON) founder Lena Evans is one of the primary plaintiffs. The class action lawsuit against PayPal continues to move forward.
Refresher
In late 2020, PayPal decided to free the PayPal account of one Chris Moneymaker. He was holding funds in an account for a friendly fantasy sports league, and PayPal didn’t like it. The company froze his account, conducted a secret investigation of the terms of service violation (against gambling), and then confiscated his funds. Moneymaker wanted his $12,228.55 back.
Attorney Eric Bensamochan took up the case and quickly found Moneymaker was far from the only victim of this type of funds seizure. As Bensamochan’s law firm reached out to the public to collect members of a class action lawsuit, PayPal suddenly refunded Moneymaker’s funds.
By that time, however, Bensamochan was on the way to filing the lawsuit, having heard from people in all walks of life who had funds seized by PayPal with little or no explanation and no evidence of a fair investigation.
In January 2022, the Bensamochan Law Firm and Schreiber & Schreiber filed said class action complaint in the US District Court of Northern California. The aforementioned Evans was one of three primary plaintiffs in the case against PayPal. They sued on nine complaints:
-1. Conversion-2. Civil RICO-3. Violation of the Electronic Funds Transfer Act-4. Breach of written contract-5. Breach of fiduciary duty-6. Violation of California Business & Professions Code-7. Unjust enrichment-8. Declaratory relief-9. Accounting
The filing demands a jury trial and seeks to rectify “PayPal’s inequitable and unconscionable conduct.” Specifically, the document goes on to explain that PayPal seized funds from clients’ financial accounts “without cause and without any fair or due process.” The company then failed to inform the plaintiffs of the reasons they did so, even suggesting that the customers would “have to get a subpoena” to find out why PayPal seized their funds.
The document challenges PayPal’s Acceptable Use Policy, their application of it and some of its clauses, and overall unlawful business practices using that policy as a defense.
https://twitter.com/CMONEYMAKER/status/1482380015899664386?s=20
Round and Round
The months that followed consisted of a lot of paperwork and obfuscations. On June 2, District Court Judge Freeman issued a ruling in favor of PayPal’s motion to compel arbitration and dismiss the case without prejudice.
Essentially, the judge ruled that all PayPal customers signed a clause to open their accounts, a clause that compelled them to arbitration in the case of any disagreements. The judge found that agreement to be valid and enforceable.
Bensamochan and the others were far from finished, however. They filed an appeal in the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on July 1. That established a timetable running through the end of September to file briefs.
Plan B in Motion
On September 21, Bensamochan posted an update on the website he established for the parties in the class action lawsuit could stay updated.
“We told you we would not stop fighting!”
It went on to link to a PDF form called the Contribution Agreement. Anyone wanting to continue moving forward to obtain their seized funds from PayPal could sign the form. Further, they must set up an OpenBlock Wallet, for which instructions appear on the document’s page of the website. There is no charge or fee to do this. Essentially, it is a way for participants in the lawsuit to come together on a single platform from all corners of the earth.
https://twitter.com/BensamochanFirm/status/1572694607791820802?s=20&t=GLXS8JP5qFeKgrLmzKn6og
Participants in the lawsuit will need to follow instructions regarding obtaining a governance token, also known as a JUST token on the Gnosis chain. This will simply bind all parties together in one virtual jurisdiction so the case can bet approached on a global scale.
Meanwhile, arbitration continues between PayPal and clients that victims that choose to do so. However, Bensamochan’s law firm is working on this other method of collecting information and class action participants.
