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PayPal Denies Twitch Troll $50,000 Worth In Refunds (ubergizmo.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Trolling is commonplace on the internet. On Twitch, one of the many ways people troll Twitch streamers is by making donations, only to get a refund from PayPal at the very last minute, thus tricking streamers into thinking they've been given large sums of money. A troll by the name of iNexus_Ninja has been doing exactly this. However, when he tried to go to PayPal to refund the charges, PayPal decided to deny his request which ultimately left the troll $50,000 in debt. Twitch streamers apparently fought against his request for a refund and won. Meanwhile, Russia is paying state-sponsored trolls, elevating the troll to the level of professional propagandists.
One of the many reasons I'm not using PayPal is because they thrive of these refunds and using any excuse possible to lock large sums of money in their system. Obviously they continue claiming they're "not a bank" and therefore don't have to follow any of the rules that any other merchant account needs to. With a little bit of looking around you can find cheaper options to PayPal, even solid merchant accounts for credit card processing.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Am I missing something here? I've never heard of Twitch.
the main troll they do isnt large amounts its normally small amounts like 1$ so the refund after fees cost more then they donated. third party's have stepped in to help prevent it they act as a escrow and blacklist known donation trolls.
But this won't get any press from /. editors... it's much easier to bash Russia.
Correct the Record, a pro-Hillary Clinton political action committee (PAC), is spending over $1 million on online trolls in order to âcorrectâ(TM) Bernie Sanders supporters on social media sites.
The PAC this week launched an initiative called âoeBarrier Breakers 2016,â which is composed of a âoetask forceâ that will debate âBernie Bros,â(TM) presumably supporters of the Senator Sandersâ(TM)s campaign, as referred to by their official press release.
According to Correct the Record, the task force will âoecombat online political harassment,â boasting that it has already âoeaddressed more than 5,000 individuals who have personally attacked Secretary Clinton on Twitter.â
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/...
WTF does this story have to do with Russia? Who added this aside, anonymous submitter or BeauHD? It fucking retarded to believe that other governments, law firms, ngo's, lobbyists, and other entities involved with "messaging" don't engage in the same type of activities. The current interest about Russian trolls is due to some batshit looney neocon paranoid conspiracy that Putin is trying to get Trump in the White House because he's scared of Hillary(!).
PayPal may suck, but they redeemed themselves with this action.
LOL @ iNexus_Ninja.
Giving PayPal access to $50,000 of your funds: Priceless.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
If only they had some sort of video evidence of his actual donation live and in realtime...and full HD 60FPS. OH WAIT.
It doesn't sound to me like the service was in the wrong, denying a refund in this situation? If you're just using the service to troll people, requesting transfers of funds you know up-front you don't *really* want to transfer, it seems like it's YOUR problem if the payment processor grows tired of participating in your game and declares your funds transfer final.
As someone who was forced to deal with PayPal's antics as part of the "package deal" selling on eBay when the two of them formed a cartel, I can think of SO many more legitimate situations to complain about PayPal over than this one.
I totally tricked you into thinking you were getting money from me. GOTCHA!! :facepalm:
I understood that it was some sort of video streaming/chat service, purportedly used by gamers. But if 'contributions' are really a big thing, I suspect that there might be something other than gaming going on, for which people expect 'contributions'.
Dare I suggest: Cam whores?
Have gnu, will travel.
I think "they redeemed themselves" is a bit strong, but I do agree that this sounds like something that should be counted on the positive side of the ledger.
If they did it consistently, it would redeem them... on this one issue out of dozens of persistent problems they have.
There, fixed that fpr you with something much more relevant to slashdot. Hi, cold fjord!
Click the link, there is a video. He was doing this to game streamers, not cam-whores.
...
Well said.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
> WTF? How the fuck is this even a troll.
Because he didn't do it right away, he'd wait until the streamers had spent the money, and then try to issue the refund with PayPal, which would then cause PayPal to charge the streamer back for the money. In essence, he was putting the streamers in debt.
Really, he ought to go to jail for that, but at least in this case he got stiffed.
"Person who uses the internet to cause other people emotional grief, frustration and anger for his own amusement."
See also "Douchebag"
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
OMG! Israel donated $50k to Twitch accounts via PayPal... and then they asked for a refund!!! And they've been doing that for 15 years!
Sigh.
Is this a pro-pedo message?
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
https://slashdot.org/story/07/08/14/1453223/see-who-is-whitewashing-wikipedia
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
There is something seriously wrong with you
I think you are probably right. The language and the structure of the GP's ranting reminds of schizophrenia: the introduction of bizarre word constructs (such as man+girl: what does it mean? Something perhaps with pedophile connotations?) and the cognition that seems to be jumping incoherently around without much logic; both are often found in schizophrenia, or it could be mania, I suppose.
It is probably not entirely appropriate to "diagnose" somebody like this, over a long, thin wire, but it fills me with great sadness when I see this kind of thing; we shouldn't bash him - it isn't a nice illness.
You're linking to a hard right "news" source that is known for lying in public?
Best Slashdot Co
That's a strange definition of exploitation. Poor teenage boys. Exploited by free streams. Forced into hours of watching. Robbed of the time they could be gaming.
This... and if they went after the guy for making false clams, or convinced the authorities to go after him for Fraud then they would be redeemed. All they really did was block what should be classed as a criminal act of Fraud and reading the info online, paypal rejecting his refund request wasn't that big of a deal for him. For a $50k attempted fraud he should be going to jail. If he had tried something similar at an actual bank he would be.
Payment reversals are a big deal for Twitch streamers, not only do they lose the money involved, after its likely been spent, they usually still incur paypal fees for both the initial payment and for the reversal, and are left, sometimes significantly, out of pocket.
(not a streamer but frequent Twitch watcher)
[The Universe] has gone offline.
WHY does this little kid have access to so much money? WTF? Are his parents mentally challenged?
I don't respond to AC's.
I'd say that Jesus declared it complete. Obsolete carries a slightly different connotation for me, so while I might agree with the sentiment, I disagree ever so slightly on vocabulary. I believe that Jesus was the completion of the old law and so He had the authority and did the things that made the old law complete. It wasn't invalidated like the term "obsolete" would usually imply, but rather finished. According to my beliefs, he completed the theocracy and he alone had the right to determine what, if anything, would complete it. He said that there were things that people should do and he defined how people should behave but he expected a direct relationship with God and didn't expect politics to be a part of that.
It can either be complete or consistent. If Jesus declared it complete then it must be inconsistent. Would you rather your life be run by incomplete laws or inconsistent laws?
Also "Not one jot or iota shall pass from the Law until the end of days." so why aren't Christians required to be circumcised and follow other aspects of the LAW such as dietary restrictions? Huh, in reality Christians are a bunch of atheists who don't even follow the Law that their prophet/God laid down.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
this is the sort of asinine logic that permits Stanford men's swim team members to rape women without worrying about jail. how about you blame the victim less anonymously, anon?
Poor prostitutes. Exploited by paying customers. Choosing to work in the sex industry. Robbed of the lavish life of been taken care of by a submissive husband.
This is what feminist will tell you about sexual exploitation...
The farmer grow and sell good, he is exploiting a farm. The prostitude gain money for rubing men, she exploit men. The camwhore get donation for showing her boob to the horny teenage boys, she exploit teenage boys.
The only reason you don't see it this way, the logical way, it is because you are brainwashed by a feminist education that taught you that women are always victim. Women are not always victim, in fact women are rarely victim. They are the protected class of every human society and enjoy the most benefits. Civilisation was invented, built and is maintained by men for the only purpose of making women feel safe and be comfortable. Many victims are men, and those victim are ignored most of the time.
A dispute is a request to get a charge "investigated". A "chargeback" is an instruction to the bank/credit company take the money back and make it my problem.
Most people don't know that (in the United States) these are completely different things.
If I dispute a charge then the credit card company may contact the vendor and ask them what happened and generally do a resolution where I may, or may not, get a refund. A dispute takes days, weeks, or even months to run its course.
A chargeback tells the credit card company to suck the money back out of the payee's account right now and debit it back to me unconditionally. There is no investigation. There is no delay. Once a chargeback has been issued the credit card issuer is no longer involved in the transaction. They payee may sue the payor or otherwise deal with the financial dispute by legal means. A chargeback is the "nuclear option" for dealing with a credit card transaction that's gone bad.
But understand that a chargeback isn't magic. If you buy something through an intermediary, the credit card bank is taking money from that next step in the chain, from that intermediary. That intermediary may then choose sue you or never do business with you again. So issuing a charge-back to ebay might get you a lifetime ban from ebay or a lawsuit from ebay and leave ebay holding the bag, unable to get the money back from the seller.
I've disputed several charges in my lifetime, but I've only ever once issued a chargeback. A local scaffolding company didn't properly log in the return of the scaffolding I'd rented. So they kept on billing me monthly rent for it. I tried to work it out with them, but they just kept saying they'd be charging me forever unless I showed up with the scaffolding. The individual pieces aren't serialized so it was impossible to coerce an audit to support my claim. I'm a home owner, not a business, so it's not like I could misplace that much stuff.
So I called the credit card company and issued a chargeback. The guy on the phone was all "what charges do you wish to dispute?" and I said "_NO_, I am issuing a chargeback for (amount) and blocking all further charges from (company)." I had to go several rounds and get a manager involved because the phone monkey didn't know what I was talking about. Finally I made it happen. Then I contacted the scaffolding company that I'd charged back everything they'd charged me since the date of the equipment return. With the money back in my hand and the door closed they became way more responsive and we agreed to go our separate ways.
They cold have sued me or whatever, but they would have lost since all of their records were messed up and their procedures were lax at best. So they decided (amount) and whatever equipment they thought I still had wasn't worth going to court.
A full chargeback is the last milestone before a resolution or a law suit, and if you issue (or receive as a business owner) more than a couple a decade you are likely to be dropped by the card company. It would _suck_ for a business to be banned by, say, all of Visa Corp. It wouldn't be fun for a consumer either.
But the full "chargeback" is a guaranteed protection to credit card holders as enshrined by law. The "dispute" is a contract term in your card and/or vendor agreement and subject to civil terms and other sections of law.
Chargebacks exist because the buyer and the seller are the actual involved parties, so either party can say to the payment processors "get out of this dispute completely" but to do that, to get out of the middle, the money must be put back into the hands of the original people.
It's twisty, and you shouldn't ever take legal or financial advice from the internet, but "disputing a charge" and "issuing a chargeback" are _totally_ different things.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
A dispute is the beginning of the process. A chargeback is the result of a dispute.
If you ever won a dispute, your card company issued a chargeback.
The lack of the ability to roll over on any dispute without a chargeback fee seems like a huge flaw in the system.
It sounds like you kept getting bounced up the ladder until a manager decided that he would say yes to placate you.
Or, you can show me some documentation that I'm wrong, but I couldn't find any that supported your assertion. See a random source
Your ad here. Ask me how!
i love it. They nailed him! http://tech.slashdot.org/story... Down with trolls http://www.newser.com/story/21...
PayPal may suck, but they redeemed themselves with this action.
LOL @ iNexus_Ninja.
Oh... It gets better!
This genius (Read: Prince of Idiots) had his personal pic revealed. He looks somewhere between 16 to 19.
So, if he used his parent's info to do this... I'd hate to be in his shoes.
My question is WTF is Twitch and WTF is a streamer?
Nah, they're broken with or without JS.
"Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 58 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment" -- slashdot, driving users away.
https://twitter.com/archer21an...
Guess he have more money then he knows what to do with. Spoiled
not only do they lose the money involved, after its likely been spent
This part I have no sympathy for. "Don't count your chickens before they hatch." When you get a payment from a stranger, be it check or money order or electronic transfer, don't rush out and spend an equal amount before it has irreversibly cleared. In addition to this particular scam, there are lots of other scams that involve the reversal of payments. All you have to do to avoid being bitten is: never return over-payment in the same billing cycle, never count your chickens before they've finished clearing the bank, and always cash checks at the issuing bank, never deposit them..