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UK Government To Use PayPal For Identity Assurance
judgecorp writes "A UK government contract has confirmed earlier reports that British citizens will have the option to use PayPal to accredit themselves for public services such as the new Universal Credit benefit system. Using PayPal might be a public relations goof, as PayPal's parent eBay is notoriously clever at avoiding UK taxes, recently paying only £1.2 million on profit of £789 million (around 0.15 percent)."
It's not their fault, it's the Parliament making crappy laws, albeit most of them are lawyers, they either suck or are bought.
Paypal is a bank and like all banks they avoid paying taxes like the pest.
"Barclays Bank told by Treasury to pay £500m avoided tax"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17181213
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/10/18/banks-to-avoid-19bn-tax-bill-despite-bailout/
http://goodbanking.org.uk/archives/684
Since PayPal is a business and therefore interested in making money, do they still get to take a cut?
Far more interesting than their effective tax rate would be how much of that money was stolen from their users?
These folks love to freeze accounts and sieze money for any reason they can find. Paypal should be regulated as a bank.
And when paypal puts your account on hold or someone deletes it then what?
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
"eBay is notoriously clever at avoiding UK taxes" that is just silly!
eBay helps advertise, they are not a seller. The Sellers and Buyers may have tax obligations, but not eBay.
More avenues for easy identity theft!
They will most likely have their accounts frozen.
So the Gov't of the USA will now get to know every time I identify myself to my own government ? What the hell as Francis Maude been smoking -- a politician that must have actually inhaled.
Any business that ends up in bed with a government should be abandoned as quickly as possible. Your information can no longer said to be safe.
Seriously, whom did they have to bribe to get that?
Look, if the tax rates were reasonable, you wouldn't see people going to extremes to avoid paying them.
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Hmm... strange. If you Google a bit for a list of banks in Luxembourg, PayPal does not appear on any of those lists. Can't find a BIC for PayPal either. Which is not surprising, really.
If a (Dutch) bank where I have an account folds, my government guarantees the money in my account. At least up to a big minimum, in the order of 100k Euro or so (perhaps more, I dunno). Example: when Icelandic banks folded, the Dutch government covered losses for Dutch account holders. Perhaps except a few that had very large sums of money parked in those banks, but I'm not even sure about that. And that wasn't even Dutch banks folding.
I don't know what the rules in Luxembourg are, but you expect similar guarantees to hold for your PayPal account? Think again. And in fact, there's a number of stories around of examples where PayPal f**ked a customer, and they had essentially no recourse. Also I can directly transfer money from my bank account to any other bank within the EU (and outside EU too, with a little more patience), for any amount I like. Not so with PayPal.
So I guess the above statement doesn't mean what you think it means, and in any case doesn't mean the same as "bank". PayPal provides a service, that service deals with money, and to many it's a useful service. But that's all, it's not what we normally refer to as a "bank".
...AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
Paypal have me blacklisted and refuse to take payments from me.
Tried buying something last week, seller's website said "VISA/Mastercard" so I used my credit card. Refused. Used my other credit card. Refused. Checked with both card companies: Neither had been asked to authorise payment.
Got a friend to buy on my behalf. He paid with credit card; got a bill from PayPal.
It all goes back to the first time I tried using my card to buy something online from a seller that used Paypal for their card payments. I entered my details, was told payment had been taken, then got an email asking me to provide details for my Paypal account.
I said no. Then I found out that Paypal had already debited my card, but were holding onto the cash instead of sending it through to the seller.
So I wrote to them telling them to send the money through. They refused. So I wrote to them telling them to give my money back. They refused. So I contacted VISA, the OFT and my card supplier stating fraudulent activity.
I got my money back. Paypal blacklisted me. Not a major problem really, except for idiots that use them as their sole card payment solution.
I need to hit them with a SAR, find out what their system says about me. But using them to ID myself to the Government? Not a fucking hope. Which is frankly a good thing.
Why would anyone trust a company that pretends to be a bank, but is not regulated like a bank, and so can disappear your money in an instant and leave you whistling in the wind for YOUR money? Did the government somehow find if difficult to find a company more trusted?
Take Nobody's Word For It.
I don't think so. If all those white boys choose to be peter puffers, while all the rest of the world is screwing the women, then the white boys deserve to die off. Get it on, Adam and Steve, don't worry about all those brown folk. Give it another couple generations, and you'll be forgotten.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
http://s0ciallyh0used.wordpress.com/2013/01/21/now-tell-me-its-not-all-a-big-plan/
http://s0ciallyh0used.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/my-head-wants-to-explode-all-over-the-elite/
Why are the people in the UK not rebelling against this farce?
@socially_Housed.
Not only is the UK a police state but it is also apparently run by idiots.
Good grief, no wonder the colonies rebelled ...
Fuck off and die you stupid british cunts.
I have few dealings with Paypal, but whenver I think of them, this comes to mind: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/04/paypal-buyer-destroys-violin
Speaking as a Brit, I would gladly stand up against this, like many others no doubt, but since when did Government put something forward for our opinion and actually consider it? They just throw money at advisers to decide for them
Paypal in the US uses a credit reporting company to verify identities. They don't actually do it themselves. How are they supposed to do it themselves in England?
For better or worse, I could see this being liked by the general public. At present, government sites all require you to have a "Government Gateway" username and password. The password strength requirements are understandably quite strict, but what is really annoying is the usernames are automatically generated and completely unmemorable (mine is something like F093KHV894JMNB - I made that up, but you get the idea). If it was a site I access every day then I might remember, but once a year for to do my tax return, no chance. They even almost admit they are unmemorable, because they used to issue credit-card-sized pieces of paper with the usernames printed on them (which I would usually lose...)
The procedure for requesting new login details also involves phoning a call centre and waiting for details to come in snail mail.
For all the privacy concerns, I can actually remember my Paypal login, so chances are I would use this feature rather than go through all this once a year. In fact it would probably be easier to request a paper tax return.
You don't believe in the dogma of PayPal Infallibility?