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The PayPal Phenomenon
An Anonymous Coward writes: "Pretty interesting and thorough history of PayPal." Not really the usual fare on Slashdot, but this is a very readable account of one of the few dot-com successes. I find PayPal pretty annoying today - a lot of the anti-fraud, privacy-invasive measures which this article applauds make Paypal much less enticing to me than it used to be. And they've been accused of squatting on people's funds at the slightest excuse. But maybe that's the way to success: start off with a very appealing product, then slowly tighten the screws.
I find PayPal pretty annoying today - a lot of the anti-fraud, privacy-invasive measures which this article applauds make Paypal much less enticing to me than it used to be.
Michael. Do you look for reasons to bitch? I swear to God, wannabe privacy advocates piss me off. How do you expect PayPal to do business such as it does (WITH ACCESS TO YOUR CREDIT CARD) without a modicum of personal information, hm? Do you think it would make good business sense for PayPal to say "You know, we don't need any of your personal information. Just give us your credit card number, and we'll base our business on the honor system."
Yeah. Right.
I strongly recommend you have a look at Paypal's Privacy Policy. Since you're obviously doing some blind, ignorant whining about subject matter with which you have absolutely no clue, I guarantee you've never even clicked on the privacy policy. PayPal does their best to explain what information is gathered, why it's gathered, and how it's used. If you don't like it, don't use the service. But don't complain.
Michael's comment absolutely reeks of "I'm with Stupid", "follow everyone else's opinion" mentality. "Wow. The community is really for individual privacy! It's time for me to attempt to gain acceptance with my (cough) peers by complaining about privacy-invading goons!"
Yes. Privacy is important. However, when you choose to conduct business over the internet with a credit card, bitching about a company doing its best to protect yours and their asses only serves to make you look like (more of) an idiot.
Personally, I've had nothing but excellent service with PayPal. It's nice to be able to accept credit cards, or use credit cards to pay for something without a whole shitload of messy paperwork. I've got to give PayPal a lot of credit. They've become a very successful online transaction service, and pretty much the standard auction payment system on eBay. (Ah, no need to worry about sending checks or money orders through the mail. Instant payment rocks.)
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
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You give your account number to everyone you pay with personal check, it's printed on it. Do you consider that as a security breach too?
Other than that, you're not allowed to have two personal Paypal accounts. Once they find you doing that (and they seem to have some krad-sophisticated-systems for that) you'll end having both accounts suspended and banned from using their service.
Tom
- If you're unwilling to do this, I can only assume you're in the wrong.
Or maybe, just maybe, the cost to rectify the situation through legal channels just isn't worth it. By costs, I mean time invested (several hours at a minimum), financial costs and the frustration of dealing with the system. Couple that with the fact that you don't know if you're actually going to get your money back, let alone any compensation for having to fight the system and all the heart-ache, its little wonder that most people don't resort to doing the right thing. Just because you're morally right, doesn't mean the system is going to back you up.From your arguement, I can only assume that you have righted every wrong through all necessary channels, and that you are hiding behind your real name, which is Super Man, Buffy or Mr T.
Thank you for the reply! I definitely see where you're coming from on this topic, and think that all cases of abuse at the hands of a financial institution (or pseudo-institution, as the case may sometimes be) deserves close scrutiny.
However, the situation is always more complex than that. For example, a couple of quick minutes on Google yielded the following unto mine Konqueror:
Basically, pick any financial institution or payment processing company "X" and search for a hate site associated with it. You're almost certain to "win" each time. Now, I'm not saying that these companies are blameless by any stretch of the imagination. Case in point, I actually got messed over by Bank of America while I was working on the development team that wrote their telephone banking system software. Needless to say, I got the errors corrected rather quickly.
The problem is simple: any company doing business of any sort will come up against opposition, disgruntled customers, angry stockholders, etc. It's oftentimes difficult to weed out the "fact from fiction" in a lot of cases involving complex issues. I don't think there's a major national bank in existence that hasn't dealt with a major class-action lawsuit over policy issues.
That's where the trick comes in. These days, almost all institutions, from banks to brokerage houses, have strict and specific verbiage allowing them to "hang on to your cash" in the case of a perceived conflict. PayPal isn't even close to the worst I've seen of that sort of practice.
I suppose it really does come down to individual experience (and group communication of experience, very valuable). As for the sites that report on the misdeeds of these organizations, I say rock on. But, we've got to balance everything out. Frankly, PayPal has taken a heck of a lot less heat than is typical of a "newcomer" in the field, especially given the unsteady ground they started out to build their revenue stream on initially.
I attribute their success to good management. That doesn't mean they'll always have the benefit of intelligent people at the top, but as long as that's reasonably enough the case, I'm okay with them.
On the other hand, if they burned me badly I'd probably be first in line to register "GodIHateThoseScrewyBastards.com" too. It's just human nature to attempt to right wrongs, and I could even be in the wrong in that case without knowing it... almost makes my brain hurt trying to wrap the grey matter around that part.
Thank you again for the thoughtful reply!
If you noticed, they have a link to a wav file of the letters and digits, for the blind. Nothing requires them to really care about the other groups; if you want an account, turn on your images or get on a computer with a graphical browser.
A large number of people here have complained about how PayPal refuses to handle complaints about merchandise either not being sent or arriving in poor condition. While PayPal politely handles some of these cases, they are no means obligated by their terms to handle them all.
The fact of the matter is that PayPal is a money transfer agent. They are the electronic version of Western Union. Money transfer agents basically take money from one person, charge a fee, and then give the remainder to another. While they may have some fraud guarantees, they do not normally handle merchandise disputes. They just move money from one place to another, and then their job is done.
What people here seem to consider PayPal to be is an escrow service. An escrow service takes money from person A plus a fee, and then notifies person B that the escrow service has money from person A meant for them. Person B then sends the merchandise, which Person A inspects. If Person A is not satisfied, they send the merchandise back to Person B. Otherwise (ideally), Person B gets paid.
Escrow services endure a lot more risk than a money transfer agent does. They deal with a higher risk of fraud, and take more measures to compensate for this. PayPal does not consider themselves to be an escrow service. PayPal's own FAQ says so.
Examples of *real* online escrow services include Escrow.com and Tradenable. Note that I have not used either of these, so buyer/seller beware.
As I take a careful look at this new community being formed, what I see forming is a globalized, fluid, largely anonymous culture. Then I look at my local neighborhood and my city. I see people who know each other by their faces and their first names. There is a feeling of trust among everyone here. Joe, who runs an electronics shop down the street, knows that Renee is not going to try to take advantage of him or steal from him. First of all, she has a sense of responsibility toward Joe as one of her neighbors. Second, there are several rings of authority around her that keep her from wanting to do something wrong. If she gets caught shoplifting, what the government will do to her is the last thing on her mind. She will first feel responsible toward her parents and her close friends and relatives. She will then worry about what the people she goes to church with every Sunday will think of her. She would be concerned about her employer finding out "through the grapevine" that she shoplifted.
... and many feel such a responsibility towards God. In economic terms, this keep the "transaction cost" down.
... and I think that the government should be the *last* entity we should be worried about when we do something wrong!)
... so don't be surprised when you find PayPal's service substandard (and more costly) to that of your local community bank.
This sense of community helps foster individual restraint in the face of self-interest. While everyone would like to take everything they can get their hands on, they have a sharp sense of responsibility toward those around them
On the Internet, this community is virtually nonexistent. People can distance themselves from the world around them and become immersed in a sea of IP addresses. For some, a sense of responsibility leaves also, and they take the opportunity to take advantage of nameless, faceless people around the world. They don't know these people, and so their natural human inclination to deal virtuously with these people declines. And for many, the only potential repurcusion of their actions would be from the law (the government is a weak authority figure in the minds of the people
The result? Again, in economic terms, transaction costs go up. Without trust in the virtue of those around us, we need to hire middlemen to keep us all in line. PayPal finds itself in such a situation
An unjust law is no law at all. - St. Augustine