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PayPal Announces Intent To IPO
seek31337 was the first to write to us with the word-direct-from-the-mouth that PayPal has announced its intention to IPO. Not much other details, but interesting nonetheless.
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I wonder if I can buy shares using my PayPal account?
warned me about robbing Peter to pay Pal
Writers imply. Readers infer.
Perhaps Paypal is pursuing a plan that simply puts more pennies in the principals' pockets?
Prefectly possible. Prescient point!
It always amazes me how investors seem interested in tiny little companies that have a neat idea, but if it ever really takes off could be entirely duplicated by a larger, more well known company, do it all for "free" (ie: ads, having an account, whatever) and not even look back twice at the dark smudge they just ran over.
Far from being your average "no value, pointless" dot com, PayPal serves a purpose to users of On-line auctions. I remember the days of yore when I had to walk about 20 miles ;) to go buy a money order because nobody wants to accept a check on-line (are u serious? Do u know what kind of people use the net LOL)
Paypal takes all the extra steps out of this process and to those who's tech skills aren't enough for them to wade through Billpoints sign-up process, PayPal is the DE FACTO online payment service. Just do a quick check on eBAY for the number of auctions that only accept payment through paypal.
Good luck with this IPO. I'll buy some shares.
You forgot another reason why companies go public. To appease and put the "golden handcuffs" on the employees, not to mention trying to attract top-notch potential employees. Having worked for several dot-coms in the last few years I can say that there isn't that much company loyalty out there. Many employees stay at companies hoping to make a lot of money off of their stock options.
Now in the last year, a lot of this has changed and more people are sticking around at companies for fear of not getting another job, but there are still a lot of people out there hoping to "strike it rich" off of stock options and you never will without going public.
Also, at one company that I was at that was on the verge of an IPO increased head count by 30-40% two weeks prior to the IPO. This was a few years ago when finding good employees was quite a battle. Again, probably not as much of a concern for companies these days.
Agreed, just because the VCs are hungry to make up all of their losses.
Time to watch another company get raped.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
PayPal provides services like a bank, and can operate offshore accounts and stuff (all you need is a credit card and a paypal account in Moscow or wherever you are) and should be regulated like a bank before it goes all IPOing on our ass.
see here.
we need to figure out what kind of business it is before we buy shares of it.
Goat sex free since 2001
They also have a large amount of money floating around in their system earning THEM interest.
Trees can't go dancing
So do them a big favor
Pretend dancing stinks!
And no, I don't work for them so don't bother with that accusation.
Floating is the correct term...company I work for processes billions of dollars of bills for our clients each year...we make a bit on each transaction, about enough to cover overhead...the actual profit comes from the interest on that money (the float)...the bills we pay are typically due 60 days from the date of service...so we hold our clients funds for an average of 50 days...interest is a wonderful thing!
Writers imply. Readers infer.
That sort of means they make money off every transaction, doesn't it?
Obviously double-dipping would make them more per transaction. but people wouldn't want to use them to pay quite as much, and usually the person buying gets to choose the method of payment.
However, I've had the pleasure of working closely with many of PayPal's senior management over the past two years, back since they merged with X.com. I can tell you three very important things:
1. The P2P space is actually a loss leader. Most of their profit is made in the B2B and B2C space - not pure P2P as most people believe. They do very well in these spaces and recent analysts predict that their revenue was between $80 and $100mil last year. That's a heck of a lot better than most of the not-coms we've seen over the past several years.
2. They have an incredibly intelligent, dedicated and savvy staff that understands their market and industry.
3. They have a business model that works.
In my opinion, these three items equal success.
I love their service and I enjoy working with the company. If I didn't enjoy my current job so much, I'd probably apply for a job with them.
I have bought and sold (mostly sold) on eBay over the past year or so, but I've never used PayPal because their business model looked somewhat like a pyramid scheme to me. Besides, with all the dot-bomb craziness last year, I knew the sh*t was gonna hit the fan anytime soon. Folks invented products that nobody needed, wrote fancy business plans, made glossy presentations and websites, and (foolish) investors put tons of money into these companies in hopes of getting rich quick. (Choose when to work; Make more money; have more free time...) In other words, I knew something serious was going to happen, and I didn't want to become dependant on any online services.
As it turns out, PayPal, eBay and some of the other related auction services survived the dot-bomb mess--I guess the auction is one of the killer apps of the web. Anyway, every time I hear about a technology company getting an IPO, I can already see where it's going. People tell about a nice little company with a nice little product. Management and engineering worked in harmony (because management were themselves engineers). The product developed successfully and a community developed around it. Finally, the company had an IPO, and greedy shareholders took over. From that point, it was all downhill. Suddenly the company puts more innovation into legal proceedings than anything else. The product becomes bloated and buggy. Customer service goes down the tubes. The shareholders milk the company for every penny it's worth, and if it happens to survive, they continue to milk it (but they don't actually care about the underlying principles of the company). In some rare cases, enough "good" folks buy shares to invest in the company for the long run, and when that happens, the company might actually remain caring (even if it becomes bloated and inefficient).
I'm not saying this will happen in PayPal's case... but I've seen this happen to quite a few good small companies, with technically superior products, before they prostituted themselves, er, had their IPO.
(Is it considered part of the pre-IPO quiet period to be featured on a nationial television special?)
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Have you ever read the details about your account? I did, because I wanted to know if they made any kind of statement garunteeing that my money will stay mine.
They dont.
Yahoo! should buy PayPal and integrate it into their Yahoo! Store and Auctions infrastructure. Their existing PayDirect service was too late getting into the game, ditch it and convert its users to PayPal. The cut the credit card companies normally get for Store purchases could flow to Yahoo! when payments are made from a cash-positive PayPal account. The additional users from Yahoo!'s existing services plus advertising would be a big boost to PayPal. And no need for an incredibly poorly timed IPO. Win-win situation.
;-).
Credit my consulting fee to my PayPal account, please
I blurted out, "Uh oh."
.NET --> ??? Basically, PayPal is going to do one of two things for Microsoft: they're either going to fit in nicely with the strategies of Passport and .NET, or they're going to stand in Microsoft's way. I tend to support the latter.
.NET is Microsoft's solution for merging personal computing with internet applications. We also know that Microsoft has been working on integrating Microsoft Passport within their operating system as the way to encrypt personal information needed for any website. Add the two together, kneed in the fact that companies have been trying for the past five years to merge internet and business, sprinkle with Microsoft's many attempts to turn the desktop into an internet appliance, and we have a very good hypothesis for where Microsoft wants you to go tomorrow...using your own computer for your personal business needs. Sure, they might not be the actual car dealers, office warehouses, or grocery stores that want to sell you the goods, but they certainly want to be the gateway of that transaction.
I can just see the history of this company as soon as they get their IPO. It's not the stock values that I'm worried about. PayPal is one online entity that actually has their shit together. They have the backing of the strongest commercial online market, eBay. Although there are other third-party online payment options out there, PayPal has emerged as one of the most viable, most stable ways to transfer money safely using the third-party option. So, what's so bad?
Just look at Microsoft's business plan over the last comple years and where it's going. IE --> Passport -->
Everyone has seen that "partnerships" with Microsoft don't work out. AOL certainly proved this fact well. Basically, Microsoft either assimilates or annihilates anything in the way of it's "business strategies." I truly do not believe that Microsoft will try to partner with PayPal in trying to create a personal e-business market for the average Joe. Granted, they haven't announced this strategy directly, but just look at things for a second.
We all know that
So, enter into the ring another contender as the gateway of personal commerce online, aka PayPal, and Microsoft has someone ready to duke it out with. Unless something bad occurs over at Redmond in the next year or so, PayPal's going to be fighting one huge battle with Redmond's executives (and I wouldn't be surprised if Redmond's lawyers also get into the ring waving around a couple patent papers as well).
I have a paypal debit/mastercard card and I must say I absolutely love it. I could get a check card from my bank but they don't offer me 1.5% cashback like paypal does and I would hate to lose my check card. With the paypal card I can easily keep at least 120-180 in my account at all times to pay for stuff when I don't want to use real cash.
I'm definitely going to buy a few shares from them
When death looks you in the eye, smile. Someone needs to cheer him up.
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/online/paypal.htm l
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/02/23/pay _p al/
Paypal victim site: http://chips.dyndns.org/~xcomvic/
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,26 05 840,00.html
etc etc etc ... One scam goes like this : The victim sells an item, are paid via paypal -- they ship the item, once the scam artists has recieved it, they can force the CC company to reverse the charge because theres no signature ... Paypal is debited the money, and paypal *TAKES THE MONEY FROM YOUR BANK ACCOUNT* without your authorization. A buddy off mine lost 350$ AND his DX7 keyboard this way ... fuck that
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
I've noticed that they're pushing hard to get people to pay directly from their bank accounts instead of their Visa or MC, and I've noticed that some of the times I've done it that way my bank account available balance was reduced by twice what I was paying for 2 or 3 days and then things straightened out, so I don't know if they have a way to "borrow" from my account and collect the interest, or if it's some quirk of my bank.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Unfortunately the pressure to keep the share price rising to keep stockholders happy will probably lead to short-term thinking at the boardroom level and increasing user fees (at which point I and a lot of other users will probably start looking for alternatives).
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Now get five free shares with ever new account opened!
Please folks, before you get over exited, I would consider that there is some panic on PayPals side involved in going for IPO, getting new capital in and expand RAPIDLY before others catch up. PayPal used to be pretty unique and the banks (even if Deutsche Bank was one of the original investors), especially big banking, pretty much stayed away from them. Why did the banks do that? They thought a technology driven company like Paypal (and DigiCash (today known as eCash Technologies), CyberCash(aquired by VeriSign and others), GlobeSET(acquired by Trintech) and many more ...) never posed a threat to the big banks. Then Paypal started to do something you shall not do . Disintermediate the banks. Now the banks think, wow, they are stealing customers from us. So there are various new initiatives on their way. Visa 3-D Secure ( See here), which is _first_ aimed to eliminate consumer fraud but has extensions in the protocol for later P2P use, NACHA has several initiatives on the way: ISAP which is again _first_ an internet payment protocol but will carry into P2P later, Project Action which will aim directly at the eBay Payments of PayPal. So they are afraid. They are afraid for a good reason. They need money to compete (and, according to rumours they are pretty much running out of it). So an IPO is a logical step. Maybe they will even make it in these difficult times ...
TAKES THE MONEY FROM YOUR BANK ACCOUNT* without your authorization
1. You don't grant access to your account on a transaction-by-transaction basis; you grant access to your account PERIOD. I'm sorry if your buddy didn't understand this fact of banking. Kind of an expensive way to learn it; clearly you've learned from his mistakes.
2. If someone defrauds you, you prosecute them. I'm sorry if your buddy's DX7 keyboard and his $350 weren't worth his time; that was his choice. It's not PayPal's problem if you are defrauded; it's your problem.
I use PayPal. I know the risks. If they foul up my account I will pursue fraud charges against them. If someone else rips me off, I'll pursue fraud charges against THEM. Everybody needs a hobby, and from time to time it becomes my hobby to make people responsible for their actions.
The only reason a company would IPO in this environment is they can't get cash any other way.
This is the only, and I mean only .com-ish type company I'd ever invest in.... because c'mon folks, they are a market leader of a required infrastructure type website/system that the internet needs.... where would ebay be without this?
===> An eye for an eye makes everyone blind - MG
There are good ways to protect yourself on Paypal. One is to make sure that you only deal with people who have verified accounts. This means that they have linked a bank account to their Paypal account and (presumably) can be traced. In fact, if you pay someone for an eBay auction with Paypal AND they don't send the goods you can get up to $200 from eBay and $200 from Paypal.
Look here for up-to-date information on Paypal's fraud policy.
--
The internet is the greatest source of biased information in the history of mankind.
It is paypals problem if you're defrauded -- they claim to be a safe and secure way to transfer money. Even if you want to argue that they aren't in the business of making sure TRADES go ok, someone clearly has found out how to defraud the monetary transfer itself. IMHO paypal was ripped off in the previous scenario, not my friend ... however-- paypal sidestepped the monetary damage itself by commiting fraud on one of their customers. Paypal is a joke :)
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
The point is whether or not individuals in P2P transactions should be exposed to the risk of a buyer backing out of a transaction by abusing the credit card system. Businesses have large enough volume to absorb those risks, individuals don't. Furthermore, because individuals traditionally don't take credit cards in P2P transactions, there are no protection mechanisms (your suggestion of "prosecuting" them is obviously impractical).
There are many traditional payment methods by which the seller is not exposed to the risk of the buyer backing out after having received the product. If PayPal can't figure out a way to provide similar protections to its customers in P2P transactions, then maybe PayPal really isn't the right payment method for many P2P transactions.
Interesting - so it's basically a credit card where you can set your own limit? That'd be nice for buying from companies I don't entirely trust. If they say they're only going to charge me $20, and then attempt to take more, they'd be screwed if I only gave PayPal $20 as my balance, right?
grep -ri 'should work'
Bupkis.
How is being ripped off by someone using PayPal different than being ripped off by someone cashing a money order? I would think with the money order you have that much *less* protection because who knows when the crook received it, cashed it, etc. But with PayPal, you receive notice when the bad guy has accepted your payment. At least that way you can have a more calculated guess at whether you're being screwed or not.
Analogously, PayPal is the messenger service delivering the money order. When's the last time you heard someone bitching at the postal service because they sent a money order to someone and didn't get their expected goods?
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
The post office can't take back the payment AFTER you've recieved it. Thats what paypal did in this case.
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
If you ever work as a lab monitor for a state owned school, see if you can qualify for a credit union membership. Unlike regular banks, they don't think that they're doing you a favor letting you bank there.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Sorry Dan but I have to say that your friend would get modded down as:
-1: Idiot
Seriously. I know we all blame software and website TOS for all the ills in the world but when it's your CC# and bank account it pays to read the fine print. Paypal is a middle man. End of story. Everyone has a sad tale of getting fucked selling something over the internet. Fortunately it is generelallythe exception and not the rule.
OK its late I'm sorta drunk (ok really drunk) so I apologize for my grammar and the standard IANATroll apply.
Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me. Sounds like the former in this case.
Pete
(pardon the blatant American centric nature of my sig. I thought everyone would get it, but...)
The sole purpose of the Internet is to get porn and bomb making plans into the hands of children.
Congratulations! You just discovered a hole in CC Protocols. It is called MoTo (MailorderTelephoneorder) and you are correct that you can reverse such transaction. I guess every single eTailer out there suffered from this "loss". BUT, first of all, these rules are there for a reason. If I am your underpaid waiter in the little restaurant around the corner just pin down your 16-digit PAN and expiration date from your credit or debit (Visa/MC) card, guess what, I can go shoppingWohooo. What big of a deal. Now, if I, being the bad guy, accepted the delivery of my little shopping experience (using certified mail, signature required UPS or whatnot), I AM IN TROUBLE. And if your friend sent a 350$ item without a signature upon delivery, he is a f&((% idiot and should not sell stuff on eBay anyway. Phhhhhhhh ...
In some cases, the private owners of a company want to GET OUT. They have a successful business, but they don't want to run it their whole lives.. they want to move on. SO.. they sell it.
You can either sell the company privately... or.. PUBLICLY.. which means an IPO.
And an IPO is generally more profitable.
Doing an IPO so you can get money so you can build a dotcom is one thing.. going public when you have a company that's actually worth something is a different matter.
Anyone online... I've seen people paying each other via paypal... websites taking fees...
Online Casinos & Sportsbooks, for sure, use paypal a great deal now.
Paypal is in a position that previous to the net, only banks & amex, visa, & Mastercard occupied: they are acting successfully as a financial transaction broker.
PayPal is featured in the PBS special "Electric Money" on PBS next Wednesday. This special looks at the recent history of money as it mostly now exists as electronic transactions. The series was made by Mark Stephens who made the two PBS "Revenge of the Nerds" series and writes the Cringely column on the PBS web site.