LulzSec Calls For PayPal Boycott, Spokesman Arrested

An anonymous reader writes "British police have arrested a 19-year-old man believed to be 'Topiary', the official spokesperson of the LulzSec hactivist group. The man was arrested at his home in the Shetland Islands earlier today (July 27), and is being transported to a central London police station." Also today, LulzSec has called for a boycott of PayPal saying “We encourage anyone using PayPal to immediately close their accounts and consider an alternative.”

Comments

What alternative?

[dward90]

If someone can point me to competing service that is accepted at my preferred retailers, I would gladly switch. Paypal provides a relatively safe mask for my bank account online, which means I trust 1 company to not have a security breach instead of a dozen or more. It's a fantastic service. I don't honestly care about anyone's perceived unforgivable injustices from a private, opt-in, and largely free to use company.

Re:What alternative?

[iamhassi]

The problem with Paypal is they're established and they have a 800# call center and they're in the US. I call this a "problem" because I don't like them but these problems make them the only half-way legitimate solution. There's tons of alternatives, Bitcoin, Google Checkout and something called AlertPay, but Bitcoin is not established and they have no customer support, AlertPay is in Canada (no US laws) and too new to know if they're legitimate, and Google Checkout has it's share of complaints and they don't even have a 800 number.

If Google can't seem to come up with a decent Paypal alternative there's no way in hell anyone else will. Paypal's been around 10+ years and they're linked to eBay, it would take a miracle for a reputable alternative to spring up and become dominate because the alternative would have to convince millions of businesses and customers who are accustomed to Paypal to switch. Also it's important to note that Paypal has never been hacked in 10+ years which is very important for a company that stories credit card and bank account info.

Re:What alternative?

[0100010001010011]

Google Checkout.
Easy to setup.
Low fees.
You can send invoices via e-mail (or have them automatically generated).

They also don't pretend to be a bank. You can't keep a balance, they shuffle it off into your bank account one a month.

And unlike PayPal, they're not holding $2k+ of my money ransom.

Re:What alternative?

[TheCarp]

I am still waiting for someone to explain how something can be a ponzi scheme when its NOT sold as a money making investment scheme but literally as a trading commodity. At no point, in any of the bitcoin litterature, is it suggested that one can expect to keep buying more bitcoin and just make more and more money. People who get that idea are usually looking at mining and mistaking a technical explanation for a description of what they should do.

The whole point of a ponzi scheme is it encourages people to buy in to something that provides no service or product, and instead pays them back with new investment. This is providing a service of a decentralized proxy for currency at publically visible exchange rate. It works and performs exactly as advertised.... which... at its very heart, violates the entire concept of a ponzi scheme.

Re:do alternatives exist?

[Dachannien]

Exactly how did PayPal show its evilness this time? Their website was DDoSed, which is against the law, and they had evidence showing where the attacks originated, which they turned over to authorities. What's evil about that?

Re:Paypal has no rivals

[TheCRAIGGERS]

There is at least one rival. It is distributed, unforgeable and cannot be inflated by fiat. This digital commodity is called bitcoin. And it works today. It can replace paypal and credit cards in much of the commerce that occurs online.

Correction: It *could* replace paypal and credit cards. In much the same way that taping wooden nickles to a fleet of carrier pigeons after winning an ebay bid could also replace paypal. Oh sure, it's technically feasible, but nobody accepts it. And what is the value of currency that nobody accepts? That's right, zero.

So it's not so much a 'rival' as it is a 'possible alternative that might some day be useful if the stars align and it takes off.'

Re:Umm. No credibility

[Amouth]

A merchant account has more than just a % cost.

There are:
Monthly access fees
Monthly PCIDSS fees
Monthly interchange access fees (per card network)
Monthly interchange volume fees (per card network)

Per transaction cost fixed
Per batch cost fixed

Per transaction cost % (discount rates)
Per transaction cost % (qualified/non-qualified)

And that is just what is listed on the summary page on my statement in front of me. We move enough volume that this is cheaper - but personally i am happy with Paypal for accepting CC's on my own as i don't have to deal with the head aches listed above.. and to be fair.. while for work it is cheaper and even 1% can be thousands of dollars. personally that is cents and random and rare.. it just doesn't make any sense to maintain a merchant account if you are non consistent low volume.