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Paypal Charged Under PATRIOT Act
A reader writes: "Yahoo has the story: Paypal has been charged under the PATRIOT act for accepting and profiting from transactions with illegal gambling sites. According to their new rules they will no longer allow gambling payments due to the higher chargeback risk. It's good to see them charged for something, even if they have never had to atone for the thousands of customer dollars they have stolen." I know of a number people who've had problems, but I will say that I've had no problems with PayPal - on both my personal account and on the Subscription side of things.
Yet more evidence that the PATRIOT act had little or nothing to do with actual terrorism...
..those americans SURE like the word patriot...
How is illegal gambling a matter of national security unless "terrorists" are directly profitting from it?
PayPal has been used for quite a while in the grey market... DSS hacking hardware, Drugs by mail, Betting... It was only a matter of time they got busted for it. They are profiting on illegal activities.
Str8Dog
using System.Darkside; public
What are those problems then? I never had problems with PayPal.
So what happens now, they get the death penalty?
Put patriot in front of something and it doesn't work as advertised:
Patriot Missle
PATRIOT Act
etc..
Should we cry or something?
Their activities HAD to be regulated...
is a true patriot. -1 Offtopic. See above
Paypal has had it coming to them for a long time. A stiff penalty may wake them up somewhat. The real question is, will Paypal's policies improve sufficiently to correct their behavior and unethical withholding of funds?
I hate to be a cynic in this case, but probably not. The magnitude of the average consumer's problem is likely far larger than the Patriot act allegations.
PayPal = Ebay
:)
Just keep that in mind when boycotting PayPal by buying your stuff from ebay using nochex
I don't like PayPal. So seeing them nailed under the Patriot act if kind of funny, But, using the Patriot act this way is confirming the worst fears of everyone aout this act.
It is truely sad when the fight for our rights is being led by companies like PayPal.
Work bio at MMWD
It would be patriotic if Uncle Sam got his cut via the IRS.
It's good to see them charged for something, even if they have never had to atone for the thousands of customer dollars they have stolen.
It's good to see that Joe Smith was charged with felonious assault, because I *did* see him jaywalk that one time.
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
Hate them for hurting consumers, or like them because the Patriot act is totalitarian? Well that looks like a draw. I'll have to go to my backup.
It's a monday, and mondays are... mondays. We haven't had any scapegoat stories so far today, so I guess this'll be it.
So, in response, I believe that the crimes that Paypal has committed to the online community are grave enough to warrant actions of this sort. They got what was coming to them. Go USA.
I've never had any problems with PayPal, though I know about and recognize the horror stories about people having their money borked wholesale by the service, and how their accountability is next to zero.
But I don't think I share the submitter's glee about PayPal getting screwed - the "PATRIOT Act", which is supposed to be fighting terrorism.
In any case, I've said it before and I'll say it again - PayPal is NOT a bank. If you must use them, never "deposit" money with them and always, always use credit cards.
What Paypal does is actually quite difficult, and I suspect it is a constant battle for them to prevent their service from being used illegally, and without them getting landed with massive liabilities. This is primarily due to the braindead way that credit cards work. I suspect that people that have had bad PayPal experiences might simply have become victims of the fact that Paypal has to be extremely aggressive about fraud just to survive.
Before everyone hangs them out to dry - perhaps stop to think, for a moment, what their side of the story might be.
I know of a number people who've had problems, but I will say that I've had no problems with PayPal - on both my personal account and on the Subscription side of things.
Careful now, Hemos, the advertisements go on the TOP of the page, and the stories go on the BOTTOM. Please be more careful in the future.
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." -Voltaire
The auction service operator said a letter received Friday from the attorney's office claims PayPal violated a part of the law that prohibits transmission of funds known to have been derived from a criminal offense or intended to be used to promote or support unlawful activity.
And thus, the burgeoning aspirations of the Underpants Gnomes come to an end....
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
God bless John Ashcroft for protecting us from "roulette terrorists".
Taking money from gambling sites? The terrorists HAVE already won, but that's only because they bet on red.
" The auction service operator said a letter received Friday from the attorney's office claims PayPal violated a part of the law that prohibits transmission of funds known to have been derived from a criminal offense or intended to be used to promote or support unlawful activity."
Oooh, sounds scary! Those evil PayPal people are criminals, huh? Well, let's see the details:
"EBay, San Jose, said the attorney's office offered a complete settlement of all possible claims and charges covering a purported amount of earnings PayPal derived from online gambling merchants between Oct. 26, 2001, and July 31, 2002, plus interest."
Ah, so we're talking about gambling! Sure, let's keep that revenue with the state-run lotteries, and riverboat casinos. We don't want to share our gambling takings with anyone else. So let's crack down on non-government gambling sites. What's that? "Online" gambling sites? Why that's the magic combination: the evils of the online world, and the evils of gambling. Let's get a big stick to use on them:
"Hey, look, we got this here PATRIOT act we can use on 'em!"
"PATRIOT act? They ain't terrorists."
"They are terrorizing our bottom line, it'll work."
----------
I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!
Why don't we just burn the Bill of Rights? That PATRIOT act has just about taken away all the rights we used to enjoy.
From the article: The auction service operator said a letter received Friday from the attorney's office claims PayPal violated a part of the law that prohibits transmission of funds known to have been derived from a criminal offense or intended to be used to promote or support unlawful activity.
Now how am I supposed to go about transmitting funds that are known to be derived from a criminal offense or are intended to promote or support an unlawful activity??? The Founders must be rolling over in their graves!
Forget the whales - save the babies.
I dunno about paypal. I've never had any problems with them, but this new User Agreement is fucking LONG and split into like 13 pieces spread over many files. And here's the best part:
At the BEGINNING it reads:
We may amend this Agreement at any time by posting the amended terms on our site. Except as stated below, all amended terms shall be effective 30 days after they are initially posted on our site.
So you think, okay, if they put something bad in there, I'll at least have 30 days until I read it on some PayPal watch site or something.
But you'd be wrong! At the END of the User Agreement it reads:
Each of these policies may be changed from time to time and are effective immediately after we post the changes on our Service, except our Privacy Policy for which we will provide you with thirty days prior notice.
Isn't that sneaky?? Kinda like a "plot twist". The lawyers must've really high-fived each other over that one!
And of course the now-common "survivability" clause:
Sections (3) Fees, (2.4) Release, (8) Access and Interference, (2.6) Limit of Liability, (2.7) Indemnity, and (16) Legal Disputes shall survive any termination or expiration of this Agreement.
You know an Agreement has "come of age" when it gets the Survivability clause! I'm still trying to figure out how parts of a contract can remain in effect after the contract is terminated. Kind of like cancer: the gift that keeps on giving!
Anyway, I think I hate the PATRIOT act a lot more than PayPal but this new Agreement makes me weary. I still haven't agreed to it and I think I'll just let my account lapse.
PS: I too wonder what gambling has anything to do with terrorism. Then again, I've noticed a lot of states are requesting Homeland Security funds to "control protestors". The NBC reporter covering the story said with a straight face something like: "Many of the protestors target the same facilities as terrorists and therefore we need funds to protect them.".
That's right folks! Protestors == Terorrists. You saw it coming. Anything can be terrorism, if you try hard enough.
"It's good to see them charged for something, even if they have never had to atone for the thousands of customer dollars they have stolen."
Sounds like someone has a bit of a grudge, eh?
Currency is a tool, a means for improving the barter system. Electronic currency would at frist seem to only the same requirements. But alas, no.
Credit card companies, banks, etc., have all be indoctrinated with the restricting domestic "illegal" activites, in the areas that demand it. Paypal has just graduated into the same realm. No crying foul here. Electronic or online currency/exchanges/banks are indeed going to be responsible for tracking, preventing, and reporting on any activity a government wants.
If this scares you, then realize the standard has been in place for quite some time; purchase histories are fair game during federal investigations. Even anonymous cash itself has been under this pressure for quite some time, from serial numbers to embedded symbols. Someone at a certain level wants to know how the money flows.
mug
The description of Paypal's crimes seems to be for trafficing money know to have been aquire illegally and/or transfering money to people for illegal activities. I thought this was money laundering. How have the laws changed? Did the Patriot Act give a bigger penalty for this?
Galium Arsenide is the material of the future, and always will be.
boy, that would be a fucking gift to the world wouldn't it?
when a criminal uses a bank to launder money they charge the criminal not the bank.
The 'PATRIOT Act' is a misnamed mishmash of constitutionally questionable definitions, 'laws' and knee-jerk, chilling-effect punishments.
There are *already* laws that could take Paypal down for fraud, wire fraud, etc. (If the Justice department wasn't a gigantic mangina, bending over for monopolies and such.)
Leave the BS filled PATRIOT Act out of it. Any use of this act only solidifies it, and its use as a government 'cash cow' should be stridently opposed.
The PATRIOT Act needs to be repealed. Paypal needs to be shut down, or regulated. Congress needs to have some sence foribly injected into their blind f'ing eyes.
This needs to be modded Flamebait. Or all too true.
See: The French Revolution
Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick and his black bastard brother Bart! Corrected by an AC on /. how humiliating!
I believe it is one of those African-American fellows, if that helps. He is crooning about his very special girl and how she is a beauty.
Come to www.neteller.com
We deal with gaming sites.
Yay gaming!
diversification is not the key for internet companies. find something that works, and stick with it.
buying paypal was absolutely retarded on ebay's part. way to many problems with it right now. i mean come on, is it a bank or not? paypal thought they would be the western union of the digital world... NOT.
... to comment.
;)
It's a monday, and mondays are... mondays. We haven't had any scapegoat stories so far today, so I guess this'll be it.
Monday is Windows security hole day (hmm, none today; MS is slacking). Tuesday is another, not to named OS security hole day (and troll day if you are so inclined). Wednesdays are open. Repost your point then
Every US bank and credit union was raided today for violating the USA PATRIOT act.
That Paypal's SCUD defense team plows through this patroit act.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
According to the linked article (which neither the editor nor the submitter took the time to read, apparently) Paypal has not been charged under the PATRIOT act. Instead, "the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri claims the company's PayPal operation violated part of the USA Patriot Act", which is an entirely different thing.
Wake me up when the bat-shit insane puritan who runs the Justice Department decides to file real charges, instead of just sending out thinly veiled extortion letters.
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
I am torn on this one. I use PayPal and have transferred a lot of money back and forth - but never at one time (meaning many small - max under $1000 transactions). They have been just fine for me.
It is great if you have a household of shared rent and bills and you want to easily pay one central person without any paper checks.
But I don't think that it is fair that PayPal is allowed to bypass the bank laws for the most part.
I do know (not personally as in "my mother" but personally in the sense that I have "spoken" with them on the net via e-mail and discussion boards) people that have had 10s of thousands of dollars get locked up by PayPal.
I trust PayPal for my small $300 transactions, and I even have it hooked up to my bank without too much worry on my part. But from what I have heard of others, I would not keep large sums of money in there (the few people that I know had over $50K in there when it was frozen and then basically taken from them).
To be fair, the people I know that had their money taken were doing illegal things - so it became very hard for them to seek legal action against PayPal. It would be amusing to approach the athorities and try to explain that PayPal stole from you money that you were not going to claim on taxes and was obtained via non-legal ways.
Whether or not PayPal kept that money when they realized what was happening, or if they just freeze any high $$ accounts (I had heard that they freeze them all if they are high $$ and/or high traffic so that they can investigate them and then unfreeze them if they are "okay"... not sure what is "okay" and who determines that).
I know a close friend that used a credit card only once in 2 years, and the one time that they used it was to sign up for a website subscription (not slashdot) via PayPal.
She then quickly had many charges run up on her card - it was someone that had stolen it. She had to run through circles with PayPal and the cc company to resolve it - in the end, it was someone at PayPal.
And then the gambling. I personally have no issues with gambling - I don't have a moral issue with it - and the only reason the states really doesn't like it (no matter what moral claims they state), is that it is not something they can tax.
So I don't personally feel that gambling should some get in trouble for this.
Were I for some reason allowed to make decisions on all of this - I would want PayPal to be treated legally like a bank, and I would want gambling to be allowed to stay on the continental states and then taxed.
As for the drug dealers that lose their money... I'm pretty ambivalent on that one.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
1. Steal underpants ...
2.
3. Profit
4. Get busted under the PATRIOT act.
Good thing. Those underpants gnomes were ruining democracy.
_______
2B1ASK1
Since when is it adult to celebrate an unjust law being used against someone your not very fond of (that particular moment)? Every once in a while a story like this gets posted and I remember what a mixed up bunch we are.
Quack, quack.
The thought also occurred that perhaps Slashdot saw fit to block a large quantity of its bandwidth-paying-for, advertisement-viewing userbase. In that case, Slashcode is knackered, because I can still post this. Also, if this is the case, Kuro5hin has better stories, smarter posters, and fewer anti-war nuts to correct.
The people's elbow indeed.
There's nothing wrong with the word 'patriot', but I find something inherently offensive about the way that it's being used as a political toy to manipulate public opinion. It's the same with all of Bush's "god" stuff.
The Coalition has won Iraqis' hearts and minds. People are dancing on the streets.
I got you again! You are so gullible! April fools!
But every time a $20 bill changes hands, the mint doesn't take a 1-2% cut, unlike PayPal.
My other first post is car post.
I use it for our online billing and have had no problems. The main thing I head people complain about is that amount of fraud however the person recieving money has to take some resonsiblity to check that the other end is legit. We've learnt to some degree to check who's serious, who's not.
For example we always check the IP of the person who is ordering and compare it to their postal address. Now this cuts out about 75% of the fraud. Now on top of this people do use open proxies and these are harder to find. The basic rule is that if someone doesn't seem to check out we just refund the money with an explanation.
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
It seems to me that we are only a hair's breadth from becoming a cashless society. And I have little doubt that it will happen in the interests of national (rather than personal) security.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I thought terrorists only got money from pot? That's what all those TV commercials say...
while I'm certainly not a huge fan of paypal, one should be fair to them.
while paypal did allow some money to get through to gambling sites - it isn't their universal policy to allow all gambling.
I konw from past experience that they do block some gambling sites - the problem is that they make it easy to exchange money without them (paypal) really knowing what you are doing.
This is a good thing.
But as a side effect, Joe User can give money to an online casino and paypal doesn't necessarily know that.
So now they are getting in trouble because of that.
They do have a list of casinos - and some casinos also won't let you use paypal - but it is a matter of them being aware of each other - it isn't something that will automatically work in the current system.
So technically paypal isn't 100% BAD - they were/are doing something the right way - it is just that the legal community isn't happy with that.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
this act is less patriot and more crazy! im sorry i was trying to think of something witty, but eh..
For The Best Jazz/Hip-hop fusion > COlD DUCK
I've used c2it.com in the past and it is great (and follows bank laws) - but the problem is momentum.
PayPal has a huge user list and people aren't likely to switch over - so if you use c2it, you then need to convince others to sign up for it as well.
Which is not terribly hard if you are trying to get a friend to pay you back and you live in DC and he lives in Wyoming...
But it is an issue if you are trying to sell something on ebay, or if you have an online business - you need to go with what the majority of people will use.
Just like a majority of sites don't accept diner's club - not many people have it. so no reason to bother paying to support it.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
The mayor of SF is going to ask the federal government for money to cover the protests from last week.
h ronicle/archive/2003/03/29/MN65765.DTL
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c
Personally I hope it goes through since up to 70% of the protestors who were arrested (depends on the day) weren't even from San Francisco.
--- I do not moderate.
Did Christmas come early?
I wouldn't exactly associate his term in office with terror, although perhaps it was terrible at times.
That's because you didn't live in south america.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
They do get an interest free loan from everyone holding those $20s though, and most large holders of currency are doing it for nefarious purposes. Not all that valuable, but hey a couple of million here and a couple of million there and pretty soon were talking a pretty good pile of change.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Everyone calm down, put away the torches and the pitchforks. No one was charged with anything.
Apparently the DOJ doesn't have enough real crime to prosecue and fills its spare time writing harassment letters to companies it feels it can use to further its neo-republican goals.
The DOJ isn't stupid enough to ruin a good scare tactic like the PATRIOT act by making a test case out of PayPal. They've got a couple more years of cease-and-desist type activity until they either try to use the law or are voted out of office.
-Ryan C.
-Ryan C.
Is the power to destroy. The power to fine too.
Every time one of those Bushies is President, the economy's in the crapper and we're at war with the Arabs!
Does any one know why paypal charges so much for the person who is receiving the payment if it is a credit card payment? I have used paypal for a while to make payments, and I really liked it up until seeing the fees for accepting credit card payments, which are quite rediculous. Do retailers have to pay a percentage to accept credit card payments?
There goes 200,000 $ in people's PayPal accounts being locked up for some unknown reason. They have to pay the fine from somewhere...
The company couldn't stay afloat if they didn't do this so if you're one of the accounts that got frozen, deal with it. It's all for the best - after all - they are liable for the fine. Once they pay it it can be business as usual.
Oh, that's business as usual except for your account. Go ahead, open up a new one. What's the chances of being taken for a fool again?
There's a gorilla from Manilla whose a fella that stinks of vanilla and has salmonella.
Paypal Sucks BALLS.
True patriots would never stand for this pathetic excuse for a law.
-------
"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell
And this is why the US will loose its edge. Not to say gambling is good, BUT, if I was a company would I open it in the US? Not likely because of the following reasons: DMCA, Patriot Act and Patents. I would more likely open the company elsewhere and not offer the services to the US. Will this mean less chance of success? Probably not because there are X billion elsewhere.
While I like Americans and I like the American system in general, I want to say, Thank God I am not living there.... Sad state of affairs actually..
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
The enemy of my enemy is they guy I pick off after the fight is over.
There is nothing wrong with being gay. It's getting caught where the trouble lies.
> 50,000 shot, 0.001% change of hitting ...
This means there is a 50% chance the plane will be hit. I would hesitate to say "at least one will probably hit" until you are closer to 90%.
The classic - the odds are always 50% - a thing either happens or it doesn't. Likelyhoods however are always 90% against you. Especially where women are involved!
...if it's good for the goose it's good for the gander. how about corporations incorporated in delaware, where all they are is a ledger entry, they don't exist there? Or how about all those whooper international corporations who move their "headquarters" to the bahamas, then do all their business in the US and other places, dodging serious taxes? Not seeing any "crackdown" on those obvious dodges. And that doesn't even count martini lunches and vacations disguised as business tripsand all those other bogus deductions, that joe worker can't take.
/rant over
It's another scam, that's all the Patriot Act is. It's meant to terrorize people, everything about the patriot act is brave new world making everything about the constitution illegal, without messing with any constitutional conventions or judges. It's yet again even more laws so that eventually everyone is a criminal on paper, then they got you, you are a serf for the new world order technofuedalists. Whomever voted for it is a moron, or a coward, or a traitor as far as I am concerned. All three really. And I'm a classic constitutional conservative, just a normal freedom loving, stay outta my business I'll stay outta yours kinda guy, the difference is, I'm not a globalist fascist masquerading as a "conservative".
These guys running the government now are pure lying frauds. Phooie. War on poverty, trillions later, not much difference. War on drugs. phooie, trillions later, just as much drug use, it just made more crime. And it's never been any of their business anyway, isn't a hoots worth of difference in liquid drugs or dry drugs. Prohibition mistake version 2.0 on steroids. Phooie. Tax reform, phooie, so complicated you couldn;'t find two people to even agree on it, so complex and convulted and crooked it should be totaly scrapped. Campaign finance reform, phooie, just as easy to bribe them turkeys now as any other time. Now we got the new and improved hundred years war on "joe terrorist", all your rights suspended for the duration. triple phooie.
This government is run like a junta, looks like a junta, sounds like a junta, acts like a junta, it's anything but a "representative republic" anymore.
Paypal needs to move offshore, tell uncah creepy to stick it. I don't LIKE paypal, but I dislike the whole coercive hypocritical junta government even more, it just sucks. It used to be plain vanilla normal stupid, only corrupt to a point, now it's pure mafia evil bogus. I'm apologize man, it just is daily now, even almost hourly we see more evidence of how destroyed this nation has gotten. It sorta gets to me sometimes. It's freekin 1930's germany all over again. "Money laundering" what a crock, biggest money launderers in the nation are the federal reserve,and the other big banks, who pass bogus counterfeit debt "notes" and we get forced to use them. The mother of all rip off scams. "Gambling", can't have gambling! Gee, what's a bigger gamble,online gambling, or whizz off ONE BILLION PLUS PEOPLE with another war for profit wrapped in a flag they flat out stole.
aak! sorry!
"There is a sucker born ever minute"(PT gets credit, but it was actually someone else who said it)
Think about it, you are using a computer to gamble in an area where there are no controls.
I, and a great many other people, could easily set up an online gambling that doesn't pay out any large pay outs.
take visoe poker, never issue a hand greater then 4 of a kind. even if the odds where the same a the best vegas pay out, you would still make tons of cash.
occasionally post a pictures of some 'lucky winner' so peple have the illusion they could win a grand prize.
Sure, gambling in a casino is a loosinf propasition, but at least it is regulated, and you can actually see people win big payouts.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
One, the PATRIOT Act was something than Atty. Gen. Ashcroft came up with as a result of an order from dubya not to let 9/11 happen again. The problem is, he sat in his office and came up with all of these wacked security ideas that he never checked with anyone in the administration to make sure it wasn't political suicide. He even wanted to suspend habeas corpus(look that one up on your own) for the first time since the Civil War(all of this is a summary of an article in Newsweek a couple weeks ago). Remember, this guy is Attorney General because he lost the Missouri U.S. Senate race to a man who died a month before the election. Two, in California, there has been a ruling that if you use your credit card to gamble online, not only has the credit card company broken the law, but you can sue them because they "gave" you a method to break the law(not to mention you don't have to pay that part of your credit card bill). So, kill all the lawyers. People need to learn to be responsible for their own actions. It's not PayPal's or your credit card company's responsibilty to make sure you don't break the law. The three biggest lies. 1. Yes, I'll respect you in the morning. 2. The check is in the mail. 3. I'm from the government, I'm here to help you.
This is the same logic recently used by NOW and several other abortion-rights groups in Scheidler v. National Organization for Women : sure, using RICO to prosecute anti-abortion protestors was an unprecedented expansion of racketeering laws, but at least they're using that unprecedented expansion against the right kinds of people.
The logic was flawed then, and it's flawed now: if PATRIOT gets a successful prosecution, or even plea-bargain, out of PayPal, then the feds will be emboldened to prosecute more PATRIOT violations. Each prosecution feeds upon itself, until, like conspiracy or wire-fraud laws, PATRIOT will be "low-hanging fruit," attached to a great many cases with only tenuous ties to the ostensible goals of PATRIOT.
You may not like PayPal, you may even have legally-actionable issues with them -- but file a class-action if you do. Don't cheer them getting prosecuted under a vague section of an overly-broad statute, because the next time they issue an indictment, it could be for you.
"Freedom is kind of a hobby with me, and I have disposable income that I'll spend to find out how to get people more."
In the interest of pointless nitpicking, USAPATRIOT stands for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism. (And I thought I spend too much time coming up with useless shit). Truncating it to Patriot is kinda like referring to TCP/IP simply as CP/IP (and there are probably just as few people who are likely to get really upset). Still, I like to think of it as the 'ooosa pat riot' act.
I am first to agree with you that more people need to take responsibility for their actions. But, if Paypal placed a stumbling block before the weak knowingly then they SHOULD be made to stop by those of us who know better or by laws that protect the gambling week.
This was a good thing because it exposed eBay to bad debt as well since they now own Paypal. I was under the impression that they dropped it as a condition of buying Paypal anyway.
I have read a lot of posts about people who have gotten screwed on Paypal. I have twice, and I have "won" once of three times concerning trouble with them. I look at it this way, I make a lot of money thropugh Paypal = better than 80% of all my eBay payments are made through them. I don't qualify, nor do I care to qualify for a more expensive merchant account.
Websites like www.paypalwarning.com are run by loonies who don't know how to conduct themselves. If I was a local business who knew the webmaster/author of that site I would nver do business with him. Some people are going to have problems. Some people can absorb a few blows and turn the other cheek and be happy, others have to be miserable and get mad at the referees, still others have to sue the event staff because they didn't have a good time.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
I've heard rumours that money is almost always directly involved with buying drugs, and is often a motive in other crimes. Perhaps money should be made illegal.
There's a lot of this about, though. I was all for strict gun control at one stage in my life. Then I discovered that it was actually people, not guns, that kill people. I now think we should nip that problem in the bud and just remove all of the people.
Maybe everything will soon be illegal, by similar arguments. That said, if we try to outlaw everything, then only outlaws will have everything. Since that's already the case, it's hardly worth bothering with laws at all.
Attack its weak point for massive damage!
dumbass. paypal is the bomb and it will bomb your face for that comment. go jerk your face off.
The word terrorist already lost any useful meaning when the Bush Administration started calling Iraqis defending their homeland against armed foreigners "terrorism." The same can be said of the Taliban. Armed members of a country fighting armed invaders can't possibly be "illegal combatants." For that matter, "shock and awe" is pretty much the meaning of the word terror (but then we all know that only the bad guys are terrorists).
Anyone making a statement resembling any form of discontent with The Patriot Act will immediately be added to the national investigation list of various law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
/.er's.
Beware, the CIA is packed with avid
I really wonder if Paypal is the problem, or if it's someone using paypal's services from an insecure computer and storing their information somewhere. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I feel like people still don't realize that storing information in any way on your computer without unplugging the damn thing means someone has access to it.
Michael Moore posted to slashdot!
Funny, I've been shopping online and from online auctions for years and have NEVER had a problem with fraud. If you don't have the common sense to keep yourself from being ripped off then maybe you shouldn't shop online. There are cases where somebody will be legit for a while and suddenly try to rip a bunch of people off and split but that is pretty rare. It's really not to hard to keep from being suckered. Also I suggest not buying a big item from someone you haven't made successful smaller purchases from. For example before I buy $2000 in computer parts from a company I first try a couple $5 or $10 orders to see how they do. I also communicate with the people I buy from both before and after I place my order if I'm not familiar with them or have questions.
:)
Also you are incorrect. You have the option with PayPal transactions to pay for insurance. If you get insurance and get ripped off then you can get your money back. Perfectly fair. That way people who don't need such bullshit aren't paying for your inability to make wise transactions. Do you think fraud protection is actually free? Somebody has to absorb the cost. If you can get a better deal by your bank or credit card company then just use them.. problem solved.
I've never had any problem wth PayPal other than them being to careful with my money. They answered my questions at a reasonable rate. A little slow but no worse than most companies and certainly with less run around than most banks have given me. I use PayPal for everything from online auctions to buying my groceries and am perfectly happy with their service.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Isn't that exactly what escrow services do? They seem to be OK...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If you look at the statistics from the current Gulf Wa... err Operation Iraqi Freedom...
SO FAR ALL IRAQI SCUD MISSLES HAVE BEEN INTERCEPTED BY PATRIOT MISSLES.
That's something like 13. Now there might, might not, have been one that crashed into Kuwait City, but they're still investigating.
So umm, do a little fucking research before you go blabbing your mouth.
I think the guidance systems of the Patriot missles have improved a wee bit in what... 12 YEARS!!
Damn. I get a lot of cheap audio CDs from there.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
but I can't discuss it, lawsuit pending.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
In the words of Rep. Marge Roukema (R-New Jersey): ... connection between Internet gambling and money laundering of terrorism activities."
"We've heard testimony from the FBI, the DoJ, and law enforcement that there is a
Roukema is right.
Do you know why she is right? Because Americans demand these products and services and will procure them from the most available source.
Can't wager on sports in Ohio? Go to betonsports.com, hosted in Belize or Costa Rica. Belize and Costa Rica are not federally regulated.
Gambling has been around for thousands of years. Governments have tried to shut down gambling for some time, but they have all failed.
Irresponsible adults still gamble away their life savings.
Irresponsible adults still do drugs.
Irresponsible adults choose not to wear seatbelts.
No government on earth has the power to stop people from destroying their own lives, and that is why this provision of the PATRIOT Act has already failed.
Nevada and New Jersey have shown that they are capable of running gaming operations and paying taxes. Why don't they run online gaming sites? Why do Americans send billions offshore to bet on the Packers? Because of regulations that force people to take their business elsewhere.
Somewhere along the way, our elected government lost all of its' common sense, and that lack of common sense buys missiles to al Qaida.
Life is tough. It's tougher if you're stupid. --John Wayne
APRIL FOOL'S!!!!
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
It's really not unfair at all, to be honest, these types of businesses need regulated, just like securities or the banks. The level of possible abuse is just insane, and they shouldn't be allowed to do that (at least with U.S. citizens, under current law). Actually, they shouldn't exist at all without some regulation. After all, the credit cards themselves are offered by a shared collective of banks, which are regulated themselves, and these companies just foist themselves off as a semi-bank extension.
Am I the only one who got the joke?
whatreallyhappened.com is all about "there's another side to the story". So this poster had his tongue in his cheek as he said this....
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
As far as I can tell, you can't register with c2it unless you have a US bank account, and you need to register before you can pay anyone.
PayPal is the only system I'm aware of which allows international online transactions without horribly complicated signup procedures.
Whilst I don't have a PayPal account myself, I am aware of both good and bad experiences other people have had with them.
I think the deeper issue is the underhand way that the major world credit institutions like Visa and American Express have systematically trash-talked PayPal and undermined it, simply because it threatens the established way of paying for goods and services.
Yet have they come up with a better scheme for small online purchases which don't require 3% commissions to them? No, of course not. But, like our favourite nemesis Microsoft, they have the financial and political clout to make legislative innovation at the expense of technical innovation. That is why PayPal, the largest independent target on the credit institutions' radar, gets constantly hammered.
Don't be too surprised if PayPal goes under - just realise that it may be due in no small part to the unseen hand of the world's financial giants swatting that pesky mosquito in their midst that threatens to give them all a terminal case of malaria.
Visceral Psyche Films
Please tell me that Paypal is not being held responsible for actions it knew nothing about.
Please tell me that Paypal is not being held to a higher standard than a regular bank.
Please tell me that the United States government has bigger fish to fry than people gamboling of their own free will.
"Do I dare disturb the universe?"
I hope this isnt an April Fool's joke. I had problems with them months ago and ended up wasting a lot of time and money with them. I closed my paypal account and since Ebay owns them and wouldnt do a thing I closed them too.
This of course is a joke planned for tomrrow, perhaps mis-timed due to timezones in the world....
If its NOT a joke, then its a nightmare in process.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Although they deem it ok to do business with illegal gambling, they do not deem it okay to do business with anti-war sites.
I boycotted Paypal since I found out they are not supporting anti-war sites. Also, their affiliated company, eBay will release your buying habits and information to the gov't without a subpeona or telling you. I stay away from them also.
Paypal is a bank, they are a registered bank in many states. Which manks them you guessed it a BANK. Second to the person about credit card stuff, you arn't paying monthly bills to a merchant account, credit transactions are very expensive. There is nothing wrong about Paypal, if you hate it why? Because its part of Ebay? Serously that is not a reason. Maybe you got screwed or something but don't go blaming your own stupidity on someone else.
Man, terrorists invented pot.
Just like Bill Gates invented the internet. They own an IP patent.
If you have ever smoken weed, you're worse than Mohammed Atta or a child-molesting counterfeiter.
> I can't figure out for the life of me how what they did could be construed to be terrorism.
Allow me to clarify.
Terrorism, n:
Any activity that the US goverment does not like for any reason whatsoever.
so paypal is evil. HMMMM something tells me this is a con job. Attack the small business or simple business exchanges but let the billion dollar vultures get off scott free. Something tells me Enron, Global Crossing and Halliburton ought to be investigated under this Patriot Act. Otherwise it's as useless as the ink that it's printed with. It's time for a repealin'.
"The prosecutor's letter offered a plan that would enable the company to settle all charges and claims, if PayPal turned over earnings, plus interest, from online gambling companies for the nine-month period ended July 31, 2002, eBay said."
The money changers attempt to extort money from the money changers.....