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)."

Comments

More interesting than tax rate

[h4rr4r]

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.

Re:More interesting than tax rate

[cusco]

And even more amusing is the thought of how many times PayPal has been hacked and customer data stolen over the years. And they're going to use PayPal as accreditation?

WTF?

[future assassin]

And when paypal puts your account on hold or someone deletes it then what?

Re:All banks do it.

[hawkinspeter]

PayPal Europe is a bank:

PayPal (Europe) S.Ã r.l. et Cie, S.C.A. is duly licenced as a Luxembourg credit institution in the sense of Article 2 of the law of 5 April 1993 on the financial sector as amended and is under the prudential supervision of the Luxembourg supervisory authority, the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier, with registered office in L-1150 Luxembourg.

Joy! I don't exist

[Cederic]

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.

Trust

[Wowsers]

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?