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Judge Says Paypal's Arbitration Rules Unfair
MooRogue points to this article in today's San Francisco Chronicle, which reports U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel's ruling that Paypal "attempts to isolate itself from challenges," noting "Judge Fogel also refused to dismiss the class-action lawsuit going against Paypal." I guess I've been lucky with PayPal so far, but I know a few people who haven't.
I've used PP a few times, and it's gone pretty well for me. I've never 'deposited' money in them, mostly because I realise that *** They Are Not A Bank ***, just a western-union house. If only western-union didn't charge as much money for money-transfers, they could take over the paypal market. ($18US for a $40US transfer. Hello? Can you say unreasonable markup?)
Support FSF: Stop thinking with your wallet, and think with your imagination. (cc/non-commercial)
Actually, I'm thinking about PayPal. Either way, it's a moot point now. It already came and went. EBay/PayPal won. It was ruled that they're not technically a "bank", and so they don't need to be regulated.
Essentially, when you put money into EBay/PayPal, you're taking a gamble that you're gonna get it back. No FDIC insurance there. Hell, not even any regulations that say that they have to keep xx% of cash on hand. If there were a run on PayPal/EBay (ie: a lot of people withdrawing cash), I seriously doubt they'd be able to handle it. In fact, that's a good idea...
Somebody needs to organize a day when as many as people withdraw cash from PayPal. When they bottom out, that'll get the Fed's attention.
The unfortunate thing is that Ebay and Paypal were (and still are, I s'pose) linked so closely. I just sold about 30 items on Ebay and almost all of the inquiry e-mails I received contained the line "Do you accept PayPal? That's the only way I can bid." I ended up caving and getting an account just to up the chance that I would get a decent price on everything. Lo and behold, half of the auction winners ended up paying that way. So far, I've had no problems but plan on closing it immediately after I've finished collecting and shipping.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that Ebay acquired Paypal. Do they have any known plans to let it die slowly and shove their credit card program to the forefront? Have similar problems emerged from the Ebay cc service?
Firms accused of chicanery could get IRS tax break: Companies that cooked books may be able write off fines
plus, companies that must pay fines may be able to deduct those fines from their taxes as "ordinary and necessary" expenses. For example, in the early 1990s, Alaska lawmakers were incensed to learn that Exxon Corp. would be able to deduct almost all of its $1 billion settlement with the state and federal governments over the Exxon Valdez oil spill. A study by the state legislature calculated that tax deductions and the settlement's multiyear payment structure lowered Exxon's actual out-of-pocket cost to $463 million.
Congress has denied tax deductions for only a narrow range of payments -- including fines and similar penalties paid to governments, some antitrust damages, bribes, kickbacks and treble damages in antitrust cases. On the other hand, almost all payments in private lawsuits are deductible, including punitive damages.
cpeterso
I come from a small country in Eastern Europe (Estonia) but I have lived in the US for the last three years. One thing that surprised me most when I moved here was the backwardness of the US banking system (this is not meant as a flamebait, just the sad truth). In my home country there's a very advanced electronic banking system. Some examples:
1) Whenever you open an account in any bank, you always get free Internet access to it and full control over your account (since 1997).
2) You can transfer money from any account of any bank to any other account of any other bank, the account number system, routing and other issues are standardized by the central bank (since 1995).
3) In most banks, all Internet-based transactions are free (since 1994).
4) Proper security. None of this 4-6 digit PIN nonsense, you get either at least two passwords (one made up by you, the other comes on a password sheet that contains tens of different passwords and changes from session to session), or a smart card (since 1996).
I guess there are lots of other features by now but these are the ones that were implemented 5+ years ago and still aren't implemented in the US.
I find it truly weird that I have complete control over an account and I can handle all sorts of transactions in my home country that is thousands of miles away but I still have to walk over to my local bank that is just 3 miles away every now and then.
Just one example of how useful the system was: When we went out to lunch with friends, we never had to go through this bill-counting ritual (got change for 20?) when paying for it, one guy paid for lunch, and the others just transferred money immediately and directly to his bank account.
If only the US banks got their act together and implemented a normal bank-to-bank transaction system, we wouldn't have this discussion here.
When men used to be men