Slashdot Mirror
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
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.
Yes. It is too much. As of Thursday our government is owned by the huge corporations. No one there is going to care if individuals are treated correctly or even if corps follow through their contracts.
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?
Ah, yay for leftist idiocy. Did you read Stevens' dissent? Y'know, the thing that would have resulted as precedent had Kennedy voted with Stevens. No? Cause if you had you would have noticed it treated speech strictly as audible noise. Which means, among other things, flag burnings could be banned by any locale that chose to do so because symbolic speech was no longer protected, and any corporation could be forced to give up the names of it's members. Like sayyy, the NAACP. The only difference between now and Wednesday is that the money will no longer need to be funneled through 527s. Which means we'll get who's actually funding various campaign ads. One would think that transparency would be a good thing. Of course, I imagine George Soros would consider it to be bad.
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.
...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.
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.
So this is all about presidential term limits? Color me confused.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Did you read Stevens' dissent? Y'know, the thing that would have resulted as precedent had Kennedy voted with Stevens. No? Cause if you had you would have noticed it treated speech strictly as audible noise.
The dissenting opinion being worse does not make the majority opinion a good one, or an improvement over the status quo.
OK, " stolen" from another post, but this way YOU get the answer to your question:
http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/fsb/0802/gallery.paypal_alternatives.fsb/
Maurice W. Hilarius Voice: (778) 347-9907
Um, yeah, spam has little to do with malware and spyware on your own computer. Email accounts get phishing scams even if their users have never even encountered a virus from places like Bank of America, UPS, Western Union, and yes, PayPal.
What you describe is just a popular means of phishing...whether you have a PayPal account or not, and certainly regardless of how "scrubbed" your computer is.
PayPal's business practices are plainly questionable to begin with, and the Internet is littered with actual horror stories of dealing with them. There's no need to fabricate accusations--especially ones as weak as this.
it's not like there is no alternative to pay pal. Just use something else.
For example?
Here is a list...
http://www.screw-paypal.com/alternatives/alternatives.html
Here is a list...
http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/fsb/0802/gallery.paypal_alternatives.fsb/index.html
And some more sites...
http://www.paypalsucks.com/
http://www.paypalwarning.com/
I mean, did you even look at all?
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.
This isn't a left or a right thing. Both "sides" seem perfectly comfortable with it.
"We don't need to give any more voice to the powerful interests that already drown out the voices of everyday Americans."
-- Obama on recent SCOTUS Ruling
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
W00T! I've attained the status of right wing troll. Even though, assuming the status of troll is correct, it would be much more proper to label me libertarian troll. This would of course require you to differentiate much more broadly on the political spectrum. After all, there's a reason I don't use liberal as a noun to describe leftist idiots.
"In normal usage then, as now, the term “speech” referred to oral communications by individuals. See, e.g., [various citations]. Given that corporations were conceived of as artificial entities and do not have the technical capacity to “speak,” the burden of establishing that the Framers and ratifiers understood “the freedom of speech” to encompass corporate speech is, I believe, far heavier than the majority acknowledges."
The conclusions arrived to in Stevens' opinion REQUIRE that you assume all non-oral types of speech do not apply concerning the part of the 1st amendment that refers to speech. Which means that in order to accept his conclusions, you have to assume that no other types of speech exist. This means that things like flag-burning, as abhorrent and juvenile as I personally find it, could be legislated as to be illegal.
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:
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.
This post makes it extremely evident that you didn't skim or read the opinion. Or go to any in depth legal blog and read their opinion of the opinion. The limits on direct contributions are still in place.
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.
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 guess I wasn't sufficiently clear. Weeks or months will pass without any of these phishing attempts landing in my in box/spam box. Then I make a PayPal purchase. Starting within about an hour and continuing for the next week or two weeks, the e-mails start. This has happened seven or eight times now over a two year period.
Clear enough?
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
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.
That could be viewed as flamebait, but you raise a valid point, so I'd like to offer a valid response. Wikileak's account was not suspended because they were convicted by any government of violating any particular law. They were convicted by PayPal itself, in the court of PayPal, in a manner that does not resemble any system.
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
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
"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.
It is not the duty and right of random corporations to commits act of vigilante justice. Until Wikileaks is sentenced by a court, they should not be punished. And once they are, the govermnent should punish them.
The world would be quite a chaotic place if everyone could do anything under the guise of enforcing his own law.
Companies use their own taxID, not an individual SSN.
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
That would simply screw the small-time investor, and still let the executives cash their stock options and move on. No, what you need to do is hold the CEO personally responsible for everything a corporation does. He's moved on between the deed and it's surfacing, fine: drag him to a court kicking and screaming, confiscate all the proceeds of the crime, and then send him to jail, just like any other criminal.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
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
That would simply screw the small-time investor,
Good. The small-time investor who is not scrupulous about choosing his investments, and instead makes them based on monetary decisions, is as much to blame for the power of the corporation as anyone else. In the aggregate, they manage to do an amazing amount of damage. If you had to be choosier about your investments based on the corporation's potential to fail the ethics test, then perhaps people would be a bit more moral about what they do with their money.
I have absolutely zero sympathy for someone who loses their ass because they invested in evil. I feel that the fact that you do says something very bad about you.
No, what you need to do is hold the CEO personally responsible for everything a corporation does.
This will never work without limits. I have an alternate, similar proposal. Limit executive salaries to the sum of the people who work directly for them, and force them to share the responsibility if any of those people commits a crime during the course of their work. This helps solve the problem of ridiculous executive salaries and institutes a reasonable chain of responsibility. Attempting to induce someone to commit a crime is itself a crime, so it also provides a means of limiting people attempting to induce their underlings (or underlings' underlings) to commit a crime, although of course it does not eliminate it. But it will of course encourage whistleblowing!
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"