People say things like this all the time and I don't understand the basis for the claim.
What does PayPal do to not be regulated like a bank? They're perhaps the single most heavily regulated financial company in existence. They operate in more countries [1] than almost any other, and each of those countries regulates them in some way. In some of those countries they are a licensed and regulated bank (including the European Union [2]). In the US, they are overseen by 54 separate governments, including every state and territory, all of which license and regulate money transmitters [3]. They wanted to be a bank in the US to get the FDIC insurance on deposits (they originally believed themselves to be eligible and advertised it as a feature), but a federal agency 13 years ago decided they don't qualify as one.
On the flip side of the same coin, why do you think being regulated like a bank would change how any of these situations play out? Most banks offer merchant account services for accepting credit cards online. Every merchant account agreement I've read has allowed for termination without cause, freezing of funds for up to 180 days without recourse, and establishment of reserve accounts or holds at the bank's whim. These real banks won't hesitate to terminate your account and hold your funds if you try to use them as an unsecured loan against future promises you've made to thousands of people, either -- if you're up-front about the fact that you're taking credit cards for crowdfunding you'd not make it past underwriting and get an account in the first place. No regulator steps in and stops banks when they hold a merchant's funds. PayPal operates no differently because it is, at its heart, a tech stack on top of those very same merchant accounts from actual banks with the same policies and same tolerance for risk.
1: https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/country-worldwide
2: http://tamebay.com/2007/05/paypal-becomes-a-bank-no-longer-u...
