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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
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
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.
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.
Their T & C say they can even keep the money without refund, so interest is the last of your worries.
(the Xorg foundation lost $5k in this manner.)
When will someone come out with a viable competitor for PayPal so that we will finally have a choice?
A viable alternative already exists - Just use your bank as a CC payment processor.
My father runs a small business (under half a million gross per year), and about two years ago discovered that his bank would handle everything for a quite reasonable fee - About the same as he previously paid just to take Visa, and, as a bonus, he can accept the dreaded American Express (as well as just about any major CC) that so many small businesses refuse to touch (meaning he can accept corporate and government business, which tend to use AmEx almost exclusively).
If you expect mostly a lot of very small transactions (such as a typical web site "tip" jar), that model might not work so well. But if you sell anything best measured in "dollars" rather than "cents", it seems like a no-brainer.
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
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.
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/?