PayPal Freezes Cryptome's Account 253
grimwell sends in the news that after Cryptome's little run-in with Microsoft and NetSol, the activist site has now had its funds frozen by PayPal. Cryptome founder John Young notes, "Google lists thousands of instances of this asymmetrical high-handedness." "We have reviewed your PayPal Account, and due to the excessive risk involved, we would like to begin parting ways in a manner that is least disruptive to your business."
What's a Paypal? (Score:5, Interesting)
I have, and will continue to, refuse to conduct business with online entities that do not support a non-Paypal option. I have never used Paypal, and I don't anticipate that this will change.
Re:What's a Paypal? (Score:5, Insightful)
If this were a federally-regulated bank they would not be able to do this.
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I for one support PayPal's decision, not because I don't like Cryptome, but because they are a private business making a decision that the feel suits them best.
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Why you need to support, or even express your support?
True any private business can screw over its consumer, but why support this decission? Unless you are affilied with paypal there is no purpose. If you are, you should have declare it.
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I have no affiliation with PayPal.
I should have been clearer. I support their right to make this decision, and, if they were a federally regulated bank, they could have done the exact same thing. Read the info on Cryptome's site.
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Your choice.
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No kidding. lol
It's all good though. This is a good discussion (for the most part, I've been reading some other threads on this article) and I might wind up sourcing it for a future blog post (or possibly not, my audience also tends to include kids who don't need to see the objectionable language used by some).
The law that PayPal used to stop doing business with Cryptome is junk.
The reasons that PayPal used to stop doing business with Cryptome is junk.
The freeze on Cryptome's assets (aside from the refund o
Re:What's a Paypal? (Score:4, Insightful)
A similar question can be asked about the 98% of slashdot comments that consist of people's opinions who don't have a direct involvement with the subject. Sometimes people simply like to converse about a subject.
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I for one support PayPal's decision, not because I don't like Cryptome, but because they are a private business making a decision that the feel suits them best.
It's weird that you agree with a decision by a corporation just because it is a private entity. If they decided to bring a bulldozer over to your house and demolish it would you support that because "they are a private business making a decision that the feel suits them best"?
Re:What's a Paypal? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Is this a trick question?
Chuck Norris, of course.
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Results 1 - 10 of about 4,050,000 for buying us a mansion
"WHO WILL WIN!?!"
buying us a mansion
Re:What's a Paypal? (Score:5, Insightful)
That is ridiculous. Destroying private property is illegal, while Refusing to service someone is not. I don't know how you got modded Insightful.
For the sake of this argument, let's take the statement that Paypal froze their funds as being true (I know, this is Slashdot, where the summary is usually wrong). Refusing to give someone money that is rightfully theirs could be considered the equivalent of destroying their property. Giving them the money currently in their account and then refusing to accept any more payments is different from keeping money that was intended as a payment to them, not a payment to Paypal.
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Refusing to give someone money that is rightfully theirs could be considered the equivalent of destroying their property.
Umm... no. (*) The equivalent of wrongfully withholding someone's property, or- at a push- stealing it? Possibly, yeah.
The equivalent of actually destroying it? Not really. Not unless they run off and spend it on hookers and blow and don't have any other cash to pay it back with, otherwise... that's a bit silly.
(*) Well, I guess one has the right to "consider [anything] the equivalent" of anything else, but then you could say that dancing a jig to the music of Milli Vanilli was the "equivalent of destro
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Refusing to give someone money that is rightfully theirs could be considered the equivalent of destroying their property.
Umm... no. (*)
It's equivalent when viewed only from the perspective of the customer. Customer was deprived of their possession. Customer is not particularly concerned with whether Paypal now enjoys the possession, or if it was obliterated — nor has that distinction been made clear in TFA.
Paypal froze the assets. Perhaps afterwards Paypal put all the money in a big pile and burned it up? Unlikely, but also immaterial to the impact upon the customer.
OP's analogy boiled down to "would you continue supporting Paypal if
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For the sake of this argument, let's take the statement that Paypal froze their funds as being true (I know, this is Slashdot, where the summary is usually wrong).
I saw this on Friday at his site (http://www.cryptome.org) and he indeed did have his paypal account frozen. No assumption is required this time.
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nonetheless, if a company wanted to build (say) a shopping mall on your house, and you wouldn't sell, they may decide that the costs resulting from their bulldozing your house while you're on vacation are worth the payoff (ignoring the fact that you would still own the land underneath) and that it would therefore still be a sound business decision.
Re:What's a Paypal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Paypal may be able to refuse to do business with whomever they like but so do we. Every time Paypal pulls a stunt like this, we as private individuals have a right to call them on it.
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I'm not saying you don't. I'm calling them on it, too. I am refusing to do any further business with them. This is a very stupid stunt on their part, but they are legally entitled to do this stunt (rtfa and the saga on Cryptome's site). Does that make it right? No. The law is retarded and is known to be subverted. Does PayPal have the right to do this? Yes. It sucks, and I wish John was able to get those donations to help him with the costs for the site, but it doesn't change the fact that PayPal has a righ
Re:What's a Paypal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Paypal may be able to refuse to do business with whomever they like but so do we. Every time Paypal pulls a stunt like this, we as private individuals have a right to call them on it.
Oh yeah, this pisses me off too. Every time something like this happens, someone will say that they're a private business that has the right to do what it likes- but usually in the context of someone having criticised that company and expressed in a way that seemingly implies that any criticism of their actions runs counter to that principle.
They're entitled to conduct their business how they wish (within reason), and they're entitled to ignore the negative opinions. But they're *not* entitled to expect protection from legitimate criticism, opinion and discussion expressed by others, nor from the effects of such criticism on them if they choose to ignore it.
Same with "you think XXXX product sucks? No-one was putting a gun to your head and making you buy it!" type posts. No- the company is free to sell a products, and people are free to buy it- and others are equally free to express their opinion and advice as they see fit. They don't like that? Tough.
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Whilst I strongly disagree with both DarkKnightRadick's stance on TFA issue and his(/her?) "reasoning" (I say that an immoral private business DOES deserve moral opposition, but NOT legal opposition, at least not beyond an individual's legal obligations), but using e-psychoanalysis is a fairly stupid thing to do. Firstly, it's an ad hominem attack; in some circles, this means you automatically lose (like Godwin). Secondly, if I (or someone else) were to e-psychoanalyse YOU, it would end up being something l
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Rush? Wow. This is the first time I've actually defended "the powerful". Personally I don't like PayPal. After this stunt, I will not be using them.
I do defend their right to do business with whomever they wish (and not to do business with whomever they wish). That's all my support is for. The law they used is retarded and ineffective and was just an excuse to make life harder for John. If you go to Cryptome's site, you can see he isn't crying over this and neither should we. OTOH, we should take our e-paym
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What a laughable comparison.
If you had read about the saga on Cryptome, you would learn that if John had waited the six months, he would have had those funds dispersed to him. Instead, he chose to refund those who donated and cease doing business with Paypal.
All PayPal did was decide to stop doing business with him completely (for whatever reason).
No they wouldn't... But they *would* be able (Score:3, Funny)
If this were a federally-regulated bank they would not be able to do this.
to bring the American Economy to it's knees instead.
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Banks do this all the time. Any merchant provider can stop your processing and withhold all your money due to "risk" at any time.
Federally-regulated means nothing.
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A start-up in the US recently had their account withheld by Citibank because of the content of some YouTube videos on their blog. This sort of situation isn't unique to PayPal.
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Yeah, but they would get free money (aka “bailouts”) instead.
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Re:What's a Paypal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Be careful what you wish for; "regulation" isn't the answer here, it's a big part of the problem.
Because nothing ever bad came from letting banks do whatever they want.
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well what's the bad stuff that's happened? refering to the recent crash? well let's look, fed lowers interest rates (aka prints money and gives it to banks), banks gamble with free money, lose, then federal government buys them out. Who's really at fault here? not to mention we encouraged banks to lend to more people. Bubble created, bubble popped. and not all banks did gamble. we should have let those who were responsible, acquire the assets of those who weren't. but instead, we prop up the irrespon
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I saw a rather nice quotation regarding this some time ago. To paraphrase from memory:
The financial crash shows that capitalism does work to regulate banks; if they take too much risk they eventually lose out, lose all their money and go bankrupt, exactly what is meant to happen to companies that are poorly run in a capitalist economy.
Pure capitalism works, as long as you are willing to accept that the way it regulates itself is through disaster.
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The financial crash shows that capitalism does work to regulate banks; if they take too much risk they eventually lose out, lose all their money and go bankrupt, exactly what is meant to happen to companies that are poorly run in a capitalist economy. Pure capitalism works, as long as you are willing to accept that the way it regulates itself is through disaster.
In pure capitalism all the people with savings would be the bank's creditors during the bankruptcy negotiations. Since all they'd take over would be rotten loans and foreclosures, people would lose most of their savings. But because that'd create mass mayhem and the general collapse of the banking system their losses are covered by taking money from everyone else. So what if they go bankrupt? They gamble and if they win they cash out in stock options, dividends, bonuses and salaries. If they lose, they fold
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"profit is personal, loss is social" or something like that. Not sure where i first read it tho.
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Fixed that for you. (Can't fix the US banking system, though.)
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Not entirely accurate... the federal government FORCED some of these banks to make bad loans that the banks normally would not have done. This falls firmly in the lap of Barney Franks and a few others.
I agree with earlier post that regulation is part of the problem. Yes, some laws need to exist to minimize unethical behavior, most especially when one party is harming another and the harmed party either did not know in advance or was strong-armed into it. Beyond that, the free market system works when the
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"fed lowers interest rates (aka prints money and" loans it "to banks), banks gamble with" money they borrowed from the fed ", lose, then federal government " loans the banks more money to free up credit and get the economy moving. "Who's really at fault here? not to mention we encouraged banks to lend to more people. Bubble created, bubble popped. and not all banks did gamble. we should have let those who were responsible, acquire the assets of those who weren't. but instead, we prop up the irresponsible ba
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...and nothing bad ever came of allowing public and private interests merging in a joint effort against their common foe: individual liberty.
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Christ, wake up. Haven't you been paying attention for the past year and a half? Letting banks do whatever they want has /devastated/ not just the American economy, but economies all over the world.
Bad thinks /do/ happen when you let banks do whatever they want, no matter what you personally may believe. You think nothing bad ever came from letting banks do whatever they want? Either you're just not paying attention, you're willfully ignorant, or you're functionally mentally broken.
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And regulation never stopped them. We have plenty of regulations on banks, and take a look at their condition right now. Regulation didn't prevent the recent collapses.
And I'll bet you're going to simply suggest we haven't regulated them enough. Which is exactly how tyrants rule.
Re:What's a Paypal? (Score:5, Informative)
And regulation never stopped them. We have plenty of regulations on banks, and take a look at their condition right now. Regulation didn't prevent the recent collapses.
This is the exact opposite of the truth. In the late 1998, congress moved to weaken the Glass-Steagall [wikipedia.org] act, which prevented banks from engaged in the risky securities trading that got them in trouble and caused this recent financial implosion. The Glass-Steagall act was passed after Great Depression when banks got themselves into exactly the same sorts of trouble they are in right now.
In short, regulations kept exactly the situation we're in now from happening for some 70 years. Yes, regulations do work. Not just any arbitrary hammerings, but rules specifically designed to prevent bad, foolish things from happening. If the Glass-Steagall act had been in effect this whole time, we would have never had the tarp and never had to bail out the banks. The old rules didn't apply any longer, and the bankers went nuts dreaming up ever more clever schemes to make money out of nothing. The banking sector lacked regulation.
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Up here in Canada, our banks are on a much tighter leash.
As soon as our current PM (Harper) got in, he set about righting things - as in, granting more leeway, and doing it the American way. That was right in time for the economy to collapse, so he then bailed the banks out to the tune of 60 billion.
It's certainly less than your trillions, but it's moments like this where I'm glad we have minor left-wing parties blocking all the bad shit he's trying to pass.
The big problem about American companies is they'r
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banks were pressured by lawsuit and by certain congressmen
Nice red herring you've got there. Too bad more than half the bad loans were made by mortgage companies like ditech.com (you might also know them as "GM") who had shitloads of cash and no regulations on what to do with it.
If there was any one thing that caused the economy to implode, it was the ability to securitize those mortgages. Once that happened, all those mortgage companies and banks and rating agencies all lied about how much those mortgage
fool (Score:5, Informative)
as long as there are fools like you who naively believe that crap, we can get out of this mess.
1 million americans risked losing their homes. lets say these were bought from $500,000 at the market's prime. now their value is devalued to $300,000. it makes $200,000 per house difference. multiply it with 1 million houses at risk, it makes $300 bn. it means that the total loss from this was $300 bn.
go even further, and TRIPLE the risk. make it $900 bn.
america itself provided more than $1.2 trillion to banks. europe provided similar ~$1 trillion amount. switzerland and other countries provided separate amounts to their banks.
it means that as of now, the governments worldwide covered approx SEVEN times the loss in this crisis.
then WHY the fuck we are not getting out of it ? despite ALL potential losses are covered in multiples ?
BECAUSE IT ISNT A HOUSING CRISIS.
it is a crisis of investment tools. the banks have created bonds indexed on these houses, and then moved to create EXTRA assets indexed on those bonds and so on. in the end, they created WATER VAPOR assets, which were traded at around SIXTY times the entire worth of all houses they were based upon.
this means wall street banks peddled worthless paper that is inflated over SIXTY times of what value they should have to people around the world. even leaving aside the big fraud that is creating derived assets over other derived assets in the first place.
and the SOLE reason this has happened is, because bush administration left banks unregulated, didnt even touch them, and let them do this immense fraud. while whole world has been trusting that since usa was a G5 country, its banking and finance mechanisms would work properly. it didnt. because fraud was allowed.
as said, as long as there are fools like you who still doesnt know how they really been screwed, and as long as there are fools like the one modded you insightful, this fraud is bound to repeat.
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Actually, that's not *quite* the whole story. What REALLY happened was the federal government pressured banks to make loans to "under-represented" groups who didn't meet normal lending criteria, then got Fannie Mae to insure those loans. The thing is, the banks eventually realized that the federal government's MOTIVE was encouraging loans to "under-represented" borrowers, but they weren't necessarily LIMITED to taking advantage of the relaxed underwriting criteria for members of those groups. They also lear
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Are you sure? I decided a decade ago that I was better off without PayPal. I haven't regretted the decision...except, occasionally, when some site that I'd like to support only accepts support through PayPal. Then I go, "O, Well", sigh, and move on.
PayPal was a great idea, but I've been hearing things about them for over a decade that say "You're probably better off not dealing with these creeps."
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The thing is, in Europe, wire payments seem to work quite well for this sort of thing.
It's just that here, domestic wire payments only make sense for transfers in the thousands of dollars.
I'm going to assume wire transfers are a bit cheaper in Europe too.
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And if you moderate based on what's in a sig, you don't need to have mod points to start with.
Re:What's a Paypal? (Score:4, Informative)
It's the merchants that really get shafted...
I noticed that paypal is really the only option for selling software in the webos appstore. That's pretty depressing imo.
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Then you are in trouble and have to explain that to the seller.
"I tried to pay through PayPal but it didn't work, here's the error message I got. Not that it inconvenienced you in any way, Mr. Seller, because you wouldn't send an item without receiving payment first." Doesn't sound all that troubling.
I've never heard of these limits, but it sounds like the kind of dirty trick PayPal would do. Not that opening an unverified account to buy things costs you anything, as long as all you ever link to it is a credit card and not a transaction account.
Re:What's a Paypal? (Score:4, Insightful)
PayPal is inexpensive and most people never have an issue with the service.
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Alternatives? (Score:2, Interesting)
I have, and will continue to, refuse to conduct business with online entities that do not support a non-Paypal option. I have never used Paypal, and I don't anticipate that this will change.
I know people hate PayPal (and for good reason), but there is one reason why I continue to use PayPal for my web sales: the PayPal debit card, which means that I have near instant access my my received funds. It works great for me since I sell physical products, so if my cash flow is low, I can take the money from an order and immediately use it to purchase more inventory. I have Google checkout and Amazon Payments accounts that I can use for backup, but both of those hold on to your money for a set period;
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Until they hold your money hostage.
Sure they can give it to you freely, but they could also freeze your funds for months based on suspicion.
I have near instant access to my funds and I use a check card. It is called a bank and mine has functioned like that for ages.
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Until they hold your money hostage.
True, which is why I would love to hear about alternatives.
I have near instant access to my funds and I use a check card. It is called a bank and mine has functioned like that for ages.
The bank that holds my business account takes 24 hours to clear an in-state check and 48-72 hours to clear an out of state check. They also don't offer website cc processing. If you know of a Massachusetts bank that offers that service, I'd love to hear it.
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**I can take the money from an order and immediately use it to purchase more inventory.**
No, you can't. That's kiting, and it's a major felony in the construction business. You must FIRST fill the order before you can use that money.
You're assuming (wrongly) that I'm not filling the order first.
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Re:What's a Paypal? (Score:4, Informative)
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Do you advocate the raping of females that wear short skirts also?
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Lucky bastard. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd give anything to get a letter from PayPal like that. For us mere mortals, it takes about 30 click-throughs to close an account. PayPal is the Worst Thing In The World.
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Oh, and if you don't have a credit card associated with it, but you have a balance of even $1.20, first you have to associate it with a credit card to establish...something.. about your claim to the pittance, then you can begin the closeout process...
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Oh great. (Score:3, Interesting)
We just donated a few weeks ago... I really hope that money doesn't end up in Paypal's pockets.
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Per Cryptome - all donations have been refunded.
Regardless of what happened, it wouldn't have ended up in Paypal's pockets, in the long term (although as other /. comments note - it can be in excess of 6 months). Either it gets refunded, or it eventually is unfrozen.
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Their T & C say they can even keep the money without refund, so interest is the last of your worries.
(the Xorg foundation lost $5k in this manner.)
Paypal AUP only states sales of infringing goods (Score:3, Informative)
Paypals AUP states as part of its AUP "prohibited activities" that you may not receive payments relating to the *sales* of goods that "infringe or violate any copyright, trademark, right of publicity or privacy or any other proprietary right under the laws of any jurisdiction". Keyword here being sales. Given that cryptome does not actually sell anything and paypal is used for donations only makes this act by paypal to be somewhat unwarranted I would have thought. Even tho companies tend to do as they please. Will be interested to see what happens.
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PayPal, being a business, also has the right to refuse any business they want.
Freezing funds gets screwy, though.
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PayPal, being a business, also has the right to refuse any business they want.
Freezing funds gets screwy, though.
They lose a big chunk of that right when they spell out, in a TOS, what they can and cannot do. If they do outside those bounds they, just like users, are in violation of that agreement.
Re:Paypal AUP only states sales of infringing good (Score:4, Insightful)
PayPal, being a business, also has the right to refuse any business they want.
That is true. But this is money they have already accepted from Cryptome's donors that PayPal is stealing.*
*Even if they eventually give the money back, they are stealing the use of the funds for half a year. I'd accept a different word if they pay Cryptome interest at the prime rate.
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Businesses have no right to break the law. PayPal thinks the laws do not apply to them.
We need to be expanding the boycott of PayPal and the boycott of businesses that use PayPal as the only means to pay. Maybe we should also go further and boycott those that merely include PayPal as one of the options.
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There's always Google checkout.
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Not if it is a contract they don't. The GP might be a bit pedantic with the AUP but it does bring up questions regarding Paypal's doings in this case.
Re:Paypal AUP only states sales of infringing good (Score:5, Informative)
Yes you do. Unless specifically configured to do otherwise, funds transferred to your PayPal account will remain there as available balance.
Paypal and fraud... (Score:5, Interesting)
Here is a lovely site for some light reading... http://www.paypalsucks.com/ [paypalsucks.com]
Also an interesting story on a new scam in Boston on a scam using facebook, twitter, and Paypal http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/03/6000_fall_prey.html [boston.com]
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A list of various alternatives would be fine. But just the one, it passes discredit to the whole site. Are the stories even real?
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I don't know if the stories on that site are real, but the stories in general are. I've been a customer of more than 1 company that got screwed by Paypal.
Strategic Attack On Banks? (Score:4, Interesting)
Donations only service (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't want an alternative to payapl to buy stuff, because plastic cards work for that or postal money orders, that's the existing alternative, but an online "donations only" service, so it could be used for micro or "minimal" payments would be interesting. Something with a much smaller transaction fee, and geared to only non profit orgs to receive funding. The service itself could/should be a non profit org as well.
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There needs to be an alternative for small businesses and regular folk to collect money, something that has no monthly fee and only takes a small percentage (the smaller the better, obviously) of the transaction. No one has come up with anything to replace paypal for this. Why, I don't know, given that paypal seems to be inviting competition by pissing so many people off.
This sucks, but is it wrong? (Score:2)
This definitely sucks for cryptome. But has PayPal actually done anything wrong?
It seems to me that PayPal isn't trying to be evil here; rather, they made a business decision that cryptome wasn't an organization they wanted to do business with. Businesses make such decisions every day -- car rental companies in Canada, for example, often refuse to rent cars to anyone under age 25 -- so why is it different when PayPal does the same thing?
(For the record, my company only takes payments via PayPal, but I'm e
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It would only be the same thing if the car company agreed to rent a car to you, took a week's worth of rental from you in cash, then said that since you were under 25 they were prohibited by policy to rent the car to you. Furthermore they would be holding your cash for six months while they investigated why you w
Just dont use Network Solutions. (Score:2)
it is one of the bad reputation registrars in such cases, along with godaddy and 1&1. they should have gone with a more reliable and by the book registrar like enom
Simple suggestion (Score:2)
we would like to begin parting ways in a manner that is least disruptive to your business.
Well, they could start by NOT grabbing the money for 180 days. I wonder how paypal would feel about it if someone held onto money owed to them for 180 days just because they could.
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When a company gets big enough to start pushing people around willy nilly, it's big enough to invite antitrust scrutiny.
Wire transfer (Score:2)
If the possibility existed, I'd wire them €50 in a moment, and wouldn't even mind €10 fees...
Here we are again (Score:3, Insightful)
... didn't this just happen to Wikileaks?
Paypal may not be evil in all cases (Score:4, Informative)
I dont know the specifics of this case but in some cases they may do the "freeze the account until a full ID check has been done" because they have detected activity that would require the filing of a US government "suspicious activity report". Because normal PayPal sign-up does not involve carrying out the ID check you get with regular banks, anytime transactions happen that would require a SAR (which requires disclosing full details of the account holder), PayPal has to freeze the account and conduct the ID check so they can file the SAR.
Any transaction over $10,000 requires a SAR, as does a series of transactions between A and B that total to more than $10,000. There are other triggers but I cant find any sources of info on those.
Try GunPal Instead (Score:4, Informative)
Capitalist Response (Score:2)
I suspect it will happen when it becomes profitable to do so. Until then, we'll just complain about PayPal.
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Google checkout works rather well. All you have to do is associate it with a bank account. You don't have to setup a 'store.' But can just send e-mail invoices instead.
Any time I sell something on line, I write up a short description, drop in the e-mail address and amount and they get an invoice they can pay with their credit card. Now I can't just 'send' someone money, but that's really not been a big problem for me.
Re:When? (Score:5, Interesting)
A viable alternative already exists - Just use your bank as a CC payment processor.
My father runs a small business (under half a million gross per year), and about two years ago discovered that his bank would handle everything for a quite reasonable fee - About the same as he previously paid just to take Visa, and, as a bonus, he can accept the dreaded American Express (as well as just about any major CC) that so many small businesses refuse to touch (meaning he can accept corporate and government business, which tend to use AmEx almost exclusively).
If you expect mostly a lot of very small transactions (such as a typical web site "tip" jar), that model might not work so well. But if you sell anything best measured in "dollars" rather than "cents", it seems like a no-brainer.
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There have been a lot of attempts to compete with PayPal, but becoming "viable" is rather difficult; PayPal is already integrated with thousands of sites, including eBay, and used by millions of people. That's a huge advantage, meaning that anyone wanting to compete has to be willing to operate at a loss for a long time while trying to tempt people away from PayPal. The fact that no-one has succeeded in dethroning PayPal despite its terrible reputation and despite numerous services offering substantial cost
When ebay allow them to. (Score:2)
It's simple. Ebay paypal. You want to replace paypal you gonna have to use (and persuade everyone else to use) a different auction site.
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AFAIK Google Checkout is limited to the US