Maybe lives are invaluable, but we don't have limitless amounts of money to spend protecting them, this means someone must decide where best to spend the available resources.
I think more guardrails on the roads would give the best bang for the buck. One on each side plus one down the middle.
Or you could spend many billions preemptively invading a country while chasing a phantom enemy, losing ~4000+ American lives and ~100000+-? foreign civilian lives, all in the name of saving invaluable lives.
It's how politics works. You don't have to agree with it, it's just how it is.
I fully agree. Unfortunately, I don't really see a good way around it. You can't have more democracy, because that would risk demagoguery. However, less democracy doesn't work either, because then there's less recourse on your part when one of these people does make it into high office and decides to pass an obscenity law.
If only we could agree on some fundamental personal freedoms everyone is entitled to.
Maybe we could call it the "Bill of Shit Everyone Can Do"
Maybe the first thing on the list would be really important. Like "Everyone has the right to say what they want, and like create any artistic works they please"
Then we could make it really hard to take away these personal freedoms through court, legislature, or presidential decree. That way these important personal freedoms wouldn't be swept away by the first moral panic.
What a wonderful world a place like that would be....
The problem isnt that things like sysinternals being included in a Windows install.
The problem is that when some simple tools like sysinternals are installed theyll probably take up 500 MB, install 5 drivers and a background process that loads on boot, and constantly uses RAM and CPU cycles.
Gullible/Lazy/Stupid people have been getting screwed by not reading the fine print since long before credit cards existed.
Fine print exists because its the only way to spell out all the required terms and conditions in this litigious day and age. You just cant put all the terms of all transactions in two sentences.
Usually its pretty easy to tell if you might get screwed by the fine print without even reading it.
However in this case, although it appears you were told you were signing up for something, having not realized the company you were signing up with had your credit card number most people would'nt think it was possible for them to be charged anything, and wouldnt have a reason to even read the terms.
Of course without screenshots its rd to tell exactly what happened.
In Springfield MA police officers who had been videotaped kicking a guy in the head were found not guilty. The judge ruled that they used "reasonable force" to subdue the subject.
It's (I was clearly in the right as the small claims court HAS shown) not (I was clearly in the right as the small claims court DID show)
You don't go to small claims court until after Paymate/Visa reverse the transaction. There is nothing to sue for if you still have the money.
Also, do you think the buyer flew from who knows where to defend himself in small claims court over a used video game? It was probably a default judgment.
I don't know anything about amazon other than if you want to sell anything on their site they take 15% and tell you how much you can charge for shipping. Why/how anyone sells books there for $.99 I'll never know.
Any merchant account will hold a percentage of the funds from your transactions for 3-6 months in case Visa decides to reverse any of your transactions upon closure of your account. Many even do it on an ongoing basis. Meaning you must leave 15% of your average quarterly transaction funds in your merchant account at all times.
I guess the only difference with Paypal is that they are known to do close accounts without warning or explanation.
Sure, but if they told the buyer one thing, then told Paymate/Visa something else how is Paymate/Visa supposed to know? How are they supposed to know if the seller is telling the truth about the buyers change of story unless they witnessed the same change of story in their own communication with the buyer.
And really we are talking about a used video game here. Unless its some super rare game were talking like $20 here and $.90 in transaction fees. Reversed transaction fees range from $10 - $30 dollars.
How much employee time is a company supposed to use investigating a transaction that makes them $.90, puts them on the line for a $10+ reversal fee, and if they go over 1% reversals by total dollars they risk $1000s in penalties or even losing their ability to processes credit cards.
Really its the system that is setup to favor the buyer, it doesn't matter who you use to process credit cards, a buyer can easily screw you. Especially, if they know how the system works, and want to use it against you. Thankfully this is a rarity. Most I believe are people who are genuinely unhappy with the transaction and will say anything to get it reversed.
Its much more economical for sellers to eat the occasional loss than to go to small claims court, which is often the only recourse.
Sure no one likes getting screwed. But if you watch your buyers feedback (if using ebay [which is harder now that sellers cant leave feedback]), only ship to confirmed addresses, and accurately describe your item, your refund rate should be rather inconsequential.
Well really the issue is who does Paypal, or Paymate, believe?
The seller who says they sent it, or the buyer who says they never got it. Really the only thing they have to go on is does the seller have a low complaint rate, or does the buyer complain a lot? Hell, even if the buyer signed for the delivery they can still say the box had nothing but a brick in it. If you had to decide who do you believe?
Then there is Visa/the buyers bank that can reverse the transaction at their whim. Leaving Paypal/Paymate/etc out the money plus a fee. This is completely out of their control and you better believe they aren't going to eat the cost if they can avoid it.
Your money (or a percentage of it) being held for 3-6 months for refunds is pretty much how all credit card processors work. Look it up.
Interest? Well this depends on the your credit card processor doesn't it? These are questions to ask before you start using them. (Interest rates are so low right now whats the point anyway)
Even when taking donations your still going to get refund requests, for whatever reason. A popular one I've encountered personally is "My kid used my credit card/Paypal account without my permission, I want my money back!"
But how much expense is it when customers are turned away because their credit card is refused for no reason (it's happened to me) - and the business is not even aware of the lost custom?
Really the only solution to that is to process credit cards through your own website using multiple merchant accounts. When a card is declined by a merchant account you have your processing script automatically try another one. Even better you use a merchant account known to work best for the persons country.
Have you actually tried any of those? Do you do any sort of serious business online?
I've tried a few of those and they all have serious limitations.
From the very article you linked: "No one service can match PayPal alone -- but all of these services exceed PayPal in the customer relations department. With skillful use of two or more of these services, buying and selling on eBay without PayPal is NO problem."
With skillful use of two or more? The more difficult you make it for your customers to order from you the less money your going to make.
From the list you linked to:
Allpay.net -- Recommended for U.K. Only BidPay.com -- Out Of Business 2 Years CertaPay -- Recommended for CANADA Only Checkfree -- NOT RECOMMENDED HyperWALLET -- NOT RECOMMENDED Moneybookers -- Recommended for ALL Nochex -- Recommended for U.K. Residents and Certain Others Ozpay.biz -- Out Of Business 3+ Years Paymate -- Recommended for Australia & New Zealand ProPay -- Recommended for U.S. Sellers Xoom -- NOT RECOMMENDED
So out of that entire list there are only 2 that will let a US seller sell worldwide and are not listed as "Not Recommended". Moneybrokers and Propay.
I sell software on the internet and I've looked for alternatives to Paypal after having my account frozen.
Moneybrokers wanted some proof or license or something (I don't remember exactly this was years ago) to show that I had the right to sell my software. After a few less than helpful email exchanges I gave up on them.
Paypro, from their website, says you have to pay $60 a year to be able to accept all credit cards and you can only receive $3000 a month. This can be increased with a review of your credit and merchant history (if you have any). You can only accept Visa and $1000 a month with their regular plan.
I guarantee you if you get enough problem transactions any merchant is going to freeze your account and hold your funds for a few months to make sure they don't get screwed.
When Paypal freezes your account you get your money back in 6 months. This is so that Paypal can give refunds to anyone who requests one during the six month period.
Yeah, cause people who want to donate a few dollars are going to go through the hassle of sending a money order. Anyone accepting donations exclusively through the mail can expect their donations to decrease by WELL OVER half.
One concern is that each and every game developer will need to negotiate with each and every ISP to ensure their traffic achieves acceptable levels of latency for users.
Or in the case of private servers (where they still exist), every private server (or private server hosting company) would have to negotiate separate deals.
The Founding Fathers knew that there may come a time when the Constitution might need to be changed (like freedom for the slaves, which unfortunately was unfeasible at the time). That's what Constitutional Amendments are for.
These days the powers that be don't bother with silly, difficult things like passing Constitutional Amendments. Who's got the time to get that kind of massive nationwide majority?
It's much easier to convince a slim majority of the Legislature or Supreme Court that times have changed.
Commerce Clause? Whats that? The Commerce Clause is sooo 19th century.
Slashdot Mirror
Theres always Coal liquefication
Should be enough to last our lifetimes.
Once again it's the unborn that are (possibly) screwed.
Clearly if you burn enough of anything for long enough its going to do SOMETHING
We burn A LOT. (and just wait till the Chinese and Indians start burning what we do per capita)
Predicting exactly whats going to occur from this is like trying to predicting exactly what the weather is going to be in 7 days, you can't.
This is some complicated stuff. Theres a lot of things to take into account. Like the rarely mentioned Global Dimming
Maybe lives are invaluable, but we don't have limitless amounts of money to spend protecting them, this means someone must decide where best to spend the available resources.
I think more guardrails on the roads would give the best bang for the buck. One on each side plus one down the middle.
Or you could spend many billions preemptively invading a country while chasing a phantom enemy, losing ~4000+ American lives and ~100000+-? foreign civilian lives, all in the name of saving invaluable lives.
It's how politics works. You don't have to agree with it, it's just how it is.
I fully agree. Unfortunately, I don't really see a good way around it. You can't have more democracy, because that would risk demagoguery. However, less democracy doesn't work either, because then there's less recourse on your part when one of these people does make it into high office and decides to pass an obscenity law.
If only we could agree on some fundamental personal freedoms everyone is entitled to.
Maybe we could call it the "Bill of Shit Everyone Can Do"
Maybe the first thing on the list would be really important. Like "Everyone has the right to say what they want, and like create any artistic works they please"
Then we could make it really hard to take away these personal freedoms through court, legislature, or presidential decree. That way these important personal freedoms wouldn't be swept away by the first moral panic.
What a wonderful world a place like that would be....
The problem isnt that things like sysinternals being included in a Windows install.
The problem is that when some simple tools like sysinternals are installed theyll probably take up 500 MB, install 5 drivers and a background process that loads on boot, and constantly uses RAM and CPU cycles.
Well it's my bet that none of their advertisers are at risk in this report. Hence they run no risk by reporting it.
I'm willing to bet they have ads for Blackberries, etc.
Gullible/Lazy/Stupid people have been getting screwed by not reading the fine print since long before credit cards existed.
Fine print exists because its the only way to spell out all the required terms and conditions in this litigious day and age. You just cant put all the terms of all transactions in two sentences.
Usually its pretty easy to tell if you might get screwed by the fine print without even reading it.
However in this case, although it appears you were told you were signing up for something, having not realized the company you were signing up with had your credit card number most people would'nt think it was possible for them to be charged anything, and wouldnt have a reason to even read the terms.
Of course without screenshots its rd to tell exactly what happened.
he practical makes the case for the "slippery slope" argument.
Seeing how this guy went from real images to a cartoon maybe it should be an "escalator" argument?
In Springfield MA police officers who had been videotaped kicking a guy in the head were found not guilty. The judge ruled that they used "reasonable force" to subdue the subject.
Link please?
It's (I was clearly in the right as the small claims court HAS shown) not (I was clearly in the right as the small claims court DID show)
You don't go to small claims court until after Paymate/Visa reverse the transaction. There is nothing to sue for if you still have the money.
Also, do you think the buyer flew from who knows where to defend himself in small claims court over a used video game? It was probably a default judgment.
I don't know anything about amazon other than if you want to sell anything on their site they take 15% and tell you how much you can charge for shipping. Why/how anyone sells books there for $.99 I'll never know.
Any merchant account will hold a percentage of the funds from your transactions for 3-6 months in case Visa decides to reverse any of your transactions upon closure of your account. Many even do it on an ongoing basis. Meaning you must leave 15% of your average quarterly transaction funds in your merchant account at all times.
I guess the only difference with Paypal is that they are known to do close accounts without warning or explanation.
Sure, but if they told the buyer one thing, then told Paymate/Visa something else how is Paymate/Visa supposed to know? How are they supposed to know if the seller is telling the truth about the buyers change of story unless they witnessed the same change of story in their own communication with the buyer.
And really we are talking about a used video game here. Unless its some super rare game were talking like $20 here and $.90 in transaction fees. Reversed transaction fees range from $10 - $30 dollars.
How much employee time is a company supposed to use investigating a transaction that makes them $.90, puts them on the line for a $10+ reversal fee, and if they go over 1% reversals by total dollars they risk $1000s in penalties or even losing their ability to processes credit cards.
Really its the system that is setup to favor the buyer, it doesn't matter who you use to process credit cards, a buyer can easily screw you. Especially, if they know how the system works, and want to use it against you. Thankfully this is a rarity. Most I believe are people who are genuinely unhappy with the transaction and will say anything to get it reversed.
Its much more economical for sellers to eat the occasional loss than to go to small claims court, which is often the only recourse.
Sure no one likes getting screwed. But if you watch your buyers feedback (if using ebay [which is harder now that sellers cant leave feedback]), only ship to confirmed addresses, and accurately describe your item, your refund rate should be rather inconsequential.
I don't think accepting donations of "ass, grass, or cash" on your website is a viable business model, unfortunately.
Really? Which one do you use?
Well really the issue is who does Paypal, or Paymate, believe?
The seller who says they sent it, or the buyer who says they never got it. Really the only thing they have to go on is does the seller have a low complaint rate, or does the buyer complain a lot? Hell, even if the buyer signed for the delivery they can still say the box had nothing but a brick in it. If you had to decide who do you believe?
Then there is Visa/the buyers bank that can reverse the transaction at their whim. Leaving Paypal/Paymate/etc out the money plus a fee. This is completely out of their control and you better believe they aren't going to eat the cost if they can avoid it.
Your money (or a percentage of it) being held for 3-6 months for refunds is pretty much how all credit card processors work. Look it up.
Interest? Well this depends on the your credit card processor doesn't it? These are questions to ask before you start using them. (Interest rates are so low right now whats the point anyway)
Even when taking donations your still going to get refund requests, for whatever reason. A popular one I've encountered personally is "My kid used my credit card/Paypal account without my permission, I want my money back!"
Also, I've read that people will use online donations to check if a stolen credit card is active.
With Visa requiring that merchants keep their complaint rate under 1% it's not hard to see how easy it is to get your account frozen.
But how much expense is it when customers are turned away because their credit card is refused for no reason (it's happened to me) - and the business is not even aware of the lost custom?
Really the only solution to that is to process credit cards through your own website using multiple merchant accounts. When a card is declined by a merchant account you have your processing script automatically try another one. Even better you use a merchant account known to work best for the persons country.
Have you actually tried any of those? Do you do any sort of serious business online?
I've tried a few of those and they all have serious limitations.
From the very article you linked: "No one service can match PayPal alone -- but all of these services exceed PayPal in the customer relations department. With skillful use of two or more of these services, buying and selling on eBay without PayPal is NO problem."
With skillful use of two or more? The more difficult you make it for your customers to order from you the less money your going to make.
From the list you linked to:
Allpay.net -- Recommended for U.K. Only
BidPay.com -- Out Of Business 2 Years
CertaPay -- Recommended for CANADA Only
Checkfree -- NOT RECOMMENDED
HyperWALLET -- NOT RECOMMENDED
Moneybookers -- Recommended for ALL
Nochex -- Recommended for U.K. Residents and Certain Others
Ozpay.biz -- Out Of Business 3+ Years
Paymate -- Recommended for Australia & New Zealand
ProPay -- Recommended for U.S. Sellers
Xoom -- NOT RECOMMENDED
So out of that entire list there are only 2 that will let a US seller sell worldwide and are not listed as "Not Recommended". Moneybrokers and Propay.
I sell software on the internet and I've looked for alternatives to Paypal after having my account frozen.
Moneybrokers wanted some proof or license or something (I don't remember exactly this was years ago) to show that I had the right to sell my software. After a few less than helpful email exchanges I gave up on them.
Paypro, from their website, says you have to pay $60 a year to be able to accept all credit cards and you can only receive $3000 a month. This can be increased with a review of your credit and merchant history (if you have any). You can only accept Visa and $1000 a month with their regular plan.
I guarantee you if you get enough problem transactions any merchant is going to freeze your account and hold your funds for a few months to make sure they don't get screwed.
you forgot bags of weed, ass grass or cash is my moto
Hows that working on your website?
When Paypal freezes your account you get your money back in 6 months. This is so that Paypal can give refunds to anyone who requests one during the six month period.
Yeah, cause people who want to donate a few dollars are going to go through the hassle of sending a money order. Anyone accepting donations exclusively through the mail can expect their donations to decrease by WELL OVER half.
Unfortunately Paypal is really the only option for a lot of smaller sites for whom a merchant account is too much hassle and expense.
One concern is that each and every game developer will need to negotiate with each and every ISP to ensure their traffic achieves acceptable levels of latency for users.
Or in the case of private servers (where they still exist), every private server (or private server hosting company) would have to negotiate separate deals.
The Founding Fathers knew that there may come a time when the Constitution might need to be changed (like freedom for the slaves, which unfortunately was unfeasible at the time). That's what Constitutional Amendments are for.
These days the powers that be don't bother with silly, difficult things like passing Constitutional Amendments. Who's got the time to get that kind of massive nationwide majority?
It's much easier to convince a slim majority of the Legislature or Supreme Court that times have changed.
Commerce Clause? Whats that? The Commerce Clause is sooo 19th century.