PayPal’s New TOS May be Drawing Government Scrutiny

PayPal, the online payment provider you love to hate, recently drew the ire of consumers and consumer groups with new language added to its terms of service.

The new TOS would allow PayPal to contact users for polls and “offers and promotions” — telemarketing calls, in short. The company would be able to use the phone numbers it has on file as well as phone numbers it discovers through, ominously, other means. There’s no way, of course, to opt-out — short of leaving PayPal altogether.

The changes in policy got attention of the FCC, which reminded PayPal about federal laws regarding robocalls and spam texts; the New York Attorney General’s office requested more information, which may be the start of a formal inquiry.

eBay currently owns PayPal, though the online auction site plans to sell the payment company.

Via re/code. Photo by Kārlis Dambrāns/flickr.