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PayPal Freezes Cryptome's Account
grimwell sends in the news that after Cryptome's little run-in with Microsoft and NetSol, the activist site has now had its funds frozen by PayPal. Cryptome founder John Young notes, "Google lists thousands of instances of this asymmetrical high-handedness." "We have reviewed your PayPal Account, and due to the excessive risk involved, we would like to begin parting ways in a manner that is least disruptive to your business."
I have, and will continue to, refuse to conduct business with online entities that do not support a non-Paypal option. I have never used Paypal, and I don't anticipate that this will change.
I'd give anything to get a letter from PayPal like that. For us mere mortals, it takes about 30 click-throughs to close an account. PayPal is the Worst Thing In The World.
-- "I believe the human being and the fish can coexist peacefully." - George W. Bush, 29 September 2000
We just donated a few weeks ago... I really hope that money doesn't end up in Paypal's pockets.
Ah, arrogance and stupidity, all in the same package. How efficient of you. -- Londo Mollari
When will someone come out with a viable competitor for PayPal so that we will finally have a choice?
Paypals AUP states as part of its AUP "prohibited activities" that you may not receive payments relating to the *sales* of goods that "infringe or violate any copyright, trademark, right of publicity or privacy or any other proprietary right under the laws of any jurisdiction". Keyword here being sales. Given that cryptome does not actually sell anything and paypal is used for donations only makes this act by paypal to be somewhat unwarranted I would have thought. Even tho companies tend to do as they please. Will be interested to see what happens.
Those who can, do. Those who cannot, sue.
Here is a lovely site for some light reading... http://www.paypalsucks.com/
Also an interesting story on a new scam in Boston on a scam using facebook, twitter, and Paypal http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/03/6000_fall_prey.html
PayPal, being a business, also has the right to refuse any business they want.
Freezing funds gets screwy, though.
There was also a recent story about a blogger who had his Citi account closed because he was controversial. Could this be a new trend? Could there be a back story here? I mean law firms of the big players might threaten to sue the bank of an enemy to make life difficult. Let's call this BLAPP, Banking Lawsuit Against Public Participation.
I don't want an alternative to payapl to buy stuff, because plastic cards work for that or postal money orders, that's the existing alternative, but an online "donations only" service, so it could be used for micro or "minimal" payments would be interesting. Something with a much smaller transaction fee, and geared to only non profit orgs to receive funding. The service itself could/should be a non profit org as well.
When will someone come out with a viable competitor for PayPal so that we will finally have a choice?
I suspect it will happen when it becomes profitable to do so. Until then, we'll just complain about PayPal.
I'm a big tall mofo.
freezing what funds? you don't maintain deposit accounts a Paypal, the money passes through Paypal to an actual bank. Paypal choosing to stop doing business with Cryptome is not the same thing as freezing funds.
This definitely sucks for cryptome. But has PayPal actually done anything wrong?
It seems to me that PayPal isn't trying to be evil here; rather, they made a business decision that cryptome wasn't an organization they wanted to do business with. Businesses make such decisions every day -- car rental companies in Canada, for example, often refuse to rent cars to anyone under age 25 -- so why is it different when PayPal does the same thing?
(For the record, my company only takes payments via PayPal, but I'm eagerly looking forward to the day when Amazon Payments or Google Checkout start accepting Canadian merchants. I don't like PayPal either; I just think they're not being evil in this case.)
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Then Paypal should be regulated like one. I think that they're doing JYA a favor by ending their business relationship.
PayPal, being a business, also has the right to refuse any business they want.
Freezing funds gets screwy, though.
They lose a big chunk of that right when they spell out, in a TOS, what they can and cannot do. If they do outside those bounds they, just like users, are in violation of that agreement.
Yes you do. Unless specifically configured to do otherwise, funds transferred to your PayPal account will remain there as available balance.
PayPal, being a business, also has the right to refuse any business they want.
That is true. But this is money they have already accepted from Cryptome's donors that PayPal is stealing.*
*Even if they eventually give the money back, they are stealing the use of the funds for half a year. I'd accept a different word if they pay Cryptome interest at the prime rate.
If this were a federally-regulated bank they would not be able to do this.
to bring the American Economy to it's knees instead.
Deleted
I have, and will continue to, refuse to conduct business with online entities that do not support a non-Paypal option. I have never used Paypal, and I don't anticipate that this will change.
I know people hate PayPal (and for good reason), but there is one reason why I continue to use PayPal for my web sales: the PayPal debit card, which means that I have near instant access my my received funds. It works great for me since I sell physical products, so if my cash flow is low, I can take the money from an order and immediately use it to purchase more inventory. I have Google checkout and Amazon Payments accounts that I can use for backup, but both of those hold on to your money for a set period; once the money is cleared, the only way you can get it is through a bank transfer which takes another couple of days. In good times, that's fine, but in this economic climate it's nice to be able to get my hands on my money.
If someone knows of a good, reliable cc processors that gives relatively fast access to cash (say, 48 hours or less), I'll switch in an instant.
How long before people begin to set up Cryptome Benefit sites that accept PayPal donations for Cryptome, and then forward the money to them?
Businesses have no right to break the law. PayPal thinks the laws do not apply to them.
We need to be expanding the boycott of PayPal and the boycott of businesses that use PayPal as the only means to pay. Maybe we should also go further and boycott those that merely include PayPal as one of the options.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
PayPal employees I used to know not only delighted in the "parting ways" email, they'd actively laugh at how there as no avenue of appeal so the customer was entirely SOL. With so many companies prostrating themselves to keep business, it's undeniably liberating to be able to flip clients off with company approval.
Not if it is a contract they don't. The GP might be a bit pedantic with the AUP but it does bring up questions regarding Paypal's doings in this case.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
it is one of the bad reputation registrars in such cases, along with godaddy and 1&1. they should have gone with a more reliable and by the book registrar like enom
Read radical news here
we would like to begin parting ways in a manner that is least disruptive to your business.
Well, they could start by NOT grabbing the money for 180 days. I wonder how paypal would feel about it if someone held onto money owed to them for 180 days just because they could.
PayPal, being a business, also has the right to refuse any business they want.
Freezing funds gets screwy, though.
Really.... so if $BUSINESSNAME doesn't want to do business with members of $ETHNICMINORITYGROUP, I can have said members call you and you will explain this to them? Unless you want to refuse my business, of course.
**I can take the money from an order and immediately use it to purchase more inventory.**
No, you can't. That's kiting, and it's a major felony in the construction business. You must FIRST fill the order before you can use that money.
If the possibility existed, I'd wire them €50 in a moment, and wouldn't even mind €10 fees...
as long as there are fools like you who naively believe that crap, we can get out of this mess.
1 million americans risked losing their homes. lets say these were bought from $500,000 at the market's prime. now their value is devalued to $300,000. it makes $200,000 per house difference. multiply it with 1 million houses at risk, it makes $300 bn. it means that the total loss from this was $300 bn.
go even further, and TRIPLE the risk. make it $900 bn.
america itself provided more than $1.2 trillion to banks. europe provided similar ~$1 trillion amount. switzerland and other countries provided separate amounts to their banks.
it means that as of now, the governments worldwide covered approx SEVEN times the loss in this crisis.
then WHY the fuck we are not getting out of it ? despite ALL potential losses are covered in multiples ?
BECAUSE IT ISNT A HOUSING CRISIS.
it is a crisis of investment tools. the banks have created bonds indexed on these houses, and then moved to create EXTRA assets indexed on those bonds and so on. in the end, they created WATER VAPOR assets, which were traded at around SIXTY times the entire worth of all houses they were based upon.
this means wall street banks peddled worthless paper that is inflated over SIXTY times of what value they should have to people around the world. even leaving aside the big fraud that is creating derived assets over other derived assets in the first place.
and the SOLE reason this has happened is, because bush administration left banks unregulated, didnt even touch them, and let them do this immense fraud. while whole world has been trusting that since usa was a G5 country, its banking and finance mechanisms would work properly. it didnt. because fraud was allowed.
as said, as long as there are fools like you who still doesnt know how they really been screwed, and as long as there are fools like the one modded you insightful, this fraud is bound to repeat.
Read radical news here
... didn't this just happen to Wikileaks?
http://www.merchantinc.com/
It's simple. Ebay paypal. You want to replace paypal you gonna have to use (and persuade everyone else to use) a different auction site.
Deleted
I no longer use Paypal and I do not regret it one bit. Sure it has limited my options a little but it is well worth it.
I dont know the specifics of this case but in some cases they may do the "freeze the account until a full ID check has been done" because they have detected activity that would require the filing of a US government "suspicious activity report". Because normal PayPal sign-up does not involve carrying out the ID check you get with regular banks, anytime transactions happen that would require a SAR (which requires disclosing full details of the account holder), PayPal has to freeze the account and conduct the ID check so they can file the SAR.
Any transaction over $10,000 requires a SAR, as does a series of transactions between A and B that total to more than $10,000. There are other triggers but I cant find any sources of info on those.
You start the boycott. I'll watch from here.
Many small businesses rely on Paypal for their transactions because the fees of a real bank are much too high for low volumes. Lacking an alternative, they go with Paypal by obligation, not by choice. You need to think your decisions over more carefully before you decide something so drastic as a boycott.
There's always Google checkout.
I'm going to assume wire transfers are a bit cheaper in Europe too.
Here in Germany wire transfers are free with many bank accounts, as is the bank account itself. The usual prerequisite is that it's your primary bank account which receives your income before you transfer the money to some savings account or something similar.
Not trying to advertize, but if PalPal's politics rub you the wrong way, try GunPal instead. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUNPAL https://www.gunpal.com/?
That's true, but you also lose the right to challenge their decisions in court, join class action lawsuits against them, , if their ToS are upheld. You get binding arbitration in Santa Clara California. If you don't live in the US? Too fucking bad, get to California or take it up the ass.
I hope you weren't referring to the first statement, because regardless as to TOS, they can choose not to do business with any given customer.
if I'm not mistaken (I very well could be) Google Checkout works in Canada too.
Not available in most countries. :(
And even if they do, then everyone will say "zomg!!1 now Google controls your money! Where is my privacy? oh noes!"
I closed my paypal account and told them their policies sucked when they asked me why. I opened a Gunpal account instead (it was started because apypal banned gun sales, but it's useful for any transaction).
In the USA, we like stuff watered down, like beer, television, and freedom.
http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/02/13/0251259/Ex-Pirate-Bay-Admin-Launches-Micropayment-Service
Flattr might fit the bill. Though primarily intended for (media)content providers, I don't see any reason why it should not work for giving micropayments to sites such as Cryptome (which of course is also a content provider in a way).
Firehed - Unfortunately, thanks to medical breakthroughs, common sense is not as common as it once was.
I had my money withdrawn to by bank 1 month ago and I have still not received the amount, while the PayPal transaction status is showing "complete", which is absolutely rip off. After an email complaint, they replied that from PayPal side the transaction is "complete" and I should go and have a chat with the person who manages electronic transactions at the bank. WTF??
Are there any?
If only someone big, like Google, would set up a real alternative. (I reckon they would make a point of not blocking people's accounts for no reason, though I'm not sure if I want them controlling any more of my life)
you think this is something that can happen starting from 2006 and popping out in 2008 ? so, you think scamming ENTIRE world takes just 2 years ?
did you know that when then democratic congress, starting from 2006 attempted to check into banks, they were barred by bush administration and republicans, yelling 'hands off business - you'll cost americans jobs !' ?
did you know that this 'deregulation' process has been started with alan greenspan in reagan era and continued picking up pace, culminating in its apex with bushies getting elected on top of a republican congress ?
during 2001-2006 they went all out with that 'deregulation'. leave aside bringing new standards to financial institutions, they even didnt employ the existing regulation mechanics in that era. banks could do anything they want without any interference.
before having an opinion, get your history straight first.
Read radical news here
No one has come up with anything to replace paypal for this.
Actually, I have. It's just a f*cking pain to get any kind of seed capital these days. What if I tell you that I have a method of offering transactions that are hack proof, and that you can properly verify before you, and only you, authorise it. What if I tell you that such an authorisation is even safe if you're using worlds most malware infested system in the world?
And no, I'm not kidding. The catch: you have to be prepared to pay for the credit card I use, once, because it's also biometrically secured but in the card (so no hassle -and risk - with Big Brother crap). Due to the significantly reduced risk it means the transaction costs are lower, and the card is multi-functional.
The problem was solved about 3 years ago, but the credit card companies don't care - they roll the risk towards merchants and end users who end up paying for that. If you can pay once and then have no worries whatsoever, would you be prepared to do so? If yes - the answer needs some funding, that's all.
Insert
That's one of the exceptions, but in practice, the racism would have to be proved in a lawsuit.
Yes, something like that is what I meant. I'd like one that is just for non profits though, nothing commercial.
Yet, the instant someone clicks "Send" or "Submit" or whatever, the fund transfer has been initiated and Paypal has, ipso facto, accepted to conduct business as an intermediary fund transfer agent on behalf of another person.
There is no reason, technical or otherwise, that Paypal should be holding people's money in escrow. If that sent money fails to make it to the receiver in a usable manner - in a reasonable time (ie right-fucking-now) - there is abuse going on.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
You do NOT use your business/personal bank account for paypal deposits.
You open a totally seperate account, then move money out of it when it comes in. This way, if Paypal freezes it, it doesn't hurt ya.
Be seeing you...