For those thinking this has something to do with "regulation", it does not. Paypal has done this sort of thing for years. In the past it has been the "cyberlockers" and VPN services, even Wikileaks. Someone is putting soft pressure on Paypal. Someone in government or, more likely, someone within the copyright-lobby is threatening them. That has been the pattern in the past.
“PayPal has demanded that we monitor data traffic as well as customers’ files”
291–300 of 348 posts
Re: “PayPal has demanded that we monitor data traffic as well as customers’ files”
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that there have been issues like this for porn sites in the past, because they have significant chargeback rates - to the point where man payment processes won't deal with them.
I've run into this issue in the past, but I also can't blame them. Has everyone forgotten the early 2000s when porn sites would use 0-days to embed dialers in your computer to rack up huge dial-up charges? Or offer you 'trial' memberships and make it very very difficult to cancel? Visa and MasterCard eventually stepped in and made the banks do extra legwork for the porn sites. That had to leave a bad impression on th…
you're mixing up a lot there.
porn sites either charged you or installed dialers, not both.
and the charge backs on the legit ones were so high because the operators for the scammy ones needed to sign up, download everything, get his money back, and serve you the stolen content.
Re: “PayPal has demanded that we monitor data traffic as well as customers’ files”
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also, the UN bank can threaten to kick out your central/federal bank too. Also an interesting example of bank politics is that Khadaffi made several laws in Libya against UN bank rules, for example providing loans with infinite term and zero interest for newlyweds. During the civil war, one of the first things the rebels did was create a central bank in Misrata, pledge loyalty to UN and then redquest to be recognized…
> the UN bank can threaten to kick out your central/federal bank too This does not exist. Central banks interface with each other. The closest thing to what you're describing is the European Central Bank. > pledge loyalty to UN This is gibberish. One can be recognised by the United Nations (UN). One can also, by accepting its Charter and paying one's fees, become a UN Member. But there is no pledging of fielty involv…
You never heard of World Bank, BIS, FSB, whatnot?
Re: “PayPal has demanded that we monitor data traffic as well as customers’ files”
#294Earlier quoted context omitted.
Welcome to the world of financial regulations! You may have not realised but banks and any financial institutions have been deputised by the regulators to be the financial police. They need to ensure that none of their client use financial services to commit crimes or launder the proceeds of a crime, under the penalty of heavy (up to multi billions) fines. Particularly in the US. I am pretty sure this is what is forc…
Crimes. Yes. But payday loan companies and credit cards that charge 29% interest plus hundreds of dollars in feeds to "help people with poor credit" are fine. Supporting US government entities in defense that kill tons of innocent people every day; that's fine too. Self regulating? Man that works so well, especially in 2008. We're going to let you keep doing that too. Weed stores in states where it's legal? Hi it's t…
Right, all those bad things you mentioned are not crimes, because we have not passed laws against them.
Re: “PayPal has demanded that we monitor data traffic as well as customers’ files”
#295Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd like to recommend the bank Number26. They're german and operate across most of europe. https://number26.eu/ Seriously , if you're european, try these guys out - they're worth it.
You saying that they operate across most of europe and if you're european, try these guys out . Then their own site having lines like Your bank account just as mobile as you are. and Banking everywhere made me think for a moment that they may actually offer their services across Europe. Not the case. Digging deeper [1] we can find this: The only conditions are that you're at least 18 years old and have a residential…
I assume their landing page is not up to date.
https://support.number26.eu/read/000001280?locale=en
Pretty sure they have customers in Ireland (some discussion about stamp duty on debit cards few months ago)
Re: “PayPal has demanded that we monitor data traffic as well as customers’ files”
#296Earlier quoted context omitted.
The law is very complicated, but it generally gives regulators that actual power. They can make demands to specific banks. They can even make demands to specific banking systems; like, a regulator can go to a bank and say "You need to make your AML system do Y instead of X." And the bank has to do it or they end up like HSBC. In fact, that was exactly why HSBC was fined billions. Regulators told them to do specific t…
Are you sure that is "all" that HSBC did? Your explanation seems very simplified. e.g. from https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/dec/14/hsbc-money-... "In some branches the boxes of cash being deposited were so big the tellers' windows had to be enlarged."
It's considered a given that money laundering occurs at every big bank. It's impossible not to happen at an organization of that size.
This entire subthread is about how AML is enforced. Specifically, it's enforced by regulators doing whatever they feel they need to do. The punishment wasn't for money laundering, it's for money laundering in a manner that obedience, according to the regulators, would have caught.
For international banks, it's especially arbitrary because regulations are so loose overseas. In the UK it's very easy to move small amounts anonymously. This is routinely used for small-time laundering by organized crime and banks are fully aware of it. The long arm of US law goes after UK banks handling Mexican dirty money, but not UK banks handling UK dirty money. A lot of what constitutes "illegal money laundering" is actually political.
Re: “PayPal has demanded that we monitor data traffic as well as customers’ files”
#297Earlier quoted context omitted.
What about debit cards? I mean, you don't carry cash around all the time do you?
I do now that I live near Nuremberg, which is one of the safest cities in the world, but it was a hard thing to get used to, as I went to college in a US city rather infamous for its crime. Surprisingly large restaurants in Nuremberg do not take credit cards. A lot of German and Austrian small business owners see no good reason to pay the credit card companies the ~3% fee when most of their customers are perfectly ha…
>A lot of German and Austrian small business owners see no good reason to pay the credit card companies the ~3% fee when most of their customers are perfectly happy to settle a 500 EUR bill in cash.
Well, and mostly to avoid paying taxes. Card acceptance cost is down to under 1% since last year and often depositing money costs more.
There is no requirement for proper cash registers here in Germany, so card acceptance remains low in small businesses.
Re: “PayPal has demanded that we monitor data traffic as well as customers’ files”
#298Earlier quoted context omitted.
Welcome to the world of financial regulations! You may have not realised but banks and any financial institutions have been deputised by the regulators to be the financial police. They need to ensure that none of their client use financial services to commit crimes or launder the proceeds of a crime, under the penalty of heavy (up to multi billions) fines. Particularly in the US. I am pretty sure this is what is forc…
Crimes. Yes. But payday loan companies and credit cards that charge 29% interest plus hundreds of dollars in feeds to "help people with poor credit" are fine. Supporting US government entities in defense that kill tons of innocent people every day; that's fine too. Self regulating? Man that works so well, especially in 2008. We're going to let you keep doing that too. Weed stores in states where it's legal? Hi it's t…
> Self regulating? Man that works so well, especially in 2008.
What self regulating existed in 2008? Banking and finance have been hyper regulated for decades. There are no industries more regulated than those. There was no self-regulating and you won't be able to point to any substantial self-regulating that caused the housing bubble and crash (unless you're talking about the Fed's low interest rate policies). The SEC, Fed, FHA, CFPB, and Treasury were intentionally looking the other way while vast fraud was occurring because all of the voters were getting rich off of housing and stock market bubbles. The Fed was laughing during their meetings about the bubble, you can read the minutes today.
Oh yeah, and guess what, housing is higher today than it was at the bubble peak (and so is the stock market mini-bubble today). So are we self-regulated again now? Nope, we're even more regulated now, with all the big banks directly and strictly under control of the Fed; it all has to do with artificially low interest rates, which is universally understood at this point - the Fed now openly admits to creating asset inflation to try to spur the economy.
Re: “PayPal has demanded that we monitor data traffic as well as customers’ files”
#299> PayPal has demanded that we monitor data traffic as well as all our customers’ files for illegal content. They have also asked us to provide them with detailed statistics about the files types of our customers sync and share on https://app.seafile.de That's a pretty big WTF right there. I know PayPal has a on overall pretty scummy reputation, but I still I cannot imagine PayPal doing this because they themselves th…
Welcome to the world of financial regulations! You may have not realised but banks and any financial institutions have been deputised by the regulators to be the financial police. They need to ensure that none of their client use financial services to commit crimes or launder the proceeds of a crime, under the penalty of heavy (up to multi billions) fines. Particularly in the US. I am pretty sure this is what is forc…
[deleted]
Re: “PayPal has demanded that we monitor data traffic as well as customers’ files”
#300I use PayPal often for online stores where my Discover card isnt accepted but I cant believe they are still around and have a huge market share. The platform is so broken.
For me it's the opposite, i never use Paypal because i keep reading evil stories about them - i don't want to support a company which behaves like this...