Paypal Grinds To A Halt

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.

Comments

effects on ebay share price tomorrow

[po_boy]

Get out your crystal balls. What effect do you think this will have on the share price of EBAY tomorrow? Will that constitute a buying or selling opportunity?

That was interesting...

[drinkypoo]

The first six or seven times I tried clicking through to this story slashdot told me "Nothing to see here. Move along." Problem in the subscription code?

Anyway this was bound to happen sooner or later. There's frankly no way to test large-scale use of a resource like that because in order to REALLY test it you have to exchange a lot of data with assorted financial institutions which will probably not be very forgiving about something like that. Paypal's never given me any trouble whatsoever and I think that not being able to use it for a day or so is acceptable. Not being able to access debit card funds could be a serious blow to someone foolish enough to store a lot of money in paypal, but otherwise it should have little impact.

PayPal and eBay constantly push the envelope

[winkydink]

Their Dir of Ops gave the keynote at the USENIX Large Installation Systems Administration Conference last year. During the talk, he described how eBAy wants so much to use industry best practices, but given their enormous size and transaction volume, they end up being the ones who constantly push the envelope.

After listening to the talk, one came away wondering how the site even worked at all. Every day, you are on the bleeding edge and every day if you have the slightest of hiccups, expect to have it covered in the Wall Street Journal the next day.

I don't know what they paid that poor guy, but it isn't enough. I'm surprised he still has all his hair and it wasn't grey.

Priceless

[peu]

from the msnbc article:

"When folks go to use their PayPal debit cards, the payment is rejected, but the charge actually goes through and PayPal is deducting the amount from their account"

Re:Priceless

[SamBeckett]

I've had this happen to an ATM card with a real bank.. The machine spits out an error receipt and no money. You try again, it still doesn't work. Oh, damn. What the hell, I'll come back in the morning.

Come back in the morning, works fine. Two weeks later, have a negative balance because the 1st two transactions actually went through on their end.

It's a royal PITA to find the right people to talk to, the right forms to fill out

advantages of Paypal not being a bank...

[JimBobJoe]

Though a lot of posts on here are along the lines of "see...haha...paypal is not a bank!!" I for one am grateful that it isn't.

There are a lot of people, for a variety of reasons, who have been screwed out of getting a bank account from a regular bank. Because of negative reporting on chex systems, they can't get a regular checking account at all.

In tandem with a savings account (which you *can* sometimes get even with a bad chexsystems report) and a paypal account, you have essentially the same services of a checking account.

I for one got screwed by my bank (5/3rd) after fraud hit my account and they refused to take responsibility for some items. Thanks to paypal I still can have checking account like abilities until I sue my bank.

Re:hmm...

[sjalex]

And PayPal is a "Bank" when they want to be a "Bank"... and otherwise they will do as any self-respecting bank would never.

Whereas most banks will gladly take your money as long as it's legal, PayPal will shut you down if they don't like your politics.

Or so rumor has it.

Troubling

[suwain_2]

Is anyone else profoundly bothered by this?

PayPal, which must deal handle millions of dollars a day, just goes down entirely. My real problem, though, is that they are not a real bank. (At least last time I checked) they are not FDIC Insured or anything. They could just never come back, and there's really not much anyone could do.

Not that I expect them to run off with my money. But in situations such as, say, the whole site going down, I like to know my money's in something that's insured.

Lots of new job postings on PayPal

[ErichTheWebGuy]

I just read the "Jobs at PayPal" page... Some of the more interesting new openings that have been updated today:

Director, Software Infrastructure Architecture
Senior Software QA Engineer
Staff Software Engineer

Sounds to me like they're cleaning house after this one :)

Possible Cause

[msaulters]

I heard a news item the other day on the radio that banks all around the country are about to begin using a new system for verification of checks and that customers could no longer count on 'floating' of check for two or three days. I'd be willing to bet PayPal was upgrading their software to support this. It's estimated this change will put $2 billion more into the banking industry each year, largely in the form of fees on bounced checks and overdraft charges. There may be more such failures in the next few weeks.