Slashdot Mirror

PayPal now offers Authorization and Capture functionality that Fundable can use to capture the payment, but provide a full refund if the goal isn't met within some time period.

Finally someone from PayPal is speaking up:

http://paypaldoesntsuck.blogspot.com/

Seriously, learn the facts. You ARE FDIC insured with PayPal.

Be surprised no longer... https://www.paypal.com/settlement/

Their business practices are a *bit* better than before this was settled, but not by much.

Yeah, this was annoying me a lot for long time. From the point of view of somebody from US/Western EU it may seem that everybody has Paypal, but in reality, it's only available in few countries. They've just recently added Czech Republic (and only for sending money), and it's even been a member of EU for over a year. From what I've heard, they are actively refusing to register anybody from other countries, even when they happen to have US account/credit card. I know they're just trying to be careful, but why they can't just register anybody with reasonable credit card is beyond me.

They're launching a new version Merchant Account Paypal to compete with the other folks out there (Authorize, etc.) Most storeowners I've seen (once who take paypal in addition to their own merch accounts) are extremely leery--too many eggs in one basket, and many will never do that again (though some will no doubt join once an OSCommerce mod comes along).

PayPal will not sell or rent any of your personally identifiable information to third parties. For more information about the security of your information, read our Privacy Policy at MailScanner has detected a possible fraud attempt from "email1.paypal.com" claiming to be https://www.paypal.com/privacy.
Copyright© 2005 PayPal, Inc.

https://www.paypal.com/ is legit. The "https" means it's over encrypted SSL.

However, what you were probably looking at was a link where the text for the link *said* "https://www.paypal.com" but the location it would take you was different.

It may be as simple as the a href being different from the text; or fancy where the "a href" consisted of the paypal.com address as a decoy, followed by lots of spaces so the real address was too far to the right to see, then the real address.

I got a phishing attack today. They ask me to log in to https://www.paypal.com/ Note the extra s. Non-obviously, it's fake. How does this redirection work?

Plus your complaint that paypal is not a bank is old data. Please consult their website and stop rehashing old rumors. http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/fdi c-outside

Now which part of that page says that PayPal *is* a bank? All I see is things like "PayPal is an agent for an unaffiliated bank ... money market funds are not FDIC insured ... balances held in other currencies are not FDIC insured ... FDIC pass-through insurance does not protect you against PayPal's insolvency ..."

So if, for whatever reason, PayPal itself goes under, you're SOL.

I hear these complaints trotted out every now and again. But in the 6 years I've been using it it's worked as promised. It's tied to my savings and web transactions are pulled directly. If I don't have enough in the account it will not do regular card transactions. If I do a web transaction to another paypal users it will pull the needed funds out of my account. Plus your complaint that paypal is not a bank is old data. Please consult their website and stop rehashing old rumors. http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/fdi c-outside

I think they should explore a cheaper - MUCH cheaper - option. viz., charging $0.05 per historic article. This would attract people since it only costs a ridiculously low amount of money to get an old article and people will very soon be spending more than they otherwise would with an annual subscription of 50 bucks.

Think about it - isn't this how Google has managed to serve up advertising and other stuff? Make the prices low enough so that it doesn't hurt to pay it once - but every drop adds up pretty quickly!

This begs the question - how does NYimes collect the low amounts? Answer is - why not legitimise some existing system like http://www.e-gold.com/ or http://www.paypal.com/?

Of course - I am sure NYTimes won't do any such revolutionary thing. They are so old and fuddy duddy, that they will plough through with a 50 bucks per annum - or a 5 bucks per extract charge (increase from their current rate).

If you buy music from allofmp3.com, none of that money goes to the artists.

That's why you follow up by tipping the artist directly at allofpaypal.com, short-circuiting the vulture-capitalist labels.

They're keeping 5%. BTW, Paypal charges maximum of 2.9% + USD 0.30

> But what drive's Paypal's fees (besides the usual bookkeeping/admin costs), are credit card fees.
> Remember that every time a vendor accepts a credit card payment, the VENDOR, not the customer,
> must pay the credit card company a fee, which generally ranges from 2-5% of the transaction.
> So Paypal is acting as the vendor so that each seller doesn't have to start up his own merchant CC account.
> You'll find that Paypal's fees aren't that much higher than the credit card fees alone.
> But that is also why Paypal started to try to encourage buyers to use their bank accounts to fund transactions,
> to avoid having to pay the CC fees.

According to PayPal, "PayPal charges Premier and Business accounts to receive payments. Personal accounts are free, but may not receive credit card payments."

Let's say you want to sell something for $300 on PayPal.

If you have a "Personal Account", you cannot accept money from accounts funded by Credit Cards at all -- so no CC fees for PayPal.

Otherwise, if you have a "Premier/Business Account", you pay $9 (comes to 3%) as fees, which will either cover the vendor CC fees, if the buyer's account is funded by a credit card or will go straight to PayPal's coffers if the buyer's money came from another source.

Either way, PayPal wins.

Oh, and if you got paid in international currency, that's another 2.5% for PayPal. Sweet.

PayPal wants you to use a bank account because that way they can access your money. That's right, in case of a "dispute", they can just withdraw any amount that wish from your account and hold it for half a year. Double sweet.

India and China now own the Internet industry.

Some people would beg to differ.

Are there any Indian or Chinese companies with this kind of web presence? I doubt it.

Also, remember that outsourcing isn't happening to be traitorous, but to cut back on costs and increasing costs (although some people are finding it cost-inefficient after all). So, technically, the US economy is making money by outsourcing.

There is a cost to the job market, of course, but introducing robots on production lines got lots of people fired - while creating new supervisory posts. From what I hear on Slashdot, it sounds like many companies are hiring again. If that's happening, it might well be the best of both worlds - outsource the codemonkey jobs, while doing the important stuff in-house, paying programmers well for their time.

Of course, as an Indian, I have no particular problem with something which is creating jobs in my home country, as well as resulting in plenty of foreign inflows :).

The main problem lies in cyrillic, namely:
a, b, c, e, h, k, m, o, p, t, x, y are in the standard character set, and
, , , , , , , , , , ,
are in cyrillic.

This is noted in URLs, namely, Paypal (Legit) and Paypal (Fake, using Russian characters

If you use Outlook or Outlook Express, PayPal offers a free, community-based tool (via Cloudmark) that will zap 99% of the spoof/fraud emails that you receive. You can download it from here: http://www.paypal.com/safetybar/

They'd suspend your account and the accounts of anyone who has ever transferred funds to, or received funds from your account.

What utter nonsense. If Paypal suspended the accounts of everyone who ever interacted with a fradulent account, they would be killing off a lot of perfectly good customers. I have never seen any evidence of any kind that this kind of thing takes place. If they feel another account is closely related (like an alias used by the same person) then they may kill it, but otherwise this would be an insanely stupid thing to do. Some people conducting fradulent activity with Paypal transact with thousands of people before they are caught. In most of these cases the buyers did nothing wrong except by letting themselves be duped. If Paypal killed all of those accounts, their business model would die fairly quickly.

There would be no way to talk to a representative, as they do not publish telephone numbers

If you actually took the time to visit their contact page instead of spewing more uninformed rubbish, you would have found that their contact number is 402-935-2050.

I'm not saying Paypal is without problems. Clearly they have their share. But at least make some kind of minor effort to get your facts straight.

This solution works wonders:

Put two 500MHz+ PCs into a 6'x8' room. Close the door and live and sleep in that room without snack food and minimal drink during the day, leaving only for 3 meals a day and restroom breaks. The 90+ degree Farenheit heat will cause you to sweat up a storm. You will smell nasty but look great! The ladies will all be up ons.

As advertised on TV!

Please donate $5 for this valuable information.

PayPal is now doing fee-free donations to UNICEF.
http://donations.paypal.com
I recommend UNICEF over Red Cross for a variety of reasons including RC spending $100 million of $500 million 9/11 donations on themselves.

...and when PayPal catches wind of this, be sure to kiss your donation goodbye. Check out PayPal's draconian AUP; Loki surely doesn't pass this litmus test. Paypalsucks.com is abound with stories of PayPal arbitrarily freezing account funds when you don't play by their rules.

At the rates PayPal charges for credit card transactions it would be cheaper for me to mail each of them a dollar bill.

Actually, there is some insurance via FDIC passthrough insurance, described here. Note this only applies if you keep a balance in your PayPal account, and do not choose to use their money market option.

This does assume that PayPal keeps accurate records so the FDIC can determine who owns what in the account. It also assumes that it is a FDIC-insured bank that fails, and not PayPal becoming insolvent. If PayPal goes under, they presume their user agreement protects users' money. See the above link for details.

If you don't have an iTMS account yet, Paypal will give you 5 songs when you create a new iTMS account and link it with a Paypal account. Only for the first 500,000 people, but the promotion just started days ago so should be good for a while. I signed up Friday and got my 5 songs without any problem. Here's the link to the details on Paypal's website: 5 free iTMS songs

Too bad it's against the Paypal TOS for people under 18 to have accounts.

E-commerce Single Sign-On exists and it's name is PayPal.
You can shop in thousands of stores at eBay.
Even if you are a Slashdot Geek you can use your PayPal acount at Source Forge.
Google search Paypal Donate returns a lot of blogs, open source projects and other webs that belive that Paypal it's the Single Sign-On E-commerce solution.

85 % growth and 437.60M revenue says something about it.

eBay acquired PayPal two years ago.

``Even some EU countries aren't allowed to use it.''

Which ones? Are you sure these are not the ones serviced by PayPal Europe?

Right, that's why I was saying your protection against a PayPal insolvency was NOT assured. They say "we believe that your funds will also be protected from any claims of PayPal's creditors and will be returned to you even in the unlikely event of a PayPal insolvency" but that'd definitely not a promise, so if you have some reason to keep lots of money with PayPal, I'd keep an eye on their finances.

On the other hand, it doesn't seem like eBay/PayPal is disappearing anytime soon -- they survived the dot com crash without much trouble for a reason, after all. And they are NOT free to do whatever they want with your money; this is why they had to settle quite a lot of money on a class action lawsuit this summer. I've seen the horror stories; now I'm hoping they will behave better going forward.

(I'm hoping because they're the best option I've been able to find so far for accepting credit cards online w/o a merchant account...)

Paypal in the UK (at least) is "PayPal (Europe) Ltd. is regulated by the Financial Services Authority in the United Kingdom as an electronic money institution." (FSA). Ok, it's not much, but it's at least SOME protection...

If you use their money market account option, your money isn't insured... but if you just have a regular PayPal balance, it actually is FDIC insured... in a way. Basically, they keep your money in a pooled account in a real bank, and you get "pass-through" FDIC insurance because of that, up to $100K.

They explain this in detail in a link off the homepage.

It's not as good as putting your money in a bank (because your protection in case of PayPal's insolvency doesn't seem totally assured, just in the case of the *bank's* insolvency), but it's not totally unprotected.

I think this sort of problem was one of the major issues in the class-action lawsuit that PayPal is in the process of settling now (it was litigated this summer).

I'm not sure if your problems were in the right timeframe, but this probably applies to *someone* reading this.

Check here to see if it applies to you.

Even better: click to: Donate $10

From Paypal Help Center:
http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_help-ext &eloc=811

"Making Payments - Limits

What is the maximum amount I can send with my PayPal account?

For security reasons, you will not be able to use your PayPal account to send money until you have added a credit card. Once you have added a credit card to your PayPal account, your Sending Limit will be increased to $2,000.00 USD. This limit applies to all payments regardless of how the payment is funded or to whom the payment is sent. Once you send payments totaling $2,000.00 USD, you will no longer be able to send payments until you lift your Sending Limit by becoming a Verified Member of PayPal. You can view your Sending Limit from your account overview. Show me To lift your Sending Limit, add and Confirm a bank account. Note: Some accounts are subject to a lower sending limit, determined by PayPal. These limits are subject to change and can be lifted by Confirming a bank account or by being otherwise Verified by PayPal.

Here's How:

1. Log in to your PayPal account
2. Click the View Limits link next to the yellow Balance box (if there is not a View Limits link, your account has no Sending Limit)
3. Your remaining sending limit is listed under the Sending Limit. heading

Note: As an added benefit for members with approved PayPal Buyer Credit is that all payments funded with PayPal Buyer Credit will not count against your sending limit."

/* DISCLAIMER:

This is not legal advice. You are not a client. I'm not even an attorney. If you want legal advice, contact an attorney admitted to your jurisdiction's bar. What I am saying here is probably 100% wrong and if you do anything in reliance upon it, then you are a blithering idiot who deserves whatever bad shit is very likely to befall you.*/

Well, now that that's out of the way . . .

Quoth the AC:

Welcome to Contract Law.

If you agreed to their terms of service, you (I assume) agreed to let them fine you.

What right do they have? The rights you gave them when you agreed to their contract.

Only in the simplest AC mind are things always that simple. Those of us who do not live in the AC's land of make believe, however, know differently. It is true that, generally speaking, a man is bound by the terms of the contract he agrees to. However, not all contracts are enforceable. One where one of the parties is not a sui juris adult, i.e., he is a minor or is non compos mentis, is not enforceable. Similarly, the kind of contracts made with each other by guys with names like Knuckles (you know the kind, the ones where they agree to "push da button on this here guy" for a certain sum) are likewise not enforceable because they are a contract to do an illegal act. In the same vein, contracts with terms that are variously described as "unfair and unconscionable" are likewise not enforceable.

With regard to their arbitration clause, US District Judge Jeremy Fogel said just that a couple of years ago. Later, PayPal settled out on a large class action lawsuit, but AFAIK is still being pursued by NY, LA, and ID for operating an unauthorized bank.

Ummmm, you were willing to put your credit card details into an unknown site from Russia based on a recommendation from me, a random slashdotter??? It's called PayPal, dude! Oh, and PayPal do accept American Express.

As for the fill up your account beforehand 'flaw', as another poster said, why don't you just pay them the $10 you would pay iTunes, then leave the other $9.50 as a tip. Voila, one payment for one album, and you get to encode it how you like.

Or put it another way; iTunes: 1 payment for 1 album, just as you want. AllOfMP3: 1 payment for 15 albums...

Money's in the account, crack is on it's way!!!!

he may get his chunk

/nova20 -- can't wait to get his $0.02 back from paypal.

But until you can set up a mortgage, loan, or interest bearing savings account with them

What the hell is this then?

Or this?

Or this?

If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...

A bank, they are. A bank, they must be regulated as.

But until you can set up a mortgage, loan, or interest bearing savings account with them

What the hell is this then?

Or this?

Or this?

If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...

A bank, they are. A bank, they must be regulated as.

But until you can set up a mortgage, loan, or interest bearing savings account with them

What the hell is this then?

Or this?

Or this?

If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...

A bank, they are. A bank, they must be regulated as.

No, they made PayPal put up a link: https:/www.paypal.com/settlement/ to prove that it's not a fraud.

Site seems very slow already, so here's the article text.

Donate

Buy T-Shirt

Federal charges were filed against Adam McGaughey, creator of the popular SG1Archive.com website - a fan website devoted to the MGM-owned television show Stargate SG-1. The charges allege that the website engaged in Criminal Copyright Infringement and Trafficking in Counterfeit Services. The charges were the culmination of a three-year FBI investigation, set in motion by a complaint from the Motion Picture Association (MPAA) regarding the content of the SG1Archive.com website.

SG1Archive.com is one of the most popular fan-run websites among the Stargate community. In addition to providing very active fan discussion forums, broadcast schedules, production news, and episode guides, the site heavily promotes the sale of the show on DVD. As of this writing, direct links from SG1Archive.com to Amazon.com have resulted in the sale of over $100,000 worth of DVDs. Many more DVDs have been sold to international fans of the show through sites like Blackstar.co.uk. Upon hearing this news, Stargate executive producer Brad Wright called the site "cool" - which Adam took as an endorsement of his work.

However, instead of thanking Adam for his promotion of their product, officials at MGM and the MPAA have chosen to pressure the FBI into pursuing criminal charges. Adam was first tipped off about the investigation when the FBI raided his and his fiancee's apartment in May of 2002 and seized thousands of dollars worth of computer equipment. Adam later received a copy of the affidavit filed in support of the search warrant, and was shocked to discover that this document, prepared by the FBI, contained significant amounts of erroneous and misleading information. For example, two social security numbers were listed for Adam, one of which is not his. References were made to a cease and desist letter sent by the MPAA to an email address that did not exist. His online friendship with other Stargate fans across the globe was portrayed as an international conspiracy against the MPAA. And perhaps most disturbing of all, it was later revealed that the FBI invoked a provision of the USA Patriot Act to obtain financial records from his ISP. The FBI's abuse of its powers did not stop there. When they seized Adam's computer equipment, he was given written documentation stating that it would be returned within 60 days. The equipment that they did return did not arrive until more than 8 months later, and only then after much prodding from his lawyer. Much of it was damaged beyond repair - one laptop had a shattered LCD screen, an empty tape backup drive was ripped apart for no apparent reason, his fiancee's iBook was badly damaged when it was pried apart with a screwdriver. The FBI's computer crimes staff is either incompetent (at least when it comes to Macintosh computer equipment) or else they just don't give a damn.

Adam has has received positive feedback about his site from multiple members of the Stargate cast and crew at fan conventions. In addition, a representative of MGM's fan publication interviewed Adam about his website several months prior to the FBI raid. As a result, Adam sincerely believed that the show's creators did not have a problem with the content of his website. Many other sites are currently serving content of questionable legality, without promoting the sale of DVDs or offering a community for fans to discuss the show. Why the MPAA and FBI have chosen to ignore these sites and target SG1Archive.com is unclear.

Up until this point, Adam has been fortunate enough to receive pro bono legal counsel in his current hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio. However, the charges were filed in Los Angeles county. The cost of travel, trial, bond, etc. is likely to be quite high.

You can blame the advertising agency where I work for that. If you send $10 to my paypal account I will videotape myself kicking the copywriter in the head and send you a copy.

The item sold in the listing must be a tangible, physical item or good which can be shipped. All other items are ineligible for PayPal Buyer Protection coverage, including but not limited to intangible goods, services, quasi-cash, gift certificates, and downloadable or streaming content.

Celebrate by Donating to Gentoo

I wonder if Apple is going to try and use GarageBand and Soundtrack with iTunes and the iTunes Music Store to bypass record companies altogether. You can easily upload your own iMix playlists already. The next step would be to allow artists to easily upload their own works to the iTunes Music Store directly through iTunes, and receive royalties through something similar to a PayPal account. If that were to happen, Apple could be perceived as some kind of a record label on its own.

The recording industry steadily profited from the advance of technology, allowing them to produce more elaborate music much cheaper than in the old days of analogue recording, editing, and distribution. That benefit surpassed them in favour of the the consumer when music file-sharing became feasible. Ever since then, the industry had fought technology tooth and nail, to try and keep the benefits in their hands. Now the technology reaching a point in which the record companies may be rendered totally obsolete. Apple and the record companies probably know this, but just aren't openly admitting it.

Paypal doesn't get interest on your money, according to it's User Agreement

7.2 Restricted Activities. Your Information and your activities (including your payments and receipt of payments) through our Service shall not: (a) be false, inaccurate or misleading; (b) be fraudulent or involve the sale of counterfeit or stolen items; (c) consist of providing yourself a cash advance from your credit card (or helping others to do so), (d) be related in any way to gambling and/or gaming activities, including but not limited to payment or the acceptance of payments for wagers, gambling debts or gambling winnings, regardless of the location or type of gambling activity (including online and offline casinos, sports wagering and office pools), with the exception of payments for gaming transactions that are expressly authorized by law in the jurisdiction of both the sender and the recipient of the payment; (e)violate PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy; (f) infringe on any third party's copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret or other property rights or rights of publicity or privacy; (g) violate any law, statute, ordinance, contract or regulation (including, but not limited to, those governing financial services, consumer protection, unfair competition, antidiscrimination, or false advertising); (h) be defamatory, trade libelous, unlawfully threatening or unlawfully harassing; (i) be obscene or contain child pornography; (j) contain any viruses, Trojan horses, worms, time bombs cancelbots, easter eggs or other computer programming routines that may damage, detrimentally interfere with, surreptitiously intercept or expropriate any system, data or other personal information; or (k) create liability for us or cause us to lose (in whole or in part) the services of our ISP's or other suppliers. If you use, or attempt to use the Service for purposes other than sending and receiving payments and managing your account, including but not limited to tampering, hacking, modifying or otherwise corrupting the security or functionality of Service, your account will be terminated and you will be subject to damages and other penalties, including criminal prosecution where available.

----

So I guess what they consider "obscene" (outside of child porn) is up in the air.

Supprise.
Much later a buch of posts are made saying.. "HAY Paypal has a right to do this".

And you know what? It's true.
It may look like Paypal is using the "Annon Proxy" thing as a lame excuse.
I've read the complaints and it appears Paypal has a history of over reacting and not verifying complaints.

I wouldn't take the conspericy theroys sereously.

However.....
I'm reminded of the MAPS. They have been accused of doing a remarkably sloppy job. Not verifying complaints and over reacting.
MAPS can trash a persons e-mail. It's annoying enough but so is spam.

Any business that relys on paypal can be brought too it's knees by Paypals sloppy handing of complaints.

There is a reasonably easy way to handle this.
Send e-mail to paypal complaning about this event and let them know what you think of them cutting off Freenet.