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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
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.
Some unspecified slice of a £25 million pie.
I think the UK government is too eager by a large factor to be "digital by default" (also a buzzword of theirs) and in fact is willing to, well, lose control over most of their vital governmental services over it. And of course that involves shelling out yet more dosh to random corporations that look hip and big enough. So expect cost overruns shortly. The corporations on the government's shortlist generally aren't bereft of payment, no.
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*
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".
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 assumed that he was referring to the agreement between the US and the UK. The US is not supposed to spy on US citizens. The UK supposedly doesn't spy on UK citizens. But, they long ago agreed to permit each other to spy on the other nation's citizens, then share what they know.
So, yeah, every time a UK citizen identifies to a UK business or agency via PayPal, the US is going to see it, and report it, assuming that one or both nations has an "interest" in that citizen.
"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
Indeed. This definitely has absolutely nothing to do with top politicians' share portfolios. Also, giving control of vital government services and lots of public money to random for-profit interests is definitely not congruent at all with the ideologies of the two ruling parties. Not at all.