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PayPal Freezes the Assets of Wikileaks.org
matsh sends word that PayPal has frozen the assets of wikileaks.org. From their Web site: "Paypal has as of 23rd of January 2010 frozen WikiLeaks assets. This is the second time that this happens. The last time we struggled for more than half a year to resolve this issue. By working with the respected and recognized German foundation Wau Holland Stiftung we tried to avoid this from happening again — apparently without avail." The submitter adds: "Hopefully we can pressure PayPal to resolve this quickly, since this seems like a dangerous political decision."
This has been going on for many years, with many different groups. Until people stop using Paypal, or some sort of oversight or audit is performed, it will continue to happen. Mayhap Wikileaks should try and dig up information on Paypal.
TFA (such as it is, < 140 chars):
The SCUMBAGS at PayPal have frozen the assets of http://www.wikileaks.org/ ! I'll withdraw all my money from PayPal as soon as I can!
So don't deal with the scumbags at PayPal. I suppose they have it for taking donations. Maybe they should have a second bank account.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Is it too much to hope that this will bring Pay Pal to the attention of the US Government and finally get PayPal regulated as the bank it clearly is?
I...I'm attacking the darkness!
Paypal is just a horrendous disaster area. Just please DO NOT use paypal, either as merchant, or as purchaser. If a service only supports payments by paypal, just tell them that your sorry but you will not buy their service.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Why is PayPal freezing the account? What happened the first time, and what agreement was reached to thaw the account?
--- Asking inconvenient questions for over 30 years...
If your organization used Paypal and they froze your assets once, and you "struggled for more than half a year" to resolve it, why the fuck would you STILL be using Paypal?
Paypal's behavious is unacceptable in many ways and it happens to many people.
The most annoying thing is when you couple it to ebay, and anoying buyers file a not-received or not-as-described claim when it's clear they couldn't have received it yet, or you told them it was delayed because you were, say ill. As has happened with me.
The bad thing is that this partly or wholly freezes your business section that depends on that. Unacceptable.
Paypal and Ebay were once pretty good, the former because payments via bank transfer for small amounts internatioanlly were so expensive, but all that is gone now and the fees for large sums are also far too high...
I suggest everyone use bank tranfers in EURO countries. IBAN/BIC payments are free if done with shared-cost.
I doubt this is political. Paypal is notorious for freezing accounts based on some internal drone's mistake or a some programmed tripwire. There are countless horror stories about this: http://www.paypalwarning.com/ http://www.paypalsucks.com/frozen-accounts.shtml When you outsource all your employees and pay them 5 cents an hour or whatever slave wage they pay foreign workers, you get what you pay for.
If it is political, then Paypal, as an organization is of unfathomable stupidity.
it's not like there is no alternative to pay pal. Just use something else.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Paypal has a long history of doing this sort of thing to people.
In addition to that, they have a history of requiring personal information from people (due in large part to US law)
I believe it's time for an alternate, non-US based payment processor to take the place of paypal, the problem is there are so many to choose from. I like pecunix for their security (and the fact they aren't US based.. and use a market-maker approach, which helps to create competition in the exchange rates)
But what about others? how come we're held hostage to paypal when other systems exist?
It seems that there is a image from "alainfishing" on wikileaks main page. Read this interesting article about this:
https://p10.secure.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/ssl/wikileak/2010/01/paypal-suspends-donations-to-wikileaksorg-who-then-web-bug-their-own-website.html
I'd like to see some indication of what prompted Paypal to do this. Not that it would make a lot of difference, but "because we could" would lead to a different attitude on my part than "because they were a source of malware that kept making unauthorized deposits into their account."
Not that I think either of those is likely to be their public explanation.
What ever will wikileaks.org do without the excellent customer service, transparent and fair practices, and fantastic service charges provided by Paypal? Guess I'm not donating to them anymore.
Try not to use Paypal, or any of the abusive companies owned by eBay. Never vote for anyone associated with eBay.
Things called money orders. Keep the cash in a safe deposit box. You really won't miss that 1.25% interest from a bank account either.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Monopoly. Where else can you go?
Aside from any EULA, how can this be legal? I can understand if there is fraud going on and courts get involved but this is purely political extortion/theft.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Try revolution. May paypal rot in hell.
...is to empty the account every day. There is no sense in keeping any amount of money within their graps as they have shown time and time again they will freeze access without real cause or warning.
I was part of the collective to buy i-Opener machines from the failed Netpliance company. We used Paypal to collect fund from participants as that seemed to be the best way at the moment... How wrong we were... Paypal froze access to the account once it had accumulated enough money for them to be profitable to draw interest from. Of course they did NOT block payment into the account, just access to the funds. They had no real reason to freeze the account and ignored their own rules in both freezing and unblocking the account. They just sat on the money for a month or two, drawing interest from it. When they finally unblocked the account - again without giving any reason whatsoever - the deal with Netpliance had almost bounced.
Paypal is not a bank. Don't treat it as a bank. Don't entrust them with your money. Don't give them access to a debit account, only to a credit card.
Paypal, in short, can not be trusted. Use it at your own peril, only use credit cards so you can reverse the transaction. Never ever accumulate any real amount of money on a Paypal account.
--frank[at]unternet.org
is here: http://mirror.wikileaks.info/
The problems with PayPal are so infamous that no less than Fortune/CNN listed five alternatives
This is really the fault of the person who decided to keep their assets in a PayPal account. And this isn't the first time? Well, they just don't learn do they.
PayPal can freeze accounts for any number of reasons, of which very few have to do with the owner of the account. If someone pays you with a stolen card or from an account that is suspected to have been compromised, that can trigger a freeze. Their support is notoriously bad, and their instructions for re-enabling your account are always overcomplicated.
Let this be a lesson to anyone who receives money with PayPal.
Money received => withdraw immediately
NEVER HOLD A PAYPAL BALANCE.
Always be ready to redirect payments to a backup account.
There's nothing really wrong with PayPal on the whole, the average person really has not a clue the amount of fraud that is attempted and prevented via PayPal.
What people bitch about is the fees, and that is their only axe to grind.
If money has been frozen it is BECAUSE someone has attempted to defraud someone. What likely has happened is that someone donated to wikileaks with a stolen credit card one too many times and it automatically triggered a freeze.
I don't know why people complain about not being defrauded. Paypal is at the very least one step ahead of the banks in preventing fraud.
Do you know how the ACH system in the US works?
If you know, anyone's checking account number, you can basically defraud the hell out of them and the banks will allow it till the person catches on.
Fail, fail. The government is standing up to China on behalf of a corporation. If our government actually believed in human rights, we wouldn't favor trade with China above all other nations.
Why treat China differently than our own country? The Supreme Court just ruled that only corporations have rights.
Oh, sorry, I jumped ahead. That's the next week's chapter of America's March Back to Plutocracy.
Every time I buy something with PayPal, I wind up getting inundated with fake "update your account" requests and various other kinds of PP-related spam. This is on a system scrubbed by various effective anti-spyware and anti-virus programs and, sometimes, even an on-line scan. The only logical conclusion is that PayPal is at the bottom of the problem.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Whereas political speech by corporations falls under the protections that:
There is no basis for the proposition that, in the political speech context, the government may impose restrictions on certain disfavored speakers
I betcha Kennedy still supports using "free speech zones" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone#Notable_incidents_and_court_proceedings to impose restrictions uniquely on disfavored political speakers.
So how soon until the ACLU "finds" (creates) an opportunity to appeal an individual's conviction for failure to confine his/her political speech to a restricted (cordoned-off) area so they can cite this case's majority opinion?
Your lack of understanding of campaign finance law is so vast no one link will suffice. Read at least enough to prevent so blatantly displaying your ignorance before further posts, please.
How is it that Paypal escapes the oversight of the SEC and the FTC? One or the other should come to bear on them.
From http://wikileaks.org/ :
Cash or cheques
You can support us by posting cash, cheques or international money grams to one of the following addresses:
All countries
WikiLeaks ICT
BOX 4080, University of Melbourne
Victoria 3052, Australia
USD, EUR, AUD preferred. International cheques are best over $800 to avoid fees. If sending cash, please place it in a non-transparent envelope or a CD case for maximum security.
Kenya
WikiLeaks ICT
PO Box 8098-00200
Nairobi
Kenya
Other addresses are available on request from wl-supporters@sunshinepress.org
Thanks for the link to the paypal alternatives.
I've already commented here so I can't mod, but you deserve a big +1.
You are welcome on my lawn.
My horror story with Paypal starts many years ago. I had a personal account with them since something like the late 90s, and never once had an issue with them. That was before I went into business for myself, and converted the account over to a business account around the year 2000. What a mistake.
Now, let me just state the following:
- We sold books, novels, and prints.
- We sold works that were NOT adult.
- We sold works that we clearly had the copyright on.
- We were an independant publisher.
I learned oneday that the account had been closed due to a violation of the Acceptable Use Policy. Well, we were in the business of self publishing, things like science fiction novels and fantasy books. We sold online through our own website and through Amazon.com. I contacted Paypal and got a nice lady on the phone who went over our online web site with me on the phone and could not find what would have been a violation. So the account was re-activated...
Oh, then a few months later same thing. Account closed. This time with this message...
In accordance with PayPal's User Agreement and Acceptable Use Policy, we have closed your account. Your funds may be held for 180 days from the date of your last transaction. After 180 days, you will be able to access your funds by requesting an online bank transfer or, if applicable, a check from PayPal. Please update your address or bank information as we cannot be held responsible for checks issued to an incorrect address. We do ask that you please remove reference(s) to PayPal from your site.
I tried for over a month to get the account back in good standing, but was constantly told that the decision was final and there was nothing I could do. We sold everything on our main website through Amazon.com also (who never had any issue with the books we printed), and they also accepted Paypal as a payment method. Still to this day I have not been told a reason, nor given any information on why this action was taken. We simply gave up on Paypal and converted the site over to a real merchant account.
3 years ago I sold the company and the assets to another publishing firm. I started a new enterprise under a new LLC and opened a Paypal account again. No problems, no issues. Oh, I must have been an idiot to think Paypal was not going to do it to me again...
Well, my new account is now closed. It seems that Paypal has not blocked the company from using the account, but they did blacklist me. As soon as we went in to convert the account over to a business account I entered my SSN and wham! Account closed due to the original violation from over 3 years ago.
Now, I was under the assumption in the United Stated that you could not blacklist a person from your business unless there was a dam good legal reason. And why won't they tell me what in the world I did to violate their user agreement? Its like being tried, convicted, and sentenced without as much as a ray of hope to prove your not guilty.
I had a service rep fom Paypal (a manager) go over our new website (we sell clothing) and could not find a single thing that could possible violate any policies from Paypal, nor could he find any reason for this decision. But it is final, and over with.
To make a long story short, I am now blacklisted from ever using Paypal again. No reason, no explanation, no way of proving that I am not guilty, and no way to do anything about it. It has been, to this day, the most horrible experience I have ever gone through. I kept getting the impression from Paypal that I was some sort of pornographer. I feel ashamed and tarnished by this decision, and will have to deal with it for the rest of my life.
I personally recommend to anyone who asks me to stay away from Paypal. NEVER use this company, as you have NO protection under law from any harm they cause you or your company.
Get a real merchant account. With a merchant account you deal directly with the credit card companies and
...especially if they've had the problem before! Although I've been using Paypal for over 15 years with no problems at all, I still don't let the balance there get too high for exactly this reason.
Just why is there funds being held? And why cant wikileaks sue the crap out of paypal the for holding there money for no good reason? And isnt this the biggest reason to read the fine print/hire a Lawyer, for companys like paypal/any company holding our money? Thats no small sum of money being held.
Jack of all trades,master of none
Only the one with a "b" is a matter of public record AFAICT ;-)
In Europe, at least, Ebay is a Swiss AG, headquartered in Bern, Switzerland
Helvetiastrasse 15, CH-3005 Bern, Switzerland, Telephone 00 41 31 359 06 59
and they are, of course, the Beneficial owners of PayPal.
both of which, used to be a Luxembourg SARL, Luxembourg allows bearer shares.
Under the Swiss-EU accords, judgements obtained under EU law, in member countries,
are enforcible in Switzerland and thus in Kanton Bern. You can assume they speak
EN DE FR IT, but if you want to give legal notice do it in one of the Swiss official
languages ie DE FR IT
Thus I suggest you write to the Geshaftsleiter (Ebay|PayPal) at the above address.
Depending on whether or not square allows its service to be used by websites in addition to the physical swipe of the card, then Square could be going right for PayPal's jugular. Of course there are other variables too - sign up process, fees, etc.
. 62,400 repetitions make one truth -- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Here's their response to my question:
MOD PARENT UP!!!
This is an issue which every politician should help to resolve. The few honest ones who actually support open government might actually do so!
I sent this email to my US Congress Representative - Harry Mitchell D-Arizona 5th District http://www.mitchell.house.gov/
"President Obama was elected on a promise of more openness in government. One of the organizations which support this goal is a website known as WikiLeaks. http://www.wikileaks.org/
Wikileaks does not accept government money in any form, but rely on independent donations. It appears that today PayPal has suspended their account as WikiLeaks struggles to raise funds for their 2010 expenses.
Quote from the website:
"Paypal has as of 23rd of January 2010 frozen WikiLeaks assets. This is the second time that this happens. The last time we struggled for more than half a year to resolve this issue. By working with the respected and recognized German foundation Wau Holland Stiftung we tried to avoid this from happening again -- apparently without avail.
We are working on resolving this issue as fast as possible. Please use our bank accounts for direct transfer in the meantime, or contact wl-donations@sunshinepress.org for any further questions.
WikiLeaks is not the only non-profit organization with this problem. This is a regular occurrence, that from our perspective should not be tolerated by the global community using this payment system."
This appears to be politically motivated and something which should be investigated!
I am sure you will agree that this is not merely an issue between private parties, but one of immense importance to supporters of open and accountable government everywhere.
As your constituent, I urge you to use whatever influence that you can bring to bear to investigate this situation and to expose whatever wrongdoing is involved - wrongdoing by EITHER party in this dispute.
Google Checkout.
Even if you had been a pornographer, it'd still have been wrong of them to just freeze your account. Pornography is a legitimate business in the United States.
On a more serious note, not to diminish the gravity of your classism, why the F are they taking your SSN? They're not employing you, or paying into the social security system on your behalf so they shouldn't need that number. Too many people get away with taking that number and correlating it to things which only serves to make it too precious to ever mention.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
PayPal should and needs to be put on oversight from a bank regulator. What it does cannot be left un-regulated as it is today. Abuse of this of part of PayPal is all too common. Use google to find more examples.
GoogleCash also needs to follow under the same rules as PayPal. However I am yet to hear of this type of case from GoogleCash as I do with Paypal.
My old paypal account hasn't been frozen, instead Paypal decided to steal 340euros, on a self-reported, by both parties, phishing case. Victim had fallen for a phishing site, and her account details were used to order some services from my company worth about 170euros.
She contacted me quickly about what had happened, asking me to send the money back. At the time (not sure do they still) there was no "refund" option for businesses (this was many many years back), therefore i informed, with all details i know, this to paypal. She did the same. Nothing happened, despite multiple contact attempts to paypal for months. After quite a few months, they took 340euros from my account (twice the amount in question), and never refunded the money to the phishing victim.
Any contact attempts were futile, money was never returned.
After which i stopped accepting Paypal, and used moneybookers. 80% of all payments to my business was made via Moneybookers a bit later, and it was quite a competitive advantage.
I didn't use paypal again after 4-5years, and now conduct low volume business transactions through it, on a new account.
Posting AC as i don't want any kind of chances of freezing on my new account.
Oh paypalsucks.com has full of these stories AND there's a urban legend going on that even janitors used to have access to your account details... Paypal is the most evil (and overpriced), and unfriendly to their customers, business i know off.
Paypal and any other donation service needs to be used as a conduit only. Only enough money needs to be kept in the conduit to keep it active.
All other moneys are swept daily. And placed in normal operations, excess moneys need to be dealt with in order to help defeat single bank actions. Preferably under whatever shells you need..
If you are at all political, multiple conduits need to have already been investigated, and ready to be set-up in a single days notice.
Merchant accounts are NOT that expensive.
They are in talks to change the laws in Iceland. Surely they have somebody bright enough to come up with a way not to get fucked over by paypal again. They should simply not have access to enough cash to take you down.
SHAME!
I'm not the biggest fan of PayPal, and I know they've made a lot of bad moves in the past. But this seems to me to be just the system at work as it ought to be. Wikileaks has broken all sorts of laws, caused tons of harm to people, and undermined the rule of law. If anyone expects to have any privacy in the modern world then Wikileaks has to be held accountable for its irresponsible actions. Everybody's pager messages from 9/11, copyrighted works, non-newsworthy military secrets only of use to the enemies of the US whose release endangers those serving in the military, etc. I feel safer knowing their assets are frozen, and so should you.
No wrong could possibly ever be done by the end user. It's always PayPal's fault. Ridiculous!
Half of the things that wikileaks does is borderline illegal. I'm not saying that the things they expose don't, but there might be better means of doing it. I have no idea if Wikileaks has broken the ToS but it's perfectly within PayPal's rights to freeze an account for fraud.
9 times out of 10, it's an automatic restriction put in place by various fraud rules. It happens and is also why PayPal doesn't lose their ass to fraud.
PayPal for the record of course wants to become a bank. But it's a long slow process to do so. Stop acting like PayPal is trying to skirt the law by not being a US bank. It's more of a hassle sometimes to not be and certainly costs more in the end.
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
I considered supported Wikileaks - until they pulled their "we have money to operate, but we're shutting down until we get more" stunt. They don't get another dime from me, as they've proved they can't be trusted.
It may not be much, but I couldn't bear to keep my contempt to myself.
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
GoogleCash also needs to follow under the same rules as PayPal. However I am yet to hear of this type of case from GoogleCash as I do with Paypal.
All valid points, but I just wanted to quickly add that Googlecash is not affiliated with Google. Seems scammy to me.
-FL
http://windows7.digitalriver.com/store/mswpus/en_US/DisplayHomePage?resid=Sz0R7QoBAiMAAFSTQGQAAAAx&rests=1264300968472
Even microsoft doesn't trust paypal with their money, and they wipe their ass with millions in dead-end projects.
I've used PayPal in a business capacity for several years now. It helps support me through my company (a sole-proprietorship IT consulting bit) by allowing me to process credit cards. Those things are quickly becoming a fact of life in business...
Anyway what I really mean to get at is that PayPal has treated me better than any of my banks have. When somebody pays me, the transaction takes no more than 5 minutes and then I have money on hand. I can either wire it over if I have a few days, or use their plug-in or my debit card to purchase things directly from my account. While they do not have anything really resembling customer service, they usually don't seem to need it, IMO.
I once had an eBay transaction that went sour. I got all huffy and upset that they reversed the charges. I quickly became an enemy of PayPal, screaming their injustices. What happened was that I had been selling some spare parts and one of them went outside the United States. The Canadian yokel that got them just decided to screw me and I hadn't really created a trail of accountability because I was unprepared for out of country transactions (no tracking, etc). PayPal was in the clear to reverse it because there was really no proof that I ever shipped it to him. That was my fault, but I've learned since then and that company has allowed me to eke a living for myself without having to bow down to the merchant services that involve monthly fees and other stupid crap.
Just felt like sharing that not every story with them is a bad one.
My Google Profile
I donated $50 to wikileaks via PayPal - so this really infuriates me;
I have sent Paypal and email demanded thay refund my transaction or I will chargeback - So I can re-donate the money to WL without interferance.
"Digital River understands that small business owners need that cash immediately," explains David Heath, CEO of Matrix Games, a computer game company that has worked with Digital River for three years.
Funny, Digital River never paid the company I worked at...at all. They sold hundreds of copies of the software, and didn't send our company a fucking dime. Ever.
Got so bad, word had to be spread via online forums, usergroups, and dealers that DR wasn't paying the company, and nobody should do business with them.
Please help metamoderate.
Wow a lot of wild speculation as to why this happened. But if you go to the wikileaks.org site, they are doing a fund-raising drive right now. It's possible that they collected a lot of money in a short amount of time ... they said they needed just under $200k and they raised $130k of it already? That is a lot from PayPal's perspective ... probably a dramatic increase in what they are used to seeing for this organization.
Every single merchant account will cut you off if you go over a pre-approved amount in a short amount of time. My company had it happen to us before (2Checkout). They are essentially floating you a loan until they get paid from credit card companies. Based on the stakeholder's PERSONAL income, etc. they determine a credit line. If you cross it, they freeze. Our rep at PayPal has told us that -- if we're running a promotion or something we think will trigger a dramatic increase in sales -- to contact him so he can run interference before the fraud department freezes our account.
Since this happened on a Saturday, it's possible that they met some sort of threshold for their account. There seems to be a lot of angst about PayPal, but if you play by their rules, all is smooth. We've used them as our primary merchant account (using their PayPal Website Payments Pro API as well as their Express Payments products) since 2002, and they are very responsive to our phone calls and emails. They've never once shut us down. (Knocks on wood.)
PayPal Australia has an Australian Financial Service Licence (AFSL 304962), which means that they are subject to regulation in Australia. Their licence can be viewed here at ASIC. Interestingly, they are a member of the Financial Ombudsman Service, so there is external dispute resolution. Is this the case for other countries? If not, then perhaps WikiLeaks should have its Paypal fundraising based in Australia (WikiLeaks ICT). I use PaySmell only when I have to, which usually involves an ePay purchase. They have my CC details and that is it. For person to person transfers EFT with internet banking is the way to go. Now that PayPal is required for eBay sales I've stopped selling through eBay. The weekend classifieds work quite well, and for small items there is no charge from the major local paper.
I dumped PayPal years ago. AFAIK, the kind of horror stories that are common with PayPal don't appear to be happening yet with Google Checkouts.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Registrant: Host Master PayPal Inc. 2211 North First Street San Jose CA 95131 US hostmaster@ebay.com +1.4083767400 Fax: - Administrative Contact: Domain Administrator eBay Inc. 2145 Hamilton Avenue San Jose CA 95125 US hostmaster@ebay.com +1.4083767400 Fax: +1.4083767514 Technical Contact, Zone Contact: Host Master PayPal Inc. 2211 North First Street San Jose CA 95131 US hostmaster@ebay.com +1.4083767400 Fax: -
There is nothing wrong with yr Internet. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission - NSA
I would LOVE if a corporation could commit crimes so egregious that they could be chopped to pieces and auctioned off.
Then corporations would stop treating fines and settlements as just another "cost of doing business".
Some companies break serious laws on purpose because they will profit more than the fine.
There is a reason why sites like http://www.screw-paypal.com/ exists. The fact is, it is part of PayPal's business model to freeze and limit accounts for seemingly no reason in order to make money off the float and off the interest. Just read PayPal's updated Terms of Service Agreement! Right at the top they tell you they have a right to freeze and limit your account anytime they want -- before, they never wrote that. Screw-PayPal.com also has large sections with PayPal alternatives. I found them here: http://screw-paypal.com/alternatives/alternatives.html http://screw-paypal.com/alternatives/alternatives_general_recommended.html Guess these alternatives are divided into what you can use with eBay and what you can use for everything else you may want to do. Fact is PayPal has been freezing funds arbitrarily for years. People have businesses going and then wake up one day only to find PayPal has taken their money. People loose business and their income because they beleived PayPal's promise that they were "safe".
I think what's more important is China owns $1 out of every $10 of US public debt so they've got us comming and going.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/18/AR2008111803558.html
I am the lone locust of the Apocalypse, think of me when you look to the night sky. -Zorak
If we launch hostile takeovers and own the biggest corporations, can we promote human rights through them?
I am posting anonymously for a reason.
Let's just say that Paypal is perfectly happy to freeze a NFPs assets and never ever release them. We learned the hard way that unless you have the time and resources to go after them in court, the money is more than likely lost. Lowlife slimeballs.
We'll find out whether people care or not when there's an alternative.
I've asked that question a lot. The answer is that there are several other options.
Most of the rest of the world uses Moneybookers as one option of several. It is allowed to use more than one, though most people appear not to know that.
It's inexplicable that sites that otherwise spend effort on usability and accessibility then say 'fsck you' to their potential customers when choosing ways to transfer money. It's very rare to walk into a store and see 'paper money only, no coins' or 'Visa credit cared only, no cash' or 'Mastercard debit, no credit cards and no cash' and so on. Why should the same be tolerated online? I've contacted some of these same sites that have paypal as the only payment option and found that they wonder why they get little to no business yet won't add other options for payment.
If you provide only one avenue for payment, and many people don't use it or even like it, don't be fscking surprised that many people won't give you money.
People make those decisions. And the Buck Stops at the CEO. Kill the CEO. After all, they get paid the big bucks to take the big risks. So take the risks.
If the corporation person would go to jail, jail the CEO. He can't pass on the cost of being in jail to the customers.
See this article on the lawsuit that Coca Cola Corp is currently facing in Colombia. they are accused of hiring hit men to kill the union leaders at their local bottling plant there.
http://www.business-humanrights.org/Categories/Lawlawsuits/Lawsuitsregulatoryaction/LawsuitsSelectedcases/Coca-ColalawsuitreColombia?&batch_start=51
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
I always thought that the enormous government payouts to help prop up the banks after they fucked up so badly with the bogus mortgages etc, ought to have been conditional on the Head of the Banking corporations being fired on the spot. Any bank that paid its corporate heads bonuses after receiving public funds, should lose all of those funds. Its a heinous crime IMHO.
What I want to know is why the people who profited off the mortgage scams are not all rotting in jail with all of their personal assets seized and sold at auction? All I ever heard was a few people getting nailed, and the banks getting bailed out. Where are the several thousand new white collar criminals doing their time?
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
...as enabled the recent SCOTUS decision, "free speech" is now whatever doesn't offend this or that corporation which has a stranglehold on you some piece of your life, or your business. It could be your bank, your internet service provider, your employer, whatever. If they don't like what you have to day, no Constitutional protection will save you.
Ironic, ain't it? That the drooling ditto-heads think that giving an alarming amount of power to corporate interests, which are quite often at odds with the interests of the citizenry, is somehow a victory for free speech. What you have seen PayPal do here is just the bow-wave of what's coming, my friends.
It's survival of the fittest. Be ready to repel the enemy. And sail on to a safer harbor.
How effective would a dashed-off letter from an attorney be in cases like this? Something like that might be good to know in case this ever happens to me.
Remember wikileaks has not indicated why its account was frozen. I am sure if they were trying to resolve for the past 6 months, they would have lot of case information, why not make it availble for people. Just if you have .org infront of you , that doesnt qualify for being god.
Also for all those against paypal - Do you know why wikileaks account was frozen ? If not i would say nobody is asking your stories, we are trying to resolve a problem, not add historical information on how bad paypal is - thats not helping in resolving the issue, unless you are being paid by google or amazon to do this.
what are alternatives for buyers using paypal? or is the solution give your CC information out to every website that you want to buy something from?
Why is Paypal freezing their account? Paypal isn't saying and Wikileaks doesn't know? If Paypal is selectively freezing accounts of NGOs and charities, as the article suggests, why is that so?
From http://twitter.com/wikileaks WikiLeaks now accept credit card donations without paypal. thanks! http://bit.ly/wldonate https://tipit.to/wikileaks.org Unfortunately tipit is down at the moment i write this.
You expect him to say otherwise?
The report is being kept secret for a reason, also the scheme has been throttled back from a dynamic content control system to a simple blacklist of 2000 domains selected by ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority).
Head in sand much, the entire opposition is against this (49% of parliament) plus the greens (another 5 senators) which has prevented the system from being implemented (I.E. the majority of parliament voted against it). Every major ISP in the industry has slammed the idea (when is the last time Telstra agreed with iinet). Numerous sources have pointed out how it wont work, even child protection advocacy groups say it will give us nothing but a false sense of security.
/. or Fox News. The headline, "Australian group makes rational argument against censorship" isn't inflammatory enough to sell papers but "OMFG Australian gubbermint is teh censor" is.
Not a lot of this will reach other shores because it isn't reported on
That works so well, Conroy gave up on using it a year ago. Calling his detractors paedophiles got the government so much bad press. Like when Howard tried Bush's "teh terrists were out to get you, be afraid" line, the MSN, Non-MSN, average person and other parliamentarians laughed at him. Such Ad Hominem attacks tend not to work over here as we've already assumed that politicians are full of crap and aren't easily fooled.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
You mean the same GST that dropped prices on electronics by 20% overnight.
GST is an argument against you as it actually has made things cheaper and fairer for everyone.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Reading all this all I have to say is fuck paypal. Those bastards screwed me over and reversed months worth of legitamite transactions, seemingly at random for no good reason.
O rly?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/19/australia_list_leaked/
Now STFU, Mr. Cuntroy.
If someone got the top 1000 paypal users, and use fake CCs to pay into them or trigger something else, they would freeze 1000 of their best customers, it would be funny.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Sweet, i played that game. Syndicate. it so rocked!
Be seeing you...
Step 1: Make a new bank account.
Step 2: Use the new bank account for paypal.
Step 3: When money gets deposited into the paypal bank account, move to another bank account.
Step 4: When the freeze hits, it hits nothing to very little.
Step 5: Profit!!!!!!
Be seeing you...