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PayPal Freezes MailPile's Account
rysiek writes "Remember MailPile, the privacy-focused, community-funded FOSS webmail project with built-in GPG support? The good news is, the funding campaign is a success, with $135k raised (the goal was $100k). The bad news is: PayPal froze MailPile's account, along with $45k that was on it, and will not un-freeze it until MailPile team provides 'an itemized budget and your development goal dates for your project.' One of the team members also noted: 'Communications with PayPal have implied that they would use any excuse available to them to delay delivering as much of our cash as possible for as long as possible.' PayPal doesn't have a great track record as far as fund freezing is concerned — maybe it's high time to stop using PayPal?"
It's well known that they do this sort of stuff - not regularly sweeping it out to a bank account is a really bad idea.
"High time to stop using paypal" was years ago. They've been famous for this scummy behavior since even before ebay bought them and forced you to use them.
I smell the NSA.
Paypal is administering it's wishes over other people's money. Don't use them. Period.
They will betray you.
That's the only way to stop this nonsense. There will be new, different nonsense at that point but at least they will have to justify and backup what they do.
from paypal to ManSlave
Why the fuck should they give an account of anything to them? Are they some sort of legal entity now?
Elon Musk should blast these shits from orbit with his moon laser
I don't get it.
I hear stories like this all the time.
Why do people insist on using PayPal for high value accounts?
- Don't do what I do, it's probably not healthy nor safe. -
This seems like a no-brainer. Why did they leave so much out there to begin with?
I cancelled my account years ago due to their fishy tactics.
Why, yes! I AM new here.
It is a stupid service run by idiots who pull shit like this. It has been known for years. Why would anyone use it - at all?
Aside from the fact that PayPal holds the money, what right do they have to demand a business plan from an indiegogo funded project? Is there a business connection between PayPal and Indiegogo? Or is PayPal just performing a dick move?
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
It's time to never start using paypal.
What does Paypal have to do with any aspect of how the money is being used let alone itemized budget and development goals, Paypal isn't giving them a loan its just the middle man handling the money transfer or am i wrong?
As tiresome as it is to read the same kind of PayPal horror story, I hope they keep coming. The world needs to be continually reminded not use PayPal because of they way they treat their customers. Why people voluntarily continue to use PayPal is beyond me. There are an increasing number of less evil alternatives.
I hope PayPal becomes a relic of the past, like AltaVista and other things I can no longer remember.
This is nothing new. Paypal sucks when it comes to this stuff. If you still use it and this happens - you should have known better. Your own fault. Stop using them and maybe they will get the hint. Or maybe they will just go away.
1) Skype started spying for the NSA in 2011 when they were owned by Ebay, the owners of Paypal.
2) Paypal almost certainly hands all transaction data to the NSA, or rather *sells* it, because NSA pays for data feeds.
Really, stop using Paypal. Especially if you want to make political donations (to Wikipedia, to Mail pile etc., to political organizations and so on).
"...maybe it's high time to stop using PayPal?" Stopped years ago. They've screwed me (and a lot of other people) out of so much money. I've never used Google's services, so I don't know if they're any better.
Paypal froze Notch's account after Mincraft went gold and began selling. Supposedly in just one day he managed to get over one hundred thousand dollars in sales which prompted paypal to freeze his account.
This is thanks to the US patriot act, bank secrecy act and possibly some other nanny state laws. Large transactions are red flagged and reported. The owner of the account must provide an explanation of what they are doing with the money. This is one of those risk mitigation plans we were talking about the other day which helps the US government find the "bad guys". Eventually paypal will unfreeze the account once they learn the money won't be used for terrorism, drugs, racketeering or other boogeyman bullshit. I feel safer already.
The final sentence incorrectly suggests that there was a time to *start* using paypal!
You would think at some point they would fuck over the wrong person and their executives would get shot in the head.
Why do people insist on using PayPal for high value accounts?
Why do people use PayPal at all?
PayPal has always done things I found objectionable. There was a period of time when some websites would only accept Paypal; but I haven't run into one of those in years. But back when I did, I'd make a point of telling the website operator they'd lost a sale because I refused to use PayPal (not that anyone cares what I did as an individual, but I figured if enough people did it things might change).
#DeleteChrome
Gay isn't a synonym for bad.
Which makes most people around here forget how he gets the money for that in the first place.
PayPal in Europe is a bank and they still suck. The way to stop PayPal's silliness is to stop using PayPal.
Shit man, that was 14 years ago. You know, when they started abusing accounts under protection of "not a bank".
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Paypal actually has a bank license in many countries, and as such are in fact regulated as a normal bank in those countries.
Details may vary, yada
Why do people insist on using PayPal for high value accounts?
You'd have to be a fucking moron to use them at all. Why would anybody with a brain give their banking information to this company, even for a "low value" account?
I don't respond to AC's.
If I was someone that "invested" in this startup, I would certainly not be happy with PayPal. In fact, if their hold on the cash hinders development, I smell a lawsuit.
Why do people use PayPal at all?
Mainly as a convenient means to avoid giving credit card numbers to those I trust even less than them. Nothing beyond that.
Dumping $100 as 'prepaid wallet' for the occasional Chinese webshop seems controllable
Except you don't need Paypal on aliexpress
I use paypal daily, but only because the transactions I make through it are small and meaningless.
The second I do something like this where I have a large amount in there, I'm switching to another service.
I've been hearing horror stories like this since they froze the Paypal account of the dude who made minecraft.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
I agree.
Why do people use PayPal at all?
Because they want to buy and sell stuff on eBay?
I think you answered your own question. You don't give them banking information. A credit card on the other hand would be much better.
As much as people hate banks, banks have guarantees and they simply cannot freeze your assets for bullshit reasons. Banks are regulated. Paypal is not, and they can fuck you at any time and you have simply no legal recourse. Paypal is a band of thieves.
People should have stopped using Paypal years ago.
You'd have to be a fucking moron to use them at all. Why would anybody with a brain give their banking information to this company, even for a "low value" account?
That's why you don't give them your normal bank account. Instead you create a separate checking account (which you can get from some banks with no monthly fee) and link that account to PayPal. Regularly transfer the money from that account into your real account. That way, if PayPal does decide to do something stupid, the amount of damage they can do is strictly limited.
If you're an eBay seller, this is the only sensible way to go.
Isn't this the WHOLE reason "Stripe" was founded? To allow developers to take payments and funding outside of PayPal? I turned off PayPal eons ago and never looked back and have not been any worse for it. I'll NEVER use them to pay or be paid again.
Anyone who is funding any project that the US government does not like should know better than to use Paypal at this point.
Paypal is a tool of the US government, for whatever reason(s). and this is hardly the first time they use Paypal as an attack vector.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Gay has been used as a synonym for bad for a long time. The PC police may not like it but that doesn't change the facts.
You have obviously not spoken to many teenage Call of Duty players.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I've had some success using Dwolla. What other alternatives are there to PayPal besides Visa? Visa (and Credit Cards more generally) actually provide me some protection from online fraud, but I risk having to cancel the card and get a new one.
And if you HAVE to use PayPal, why in hell would you leave 10s of thousands of dollars in an account? That's just crazy.
To Pay Pal.
Release my donation to Mailpile or give it back, so I can donate it directly.
Maybe a bunch of law suits will encourage them to do the job they advertise they do.
The sellers, not the buyers, are effected by paypals overly-liberal freeze-the-funds policy.
Because of this, even though there are alternatives to paypal, most sellers continue to accept paypal or they will lose customers that prefer paypal.
The policies of paypal will eventually put them out of business unless they change their ways, but its a long way down unless they start messing with the buyers too.
"His name was James Damore."
It take a bit of diligence on my part, but this way if my account is frozen, or somehow paypal decides to reach into my bank account for whatever purpose (be it a hacked account, or some shady business practice), the damage is limited.
Silence is a state of mime.
It's well known that they do this sort of stuff -- regularly sweeping money into a bank account will also get your account frozen.
When I first read your comment, I thought PayPal might do this to encourage people to spend the money in their PayPal accounts within the eBay-PayPal ecosystem, so that PayPal can milk 3% off each transaction. But then I realized that sweeping money into a bank account was commonplace among businesses whose suppliers don't accept PayPal, such as a business that buys radio control cars from a distributor and sells them on eBay or on its own web site. Is it really that much easier easier for an online retailer that sells physical goods to provide itemized invoices than for a company that sells services?
It's not just Paypal they have to worry about. Look at what normal financial institutions did to Wikileaks. Mastercard stopped procesing payments, and Julian Assange's swiss bank account was frozen. If you challenge the powers that be, you will be retaliated against.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Yes, just like all the other well-regulated banks in the US.
My own anecdote about PayPal:
I went to Disneyland with friends, and instead of carrying around a wad of cash in a highly populated area, I opted to use just one credit card. A month later, my bank told me that there were some odd charges to PayPal. I had them cancel the $1000+ in charges for landscaping in a state I didn't live in, and called Paypal to say WTF?. What was their answer to someone creating another account with the same credit card ? "We'll look into it". After I heard that, I told the person to completely disable my account and do whatever they can to ensure my name cannot be used on their system, and that I would never use their "service" again.
Gay is a synonym for abnormal, however.
I didn't know that eBay was still around!
Can't an "ebay seller" just get a merchant account like a regular business? I can't imagine that there's any good reason to do business with a company that may or may not decide to seize all of your money at any time, for any reason.
I don't respond to AC's.
Or, as in my case, never start using them. Any merchant that insists I use Paypal loses my business.
Seriously WTF?
Since when is it any of PayPals business what people use their accounts for?
Oh, right, because PayPal likes to act like a bank when it's convenient, and then loudly say "we're not a bank" when they don't want to do something a bank couldn't do.
Yet another reason why I think PayPal are assholes and would never deal with them. Arbitrarily deciding to withhold someone's money for no legitimate reason pretty much confirms that.
PayPal isn't a trustworthy entity. They're not a bank, and they're not regulated like a bank. So why do people continue to trust them?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
...that especially includes eBay. Stop using eBay, and Paypal goes belly up. So does eBay, unless they stop forcing people to use Paypal.
As a U.S.-born U.S. resident with a B.Sc. in computer science, I sort of feel locked into U.S. services. What other country would let me use its services instead?
eBay owns PayPal.
I'd imagine they'd force you to use PayPal.
That may be FUD though, I don't use either.
- Don't do what I do, it's probably not healthy nor safe. -
Let me guess 93 Escort Wagon's next question: If using eBay requires PayPal, why do people use eBay at all instead of Etsy for handmade things and Amazon for everything else?
This makes sense from a risk management perspective, and not necessarily just from a "earn interest on the held cash" perspective.
Per the article: "...unless Mailpile provides PayPal with a detailed budgetary breakdown of how we plan to use the donations from our crowd funding campaign they will not release the block on my account for 1 year until we have shipped a 1.0 version of our product"
Imagine you have thousands of people donating to a cause, and then the company taking the money decides to take all the money and run. Each of those thousands of people get pissed off and request a refund. If PayPal can't refund the cash (since the company has already taken it out of their PayPal account), these people end up disputing the charge through their credit card, and PayPal is suddenly out hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Showing that the company is legitimate (i.e., either getting them to show a business plan, or holding the cash until version 1.0 has been released) reduces the risk that the company is taking the money and scamming the donors.
So even though it doesn't seem fair for Mailpile, I can see why PayPal would want to do this.
Yes GPG support outside the USA would be less easy for the US. You can have all the GPG support you want based in the USA. Or use a 'free' US brand of email.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Has no one bothered to bring them to court over this?
The fact is, they do not have the right to ask what you do with the money, just like any other donation funded organization, who are they to think they have that right? I see this clearly as either a planned attack by someone who stands to lose if this app gets out there... like a competitor that happens to know someone inside of Ebay/Paypal, or this is purely Paypal wanting to hold on to that money and make more interest on that money (like the big banks do with your money). I see this 150k as a very big sum of change that could make or break a company, the fact is, they could be held liable for a bankruptcy situation that they could have avoided.
If you consider the cause, the fact that this is in virtual space and has no real defined laws present, I would say again Paypal knows this, and knows no one can really do much about their own policies no matter how crooked, but at what point do you allow an organization like theirs to continue working like this. I would have a separate account for the paypal stuff and after each 100$, get that 100$ transfered out of that account into another account they have no access to. It might be a bit more work, but at any time, they would never be able to freeze more then 100$ on me.
Google, I hope you are listening and come up with a Paypal killer, we definately need one!
If someone could get a class action lawsuit on and get a judge to find that Paypal must pay interest at the rate of inflation when it freezes funds, it would pay better interest than a typical savings account. Just sayin'...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
What do PayPal gain by "randomly" freezing accounts like this?
PayPal accepts the major credit cards, and the major credit card networks negotiate a swipe fee based on each merchant's past chargeback history and the chargeback history of other merchants in the same industry. Fraud prevention measures reduce PayPal's chargeback rate and thus what it has to pay out to the credit card networks.
Remember when they froze the Minecraft purchase account with a whooping $750k in it? While that is an absurd amount to keep in a PayPal account, that was right when the game became a household name and was selling so fast that every time you refreshed the sales page it went up by almost 1000. This is what PayPal does, they have given countless examples over the years as to why you should NOT be using them!
Just send them a copy of the business plan. (I assume that anyone planning a business would develop a detailed business plan, including goals, dates, detailed income/sales budgets etc. It can be pure fantasy of course, but there really should be one - it's very handy when trying to borrow money)
Consider this situation: Someone pays a business with a credit card through PayPal. Then he files a chargeback, claiming that he did not receive a service. PayPal wants to verify that the business is actually providing the service for which it is charging people. PayPal breathes down businesses' necks when Visa breathes down PayPal's.
Please advise which other widely available service you recommend?
It needs to work internationally, accept various methods of payments, does not require you to do extensive paperwork and have cost low enough that it is feasible for users on both sides (paying and receiving).
After Ebay purchased PalyPal they became a fucken money Nazi. I had business using PayPal as a way of receiving payment. PayPal was the only one that caused constant problems, holding payments, interfering with business transactions, pulling money from my checking account. Last time they did that I filed a complaint with my real bank who then clawed back money from PayPal. If you still use PayPal and haven't been burned by them it's just a matter of time. Fuck PayPal. I will never deal with them again. PayPal Sucks !
Considering how many Indiegogo campaigns this has happened to, I'm surprised the service hasn't switched to one of Paypal's competitors yet. Otherwise this is going to drive projects to Indiegogo's competitors instead.
The sheer amount of hate that banks, financial services and operators like Paypal have generated in the population at large is amazing. Exorbitant fees, slow transfers, arrogant customer service, publicly funded bailouts for amounts that almost defy imagination, systematic fraud reaching to the the highest levels of most governments of the world, few to no prosecutions of financial crime - the world of finance and banking it is a stagnated corrupt market that needs some serious competition, a bright light and a clean sweep.
Bitcoin is a tiny flicker of a spark in the dark rotten world of finance - not even in its infancy. Sure like any currency it can be stolen or used and abused to perpetrate fraud. Sure it is damn inconvenient to use or exchange, hardly anybody accepts it - but despite all this there is an army of people and entrepreneurs, early adopters with more joining every day that are willing to bend over backwards and work through the teething problems simply because it could almost possibly eventually bring much needed change to the almighty financial sector to which our economies now serve (as apposed to the other way around).
If you think mass media can drum up a propaganda campaign so the Military Industrial Complex can have their profitable wars, wait till you see how far and loud the corporate media "journalists" will willing to go when the financial sector stands to lose absolute monopoly over our currency for online global payments.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
If the cost of doing business with PayPal is higher than the profits from those customers, then it makes good sense to drop both.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
It was bad and unethical back then. It's worse now.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
In USA (and UK and most other First World countries) the financial institutions are required by various banking regulations to proactively monitor their network for anything that THEIR REGULATORS might find suspicious during periodic and/or random AUDITS. If they fail to comply, they face a lot more than $45,000 worth of damages. The question becomes, why did MailPile's PayPal account trigger the automation bringing this to the attention of an analyst? Well on his blog, he says that they started by suspending his PayPal Debit card. Perhaps he used it at a casino? The financial institutions also are connected via a network that makes it easy for them to flag losers to prevent them from simply going next door to continue their fraud. If I'm not mistaken, it looks like the MailPile guy is saying "screw PayPal, I will simply go to Indigogo" but of course, Indigogo is going to probably impose the exact same restrictions on him any second so they too can pass their AUDITs and avoid way more than $45,000 worth of fines.
Why not simply exchange currency at the local foreign exchange bank and mail it to a PO box?
And giving PayPunk the card number is better?
They won't let you delete all your card numbers from your PayPal account. You have to leave at least one.
The only work around is to cancel the card.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Google Checkout will be retired on November 20, 2013
For sellers of "digital goods" (whatever that means), Google Wallet will remain open. For sellers of physical goods, Google recommends Braintree. I'm under the impression that Google was shamed into closing Google Checkout for physical goods after one of Microsoft's "Scroogled" ad campaigns, which protested the fact that sellers could see buyers' postal codes.
And giving PayPunk the card number is better?
They won't let you delete all your card numbers from your PayPal account. You have to leave at least one.
The only work around is to cancel the card.
Actually, you can be used by PayUpPal without giving them a credit card number. They just go out of their way to make life difficult for you.
Presumable as they have raised so much money they actually have some kind of plan. Presumably they have a detailed breakdown of what it is then intend to work on and the efforts and costs involved in each item. Presumably they have a plan for what they plan to release and when. Presumably then know what costs they will have and what the plan to spend the money on. So sent it to paypal and sort it out. How hard can that be? And frankly if they don;t have some kind of plan, they don't have any business collecting all that money anyway Do you really imagine that any bank will provide credit card processing facilities for example, without some reassurance you're not committing fraud and that you will deliver what you are collecting payments for?
Governments have been shutting down BTC exchanges on suspicion of money laundering. When my employer pays me in USD, how should I turn the USD into BTC, and how should the organization receiving the payment turn the BTC back into USD, EUR, or whatever to pay its expenses? See stevegee58's comment.
"Gay" is indeed not a synonym for "bad", in the same sense that "gay" isn't a synonym for "homosexual".
I was under the impression that you could sell anything used on Amazon as long as it had a UPC/EAN. Did these computers and copies of software have a UPC?
The real issue here is that the US, unlike a lot of other countries, allows businesses who act like commercial banks to not be regulated like commercial banks. That's actually something the CFPB is supposed to be doing, is adding duck-typing to the laws around customer disclosures, access to accounts, etc.
Some examples of businesses who sometimes act like commercial banks but don't get the same regulations as commercial banks:
- Mixed commercial and investment banks like BofA.
- Mortgage brokers
- Payday lenders
- Check cashers (often linked to payday lenders)
- Credit card issuers
- Gift card issuers
- Anyone who allows users to have an account with a dollar value that they can withdraw or redeem later
I am officially gone from
That's insane. If someone steals my credit card number, there's fast and quick legal redress. The most inconvenient part is waiting for the credit card company to overnight me a new card.
Paypal, on the other hand, can lift actual money right out of the checking account they insist on linking to my account and actually defraud me. There is literally no instance where simply using a credit card number is less safe than dealing with paypal.
Wow. Sucks for them if that's true. I have to imagine that eventually ebay will be the only place that uses PayPal and both will shrivel up and die. I know I would just not buy something from eBay, rather than use PayPal.
I don't respond to AC's.
This scenario is insane..agreed. What business is it of paypal's?
However anyone who has encountered bank of America's "risk department" knows they make paypal look like troll jr. And they are a bank.
Paypal isn't a bank according to U.S. Regulations. Otherwise their doing this would get them slammed by the Feds in a hurry as it violates many regulations. In fact, under the Feds, they would be slapped down for Money Laundring and I'd suggest the Project Devs push RICO Charges in Federal Court against Paypal (Racketeering/Corruption) which if successful would give them punitive damages of not triple but six to ten times the amount of the monies stollen and the profit Paypal is making from holding that money to play with it. How much money is Paypal making by holding those funds as they are - Stocks/Bonds market - 2+ percent per day? That's a lot of money when you look at the totals.
It's this kind of action by Paypal that pushed me to drop all family accounts with them and to quit using Ebay. It's not worth the agravation and I did vote with my wallet.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
it's a synonym for wrong, stupid, or bad.
Millions of people disagree with you. I think what you meant to say is that it offends you but I guess that wouldn't sound like it has as much weight.
Gumtree is an eBay company. Gumtree and eBay, at least in the UK, are the big two online auction sites.
Hobson's Choice.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Don't confuse your little corner of the internet with the real world. In the real world, you're a tempest in a teacup, son.
Right [1], back [2], at ya [3], son.
[1] The 2012 Harris Poll Annual Public Summary Report (PDF)
[2] Banking Stinks Like Cigarettes and Politics: Survey Shows Contempt for Industry
[3] Banking Sector Is Slowly Replacing Big Oil As The Most Hated Industry
The Harris poll asks consumers for their opinions on six key attributes of the 60 ‘most visible’ corporations in the United States. Rating companies’ social responsibility, emotional appeal, products and services, workplace environment, financial performance and vision and leadership, the Harris RQ survey seeks to get a snapshot of corporate America’s reputation among consumers.... Banking and financial services scored terribly.
...
But the banking sector has screamed up the charts, and not counting the always-hated federal government, it was No. 2 with a bullet as of Gallup's most recent poll, taken way back in August 2012. Fifty-three percent of Americans surveyed had a negative view of banks in that poll, up from just 18 percent in 2007, before the crisis. The percentage of people with a positive view of banking has plunged to 25 percent from 50 percent in 2007.
And I can go to my bank and have that transaction rolled back as fraudulent.
Perhaps I wasn't clear. PayPal is used as a convenient way to pay via credit card without revealing the number to anyone but them. That's safe enough because as you mention, there's fast and legal redress through the CC company should something go wrong, and I can always cancel the card. Bank account credentials aren't revealed to them, so they don't have access to actual money.
Oh wow, marketing data from the middle and end of a massive recession finds that people don't like banks. Now, how many people have stopped using them as a result?
Can't hate them that badly, can they?
For most countries on the planet, apart from credit cards, there is no alternative. Even Canada still doesn't have access to Google Wallet, for example.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Esp for a startup effort, isnt an online money order possible?
Gay IS a widely used synonym for "bad". But of course, it is also used to describe sexual orientation. We all know this, and all the arguing about it is silly.
What is NOT silly is determining if we're going to let this continue. We all understand that using the word Niggerdly in polite company is rather gauche. Niggerdly has a meaning, and it's not very flattering. It's not a good word to use. Gay needs to become like that.
Lets find a new word for Bad/Stupid. We all have friends/coworkers that are gay. Lets show them some basic respect.
If paypal blocked the ability to remove money from the account, but still allowed donations to pile up even more, then that seems to be a criminal act.
Its a prime example of what banks would try to get away with if they were not subject to strict regulation.
Now, how many people have stopped using them [banks] as a result?
Can't hate them that badly, can they?
Perhaps just feeding a troll I know, however just in case thank you for letting me clarify the title of my original post: "Few Alternatives... for now.".
"Few" - as in none existent competition for the big banks
"Alternatives" - to the banking industry... we have to use them as you yourself have noted minus perhaps the irony.
"for now" - Entrepreneurs and/or talented geeks driven by a great need to get some creative destruction going in the financial sector.
Does Gumtree also force you to use PayPal? If not, then using it but not eBay is a great way to make your statement (if Gumtree gains popularity on cost of eBay usage, they'll certainly be interested in the reason of that). If they do, who cares whether it belongs to eBay or not; you'd use it in neither case.
Sadly, Bandcamp still does, in the sense that PayPal is their checkout. I've pointed out to them that PayPal's terms permit only ten uses of a credit/debit card before you're forced to create a PayPal account, but to no avail.
I live in the UK. Please tell me what alternatives I have.
just like nigger isn't a synonym for a black person. it means a lazy person.
If the banks aren't so much disliked and distrusted, why should anybody like your fine self feel there's any need to stick up for them?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Gay isn't a synonym for bad.
Perhaps not but in this context, it is synonymous with "Fucks you in the ass". Which is exactly what paypal is known to do with little provocation and even less justification.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
That's 'niggardly' actually.
Elon Musk hasn't had anything to do with PayPal for over a decade.
this is why I don't have an account. When I need to pay, I do it as guest.
Paypal is scum, yadda yadda yadda. Not arguing that. In this situation, though, they might be doing the world a favor.
What this project is doing, looks like some kind of snakeoil thing. GPG and webmail? How can than possibly not be (putting it meanly) stupid and broken or (putting it nicely) a technological step backwards from 1990s email security tech?
If the server is sending plaintext to the relatively "OpenPGP-stupid" web browser, and assuming plenty of people will be hosting on VPSes not under their physical control, then the private keys are going to be extremely vulnerable. If the server is sending the ciphertext, then it must also be sending "gpg-written-in-javascript" to the browser, so that the browser can work with openpgp data, so that will be the attack point.
There's just no way webmail will be securable, until either:
1) browsers come with built in OpenPGP support, or make shell calls to GPG to do it, or something like that. And if that ever happens, then you might as well just add IMAP support to the browser too, and maybe call the browser "Navigator" instead of "Firefox." There's no reason to use webmail if you have a browser that capable.
or 2) people really self-host; i.e. you're going to trust the server to have your private keys, so it's at home, or better yet, the server is in your pocket (and is probably the same machine you're running the web browser on, once again raising the "why webmail?" question), not in some datacenter.
There are already tons of very capable email clients that have excellent GPG integration, and it sure as hell doesn't anywhere near a hundred thousand dollars to get them. Use one of them instead of some webmail horseshit, and fund whatever improvements you want. Not only will you get something vastly more secure, it'll be cheaper too.
I don't really like being a negative nellie asshole on this one. The mailpile team strikes me as not-stupid people with good intentions. That makes it all the more mystifying that they would try to get webmail to work; they're got to already know that the idea itself is flawed, no matter how good a job they do on it. But then I thought the same thing about Silent Circle, another obviously-dumb idea who anyone could see was vulnerable to server coercion. (and lavabit too, though I didn't even know they existed until they didn't exist.) Silent Circle was particularly disappointing, given who was behind it.
I'm not saying the classical (but secure!!) approach doesn't have difficulties for novice users, but anyone who tries to handwave those problems away by relying on trusting servers, should not be considered to be really working on the problem.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Wake me up when it is a steady and stable currency, and won't lose half its value if a relatively minor exchange goes down.
BitCoin is a nice toy, but with the fact that all transactions leave a glowing neon trail behind them, I'd just rather use conventional money methods.
Now, if BitCoin was a Chaumian currency with blinding factors and other anonymizing tools, it would be different, but just the use of BitCoin will get FinCEN extremely interested in what it is going for, and where FinCEN goes, every LEO down to the county dogcatcher follow.
I use my bank card for online purchases.
1. The transaction is always processed on a page on my bank's domain. Most of the time, the merchant never sees my card number--in such cases, I never even enter the card number.
2. They allow me to set per-transaction and per-day limits. I can change these anytime I want through my online banking, and the changes take effect almost instantly.
3. Multiple-factor authentication--the card itself, a card reader which is supplied by my bank, my 4-digit PIN, and my 12-digit Swedish personnummer.
4. The challenge code they give me is good for 4 minutes, and the response code that I enter to confirm the transaction is good for an additional 4 minutes.
If entering my card number doesn't cause me to be redirected to a page on my bank's site to perform the actual authentication/authorisation, I simply cancel the transaction.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Gay is a synonym for lame, limp, and weak.
I cannot remember how long ago I stopped using PP, simply because of things just like this and more.
How do I sue PayPal for tortious interference of contract? I donated money via the kickstarter campaign.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Your comment is insightful, but this worries me a lot.
Believe it or not, I am among those that were stolen €500 for "gold" somewhere on another continent, a sum that was frozen during months before being refund (the following year), so you may understand a Paypal permanent account is just unthinkable for me anymore.
Then I'm obliged to admit 90% of my online transactions are with sites that only accept Paypal. While I systematically tell them how much I don't appreciate (and then use Paypal as a "one-shot" system, without an account), it looks like it's much more difficult for a reseller to setup a dedicated payment system, even though all banks by now offer this kind of service.
As concerns confidence, I'd say I'm confident in known banks, ie when a site redirects me to a system I know, it's OK...
Herve S.
Did you mean this word?
Yes, sometimes being one letter off makes a whole heap of difference.
Not that I would be inclined to use either one of them, since I have some idea what might (not) be good for me.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
but with the fact that all transactions leave a glowing neon trail behind them, I'd just rather use conventional money methods.
That is a "teething problem" that many talented people are working to solve and hardly a show stopper. However it is much better you sit on the sidelines anyway, this space is for the early adopters only - a minority in any population.
Sucks to be them, perhaps they should get a real bank account.
oh wait, then they'll have to deal with scummy banks, banking regulators, what few of them are actually enforced.
I say just let the market decide, and let people who insist on dealing with PayPal get what they deserve.
Our fiat money is only as valuable so long as people have faith in it. If we all decided to start bartering with seashells, there is little governments could do to stop it.
People don't want right, they want easy. This why every system of human endeavour eventually turns to shit. People are too lazy to maintain the vigilance needed to retain their power and freedoms.
hmmm, 10 million unbanked in the the U.S. Granted, a portion of them are just going to be plain paranoid schizophrenic, but that's not a negligible number.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
That's actually an interesting security consideration. You should indeed at least raise some kind of red flag and require a confirmation from the original card holder's account to create another one with the same CC number. On the other hand, it would also require browsing through all the other user accounts on new account creation (to see if there is a similar CC number there somewhere) which might be a performance and security issue from the server's perspective.
The whole system is broken, that's what's missing here. A couple numbers and a name contains all the information needed to withdraw money from my account, that is the real problem and it is seriously backwards early 20th century thinking. There is no reason that information should fly around unencrypted, heck it's written in plain text on my credit card for crying out loud, why does no one think that is an issue!? The sad thing is that something like Google Wallet, that has enough brains to be password protected and provide strong encryption, should have been the answer to all this, but the banking system is so incredibly backward that rather than encrypting the data in a way that makes sense (with one time pads a la secureID) they ended up broadcasting the same unencrypted string of data that can be copied right off a card.
To summarize, the solution to the problem of buying from someone you don't trust with your CC information isn't to use paypal, it's to overhaul the CC system to the 21st century so that you aren't sharing the actually CC information with anyone but the bank to begin with.
Pay-SUck can piss off.
You can use a credit union as long as there is one your are eligible for (likely most people are for at least one).
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
My rule for Paypal - never leave more money in my account than I'm willing to lose.
I usually only put money in there if my intent is to make a purchase with it a few minutes later, and it is the most practical way to make the payment. I don't trust them one iota.
I've read over and over that PayPal freezes accounts and won't release funds, and yet people still keep using this god awful company to collect funds. Why on earth are people still tolerating this sh!t? I just don't get it.
I guess, if you're foolish enough to use PayPal after this has happened time and time again, then they get what they deserve.
... Not.
TL;DR: Paypal promised the 2013 was going to be the year they fixed this kind of crap. Still looks pretty unfixed to me.
http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/21/technology/paypal-frozen-funds/index.html
Why do people insist on using PayPal for high value accounts?
because doing anything else is significantly harder / more expensive / less successful.
whilst it is clear that Paypal act like dicks on a frequent basis, they also provide an easy way to accept money from people all over the world in a way that is easy for the customer to use, and cheap/quick for the receiver to set up.
or to put it another way - can you suggest a better alternative?
VLC Remote for iPhone and Android
What I dont quite understand is how they avoid being considered a "bank", cause its always seemed like they should be.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Have you ever tried that, asshole?
Which is easier: getting your local idiot bankers to roll back a fraudulent debit, or doing a VISA chargeback?
Why yes, I've done both, and they were about equally easy. Someone printed up some checks with my account info, and pretty much all merchants turn checks in to ACH debits these days. I called up Bank of America, they looked at the check images and other stuff, agreed that the checks were fraudulent, transferred my money to a new account (including the amount that was fraudulently debited), and mailed me an affidavit to fill out, sign, and send back. The main difference with a VISA chargeback is that depending on the situation, they might not insist on sending a new card with a new number--however, I suspect if the amounts involved were the same as in the check fraud case (almost $2000), I would've gotten a new card number.
Niggardly is spelled with and a and has a completely different etymological history.
Why does Paypal get to 'decide' anything?
$135,000 collected, $90,000 cashed-out; that's a $30,000/month paycheck for the 3 principals. Meanwhile they have no product to deliver, no expenses to speak of, no royalties to pay, apparently no plan going forward, and technologically the project is doomed to failure. Heck I'd be willing to disappoint people for $15,000/month ... pay me!
Worst idea ever. This is counter-intuitive, but one of the big REASONS that PayPal is able to suck so badly, IS that the banking regulatory environment is so ridiculous, that it's virtually impossible to set up new competitors to PayPal. If it weren't for those regulations, we would have several different BETTER alternatives to PayPal by now. If you think PayPal sucks, banks are far, far worse, and turning PayPal into 'yet another shitty, limited bank' is absolutely not the way to go.
The credit card settlement companies and middlemen are just as arbitrarily punitive and extensive in their harassment, but much more complicated to get going.
Paypal may be the right balance for buying physical goods from a sketchy ebay merchant: I've had fewer problems on ebay than with long-tail froogle.google.com merchants.
Donations, indiegogos, and conference tickets may need some method where the payment can't be reversed without an actual proven crime, none of this "discretion" stuff. When it's not retail commerce, I think a different balance of power between payer and recipient is right than when it is. In Europe and Australia you can use bank transfer for this, and it's really cheap, like $0 - $1. In the US the only bank transfer with minimal "discretion" involved is wire, $20 - $40 each.
so american banks fuck you from both ends, and paypal fucks you in the middle.
Because they think this only happens to criminals or money launderers. At least that's how Paypal communicates the thefts.
His fine self may have just been browsing and felt a slight desire to correct error. Don't project.
Something I'd like to share with the group (sorry, bad sense of humour) I stopped using PayPal a few years ago. I forgot to renew the card it was associated when it expired. When I tried to update the details PayPal had blocked the account and refused to re-active unless I provided photographic ID. What, pray tell, do PayPal want or need with photographic ID? So, I, being the level headed and rational individual I am, smelled a huge fetid rat and stopped using their 'services.' With regards this sorry tale, who made PayPal a member of the board, least of all the director of finance? It could be they have a requirement under money laundering regulations, transfer of over $1000 dollars was once the limit for notification of suspicious activity. However, that said, I much prefer to infer nefarious purpose on PayPals part.
I've argued that for both PP and BC from the start and, early in both PayPal's and BitCoin's existence, I was argued against right here that I was shallow sighted and didn't recognize the 'new world'. You can still find that attitude in this very topic (but not for PP because they pissed off someone in tech).
Both should immediately be required to assume all the liabilities that banks have to because both are dealing with people's resources.
Now, how many people have stopped using them as a result?
I do not use a physical bank. I cash my checks and put what I need onto a reloadable card. My rent and bills are paid in cash. My groceries are paid for in cash. I do not even take my card out of the house except in very rare cases. No, I have not paranoia about government snooping or any other kind.
I simply got sick of different banks charging random fees to my basic, free checking account. Every time I went in to the bank the person I talked to willingly admitted that it was bank error. My roommate had the same thing happening, at the same times. With my last bank it happened 3 months out of a 6 month period. No, the fees weren't much but I would rather pay the $4 - $5 fee to load money onto a reloadable when I need than have money randomly subtracted from my account. They really do just charge away at random and rely on most people not noticing.
There is a long list of similar gripes that I could post. The point is, yes, there are people that have stopped relying on banks to safeguard their money.
Niggardly and the other word are false cognates.It's not a good choice of word these days because it will most likely be mis-understood by a significant number of people.
Gay is interesting since it's use for homosexual is just as much slang as it's use for bad. meanwhile, bad==good and many years ago it was noted that you gotta be hot if you wanna be cool.
While it certainly was a slur against homosexsuals to use gay for bad at one time, it's not clear that the association is intended anymore, though like niggardly, it may be best to choose another word to avoid mis-understandings.
A: PayPal
Q: Why did you not support the Ubuntu Edge Smartphone campaign, Alex
Salut,
Jacques
You had me until Bitcoin... ...
Cheap storage VM.
Well, I have. Walk in, chat with young, pleasant woman, get the bad billing undone. Maybe twenty minutes.
Perhaps your language and attitude is an issue with them.
But BitCoin isn't an institution. It's an algorithm and a software implementation for it.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
affect/effect.
It has been time for several years.
Paypal is a bank ( site in Luxembourg ) and it has to follow the money laundring rules like anybody else.
So that the next time PayPal's database gets cracked (it's happened more than once) they have your cc info? I can see where that would be MUCH better.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Care, no...
Actually I do. I could care less about the project, who gives a fuck. Another bleeding heart FOSS is your friend bullshit waste of time and money.
But clearly since PayPal provides a crowdfunding platform they have a right to ask for LEGITIMATE reason to continue to fund a project if there is some question to how the money is being used, or no real information about the progress of a project.
I am tired of people rising to the defense of open source and crowdfunded projects without thinking. There is no reason to assume that you can be handed thousands of investor's money and then have no real business strategy, budget, or timeframe to deliver on your goals. If your investor asks for progress, you fucking provide it. If your investor is calling you out, you better cover your ass with legitimate paperwork.
So suck it up MailPile. You thought you could create some crowdfunded bullshit project, take the money from tens of thousands of people that will just throw anything at FOSS out of some vapid belief it matters and then provide what; a reskin of some existing open source mail program and call it a day?
Hey, if MailPile is legitimate and well organized that information should be trivial and readily obtained so feed it to PayPal and tell them to shut the fuck up. But if its a bunch of stoners thinking they got away with ripping off a bunch of retards through PayPal, they should guess again.
I think PayPal is clearly in the right here to ask for some information about how the money is being spent considering they offered the opportunity to have this project funded through their organization.
Bam
https://developer.paypal.com/webapps/developer/docs/classic/lifecycle/crowdfunding/
Time to RTF-Guidlines
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Paypal does not really work internationally. I've tried. You can't use a credit card in an account that's not in the same country as the card's issuing bank. If you have got credit cards in banks in ten countries, you need 10 different paypal accounts. It's insane.
Even worse: eBay somehow, by default, blocks foreign PayPal accounts from paying for purchases even if the seller ships internationally. I've tried to buy an iPad 2 for my sister living in Europe, using her credit card on her paypal account. 30 different eBay sellers would refuse to accept the payment.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Your title was nonsensical when paired with your idiotic shilling of Bitcoin as an alternative.
You cite Bitcoin as a great alternative to these HATED institutions - so clearly it's an alternative. And it's even made the news, and various governments are looking at taxing/regulating Bitcoin transactions.
And exactly how many people who aren't constantly flogging the ridiculous Bitcoin cheerleading articles on sites like Slashdot, Ars, and Reddit are using it?
You know why people keep buying gas? There are no real alternatives yet - you need a car, you buy gas. People hate oil companies, but they are a necessary evil. You've suggested Bitcoin is a viable alternative to banks, and it's available today... and yet most estimates of Bitcoin usage puts it in the "50,000-100,000 range," and that's 1) curiously close to the number of ridiculously paranoid crypto-nerds in the world; 2) likely to be grossly overstated;
Again: can't hate the banks too much if virtually nobody (.03% of the US population, assuming every Bitcoin user is in the US, demonstrably false) is using the single alternative you've nominated as a legitimate alternative to banks and financial institutions - despite all that "rage" you seem to feel is being directed at financial institutions.
Pro tip: There's a big difference between "Do you think banks are helping to solve the economic crisis?" and "Do you hate your bank?" The problem, as ever with politics and other rationalization exercises, is with "the other guys, not my guy."
I wasn't projecting--I was asking a serious question.
BTW, I like my bank just fine. But it's also not in the US.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
It's too bad such services aren't available in the United States.
Skrill is UK-based and can be used as a payment processor on eBay.
Insinuating that someone is gay has long been used as a put-down, and that has always been wrong and should stop.
However, AFAIK the widespread use of "gay" ("ghey", etc.) as a generic synonym for "bad" started no more than 20 years ago.
I personally associate it with on-line gamers and X-games types, so kids who started cussing in the mid 90s are my prime suspects.
Regardless, using "gay" as a slur can go the fuck away.
George Jetson agrees with you. (He also says hacker isn't a synonym for criminal.)
There's just one problem: when George Jetson steps out of his flying car into the real world and talks to people, he might find out he's mistaken. No matter what he decides about word meanings, there's an element of discovery too. It doesn't matter how ridiculous he thinks people are being: whenever he says he's looking for "a gay experience," some people keep thinking he's talking about cheating on his wife. And other people think he's looking for something neither sexual nor fun. What's really amazing, is that neither of these groups is being deliberately obtuse or insincere; they really misinterpret George's statement.
Poor George. What advice do you have for him? Are you going to explain to him that sometimes words get overloaded and you have to glork their intended meaning from context? Or are you going to join him in agreeing that it doesn't happen, he should stick to his guns, and go beat up some homosexuals for their crimes against the language? Just curious how you'll approach this problem and come out without having hurt any innocents or their feelings.
I'll let you mull over what to tell George. My own advice to him is to not panic when a word branches out into new meanings. Instead, take a look at the landscape and use whatever you know, to figure out what other people might be saying, and have your own sentences be as unambiguous as possible. That means you should rarely use the word "gay" unless you think context will make it clear, and should always hear the word "gay" with an open mind, knowing that it might mean fun, homosexual, bad, or maybe even something new, since that word is obviously an unstable toy.
If George takes my advice, in preference to the advice you're formulating, there will be a negative consequence to someone. The problem is that some some rabid inflexible "gay means homosexual and may never possibly mean anything else," person is not going to like George's flexibility, and he'll be offended by the "fun" or "bad" usages. But actually, that person is not an innocent and it's ok to harm them. Because that person is a jerk, and their problem is caused by their own attitude, where they think they can impose requirements upon George. So that's why I think my advice to George is pretty good, and why gay actually can be a synonym for bad.
Uh, I know it's not P.C. But if i say "that's gay" about something everyone knows that that means it is bad. So by dynamic language standards it does mean that, even if you think it's not P.C.
It used to just mean happy, now it means that a man has sexual feelings about other men. My grandparents used to say gay to mean happy when talking to me.
For now it does mean bad weather you like it or not, just like it now means man-on-man-love weather my grandparents like it or not. Maybe someday it will shift meanings again as languages do. But trust me if you say "that's gay" or "he's being gay about it" or "my car is being totally gay" it currently means bad, weather you like it or not.
- r
Those reloadable cards are the biggest scams in the world. They exist solely to take advantage of ignorant poor people with no alternative You need to start making better banking decisions.
I have never had a problem banking with a local credit union in over 30 years. No random unexplained fees. Very few fees at all, and the ones that exist are clearly broken down in advance. In return I get fantastic interest rates and discounts on all sorts of financial services. That's what you get when you choose a local non-profit organization.
Bitcoin is a tiny flicker of a spark in the dark rotten world of finance...
No, Bitcoin is a slimeball magnet. Most "Bitcoin exchanges" turned out to be ripoff operations. Half of them have gone bust, keeping some or all customer assets. Mt. Gox is having real trouble paying out customer balances; they have at least $4 million in customer funds and stopped paying out US dollars back in June. No "Bitcoin exchange" is registered as a brokerage in any jurisdiction. None publish audited financial statements.
And that's the more legitimate end of the Bitcoin world. It goes downhill from there; the "online wallet" businesses that stole their customers' assets, the various Bitcoin Ponzi schemes, the "mining hardware" vendors with prepaid preorders who never deliver, and the drug dealers on Silk Road.
The lesson of Bitcoin is that anonymous, irrevocable, remote funds transfer is the scammer's dream.
under the Feds, they would be slapped down for Money Laundring and I'd suggest the Project Devs push RICO Charges in Federal Court against Paypal (Racketeering/Corruption) which if successful would give them punitive damages of not triple but six to ten times the amount of the monies stollen and the profit Paypal is making from holding that money to play with it.
Time for EFF to act in court?
The most inconvenient part is waiting for the credit card company to overnight me a new card.
The most inconvenient part is remembering to change all my reoccurring bills.. Thats why I use paypal for random online venors.
Paypal is the worst option for online banking and payments except for it's one good feature, convenience. They made it ultra easy to sign up for to accept payments better than any other service, including visa and mastercard. The draw back is obviously higher fees and people continually get accounts locked when they hit whatever the threshold is, something like a couple thousand. Plus I'm pretty sure they are constantly hacked. I signed up for paypal on a fresh e-mail and not more than a month later I received phishing scams against that e-mail for Paypal and other sites. This was after not using that e-mail for anything else. I have not used them since except for cases where other forms of credit (cards) are not accepted.
Talk about building up a straw man. How you leapt from "Bitcoin is a tiny flicker of a spark" that the GPP said to "You've suggested Bitcoin is a viable alternative to banks, and it's available today..." is amazing. Please take your trolling elsewhere...
Can "gay" not just have another definition meaning bad/stupid? Most words have several definitions that are unrelated. Gay also shares it's homosexual definition with happy but no one is up in arms to use other words to mean happy.
What am I missing here? On what grounds does the payment handler demand business details? Heck, if my bank asked for my business plan (I own a small company), I'd tell them to sod off.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
But Bad *is* slang for Good - go figure.
it used to mean "happy" before the homos stole it, and now they are pissed because it is stolen again by someone else? eh....
your guess what its next meaning is as good as mine.
happy -> homosexual -> stupid -> bad -> paypal ?
(not that I have anything against male/male or female/female relationships, the less babies produced on this overpopulated planet the better)
That is pretty freaking outrageous. How about "none of your damned business, give us our money assholes". A major class action lawsuit against paypal is long past due.
> Lets find a new word for Bad/Stupid.
I suggest we use paypal as that new word.
example:
"you can't do that! that would be paypal!
jumping in front of a train is a paypal thing to do"
"he is the most paypal dude I know! he does lots of paypal things"
or perhaps the "paypaly"/"paypalish" ?
But its implementation is flawed in a way that will prevent it from being a useful currency. Here's a couple good articles that explains a few reasons why (there are many such articles out there by various economists):
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/04/bitcoin-is-no-longer-a-currency/274859/
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/12/adam-smith-hates-bitcoin/?_r=0
I'm ready for a another attempt with the same goals as Bitcoin.
I go to A LOT of trouble to avoid PayPal and urge you all to do the same. Use your consumer power on these bastards.
work in progress
Donations are not a service
Donations to reputable organizations support the documented services that the organization performs. PayPal just wants to see documentation of those services.
I go to a brick and mortar store (support local economy)
Good luck finding a brick and mortar store that carries the particular discontinued good you want. Do you plan to support global warming by repeatedly driving to all local pawn shops and thrift stores for years until the item you want finally happens to show up?
I don't use self checkout registers (support local employment)
Supporting inefficiency is the broken window fallacy.
There should not be multi-national corps, period. International trade still be achieved by company A in country A importing to or exporting from company B in country B.
Say I, the owner of a hypothetical small business, want to sell my company's products to people who live in 20 different countries. How should I go about efficiently starting 20 different companies to do so?
According to the blog, the account has been unfrozen.
If you you use paypal, you kinda deserve it when they fuck you in the ass with a cactus since they're known to do that. Why didn't they use Kickstarter?
In EU, PayPal is a bank. http://www.paymentsnews.com/2007/05/paypal_obtains_.html
Don't assume that this means they're just like any other bank in your country, though (unless, I suppose, you're in Luxembourg). For example, PayPal are not legally required to submit to UK banking ombudsman decisions (but, AIUI, they've voluntarily agreed to). If you get in to a dispute you're always going to be better off with a proper bank which is locally regulated, required to follow ALL of those regulations not just the ones it chooses, and somewhere with rules and a jurisdiction you and your lawyers/advisers/regulators/courts are familiar with.
How about everyone who used PayPal, cancel their transaction and use a credit card instead? Then send a message to PayPal stating why you are no longer using their service :)
I've had nothing but problems with them. These guys are crooks, pure and simple. They are evil.
Also it has nothing to do with racism. It just means mean, or stingy. It's not a word we need to stop using.
Aren't they basically the same thing?
Why do people use PayPal at all?
This really needs to be divided into two questions, firstly why do buyers use paypal and secondly way do sellers use paypal.
Why do buyers use paypal?
1: While i'm sure their security model has flaws it's a lot better than the credit card system of "hand the merchant a number that lets them withdraw whatever they like".
2: They make international transactions easy and tell the buyer the actual cost in their own currency including any conversion fees before the buyer clicks buy (unlike credit cards where you only find out the real cost in your own currency after the transaction is processed).
Why do sellers use paypal?
1: It's really easy to get started, while fees are charged they are only charged based on transactions that actually happen unlike with credit card merchant agreements where you often have to pay a fixed subscription on top of per-transaction fees. Afaict it's easy to integrate them in your website and all the security sensitive stuff happens on paypal's website not yours,
There are also of course network affects running in both directions, if lots of sellers use paypal that will encourage buyers to use them and if lots of buyers use paypal that will encourage sellers to use paypal.
PayPal has always done things I found objectionable.
I wouldn't disagree there but so have visa, mastercard etc. The main ones that all of them do is bias themselves towards the buyer in any dispute and to premptively freeze funds to make sure that if the buyer wins a dispute it's the merchant who is left out of pocket not them.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
IIRC policies can vary by region but in the UK they force sellers to offer paypal and strongly encourage buyers to use it.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
They get their money back + $1000 from Paypal... Sometime "rising the voice" works :)
"Paypal does not really work internationally. I've tried."
This is misunderstanding of "international" in the context that is discussed.
It works internationally, I've made countless purchases and payments to various countries.
Using PP you can pay a company based, say, in Germania when you are based in Roslandia. This means that a company in one country can accept shipments from multiple different countries and is not limited to the same country only. This is international, and this is how a local company can raise funds internationally (as with MailPile).
What you describe is rather a (crude yet effective) security measure against using stolen CC data. Also if a company does not want to handle international shipping, they can refuse to accept payments from outside their country or region. Companies also sometimes refuse shipping to address different than PP/card billing address.
Ah, the clunky "PreyPal"; still running a most unprofessional, clunky operation. Yes, the banks are too expensive but at least their operation is professionally run and you can actually get prompt customer support when you need it for a credit card matter ...
And, just for fun, the latest febrile hallucination from the Ho, Ho, Ho at eBay
“No Seller Fees ! Get Paid with ebaY Vouchers! Who Needs Cash Anyway?”
http://cappnonymous.wordpress.com/2013/09/05/no-seller-fees-get-paid-with-ebay-vouchers-who-needs-cash-anyway/#more-3026
eBay is running a limited-time promo whereby sellers can avoid all eBay selling fees if they agree to be paid with eBay vouchers (redeemable only at the “company store”) instead of real money:
“Keep 100% of Your Selling Price! Pay No Fees – Limited Time Offer!”
http://pages.ebay.com/sell/nosellfees/
Gee, eBay is offering to forgo their Final Valuation Fee (FVF) income in the hope that sellers will agree to let eBay keep 100% of the sale price in eBay’s own piggy bank! Looks like eBay is now competing for deposited funds directly with its other “pretend bank”, PreyPal
What’s up eBay, won’t the guys at PreyPal let you play with their users’ uninsured deposited funds in the PreyPal “pretend bank”? And, how many clunky, uninsured “pretend” banks can any one unscrupulous commercial entity offer to its naïve consumers?
Talk about crazy ideas, this one has to take the cake. What can this nonsense be all about? Utter desperation for cash is the only thing that I can think of. Or, are buyers now getting really that thin on the ground? Hmmm, maybe that could explain those massive “oceans of red” that we now see in the completed listings of scrupulous sellers ...
But, seriously, who would take up this offer? Given that it would undoubtedly help eBay with their cash flow, it would do nothing for the seller’s cash flow. And, who would be silly enough to trust this latest non-FDIC insured eBay “pretend bank”—or the PreyPal pretend bank for that matter—with the safekeeping of any but the smallest amount of their funds?
Regardless ...
eBay's crooked marketplace ... http://bit.ly/11F2eas
The clunky "PreyPal" ... http://bit.ly/UVXx53
And the ongoing joke of it all ... http://bit.ly/YvxFEg
“Ignorance can be fixed, stupid is forever.”—Don Wood ...
Clearly, John Donahoe’s condition is forever
But the way you worded it didn't state moving
In that case, allow me to word my questions more directly. Let's assume I want to move to another English-speaking country. What's the best way to qualify for legal immigrant status? And how much money will I need before moving?
I'd challenge the powers that be, but the trouble is my name is Anonymous Coward, and whenever I want to give someone online a metaphorical black eye, no matter what I do slashdot prints my name on my posts, even allowing other people to post as me! I've complained but no one listens!
~ A.C.
Paypal seems to have given the money back, restored the acct, AND given MP $1k!!! see:
...
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/mailpile-taking-e-mail-back?c=activity
i find this bizarre in the extreme. i wd like to believe that it means that paypal and amazon are thinking about joining the human race, but
Niggerdly has a meaning, and it's not very flattering.
No, it doesn't. "Niggerdly" is not a word.
Another word, niggardly, means "miserly". I suppose you might argue that that is unflattering, but lots of words are unflattering. Etymologically, the word "niggardly" long predates the offensive, pejorative word "nigger", which sounds a bit like "niggardly", and causes uneducated buffoons to become confused. Not that that's hard to do.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala
eBay require that most accounts and auctions accept paypal. It's a condition of being allowed to list in many cases.