Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Paypal Grinds To A Halt

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the get-your-pal-to-pay dept.

BillBrasky writes "After a 'Monthly Software Update', it appears that PayPal started having problems. There were reports all weekend of troubles, and as of Monday night here, I can't access it at all (connection time out). One user even reported that his PayPal Debit card was getting refused!" A message on the site now says the site is expected to be back at 8:10 PM PDT, not long from now.

5 of 497 comments (clear)

  1. Re:effects on ebay share price tomorrow by ergo98 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Of course, if the price drops tomorrow, it's probably the best time to buy in, since this is obviously a temporary glitch.

    While it may be a temporary glitch, there is no doubt that such an outage has a real financial impact - banking, which PayPal is to a degree, is based upon trust, and PayPal already starts in a precarious situation given that there are no branches to visit and limit options available outside of their website. This is the sort of thing that sends grandmas and grandpas away from that payment method for a while.

  2. PayPal 101 by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    1) As soon as someone pays you, move ALL the money out of your PayPal account.

    2) To pay someone else, have payment go directly from your associated checking account. There is no need to carry a positive balance on PayPal.

    3) Don't get the goddamn DEBIT card.

    BTW, it's 8:37PT and it took almost 3 minutes to sign on. My guess is that PayPal will be hiring soon.

    1. Re:PayPal 101 by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Charging to a checking account is just downright unethical.

      Hmmm...ever try online bill pay?

      We did get the money back - 3 weeks later.

      So what's the problem? If no one helped...how did the money get returned?

      I agree anyone who ties their PayPal account to their main checking account is a moron. However, these days free checking accounts are available at almost any bank. Set up a dedicated checking account for PayPal at a local branch of your favorite bank and you're in business. Think of it as your own financial firewall.

  3. Re:It says by AKAImBatman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well, I got in. It looks like PayPal is responding, but REALLY slowly. A couple of points of interest:

    1. The front page is LOADED with new graphics and text.

    2. There's now a "Powered by Sun" icon on the site.

    What I'm wondering is if PayPal didn't overrun their bandwidth with new graphics and pages while simultaneously trying to upgrade the backend systems. The "intermittent problems" might have been caused by such an upgrade. Then Monday hits and they haven't completed upgrading/stress testing the system. What happens? Nose dive!

    If my theory is correct, we can expect the performance to slowly improve as PayPal gets more systems online. Also keep an eye on that front page to see if any sudden changes show up.

    --
    Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
  4. Re:That was interesting... by HotshotXV · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You think that Paypal is doing business on an unprecedented scale? Sure, maybe in the U.S., banks don't handle as much of a load, seeing as there are a million different branches... but look at credit card companie, and how there is never any downtime in their systems. You think that VISA's billing department, or the credit verification department, or many others don't do the same amount of business as PayPal? (if not more) Most of the comments are right - you don't try to implement a new interface or a new system without extensive load testing... If you can't do extensive load testing, you have to either phase things in VERY slowly, or scrap the update until the testing can be done.