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Paypal is holding over 600,000 euros from the minecraft developer

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Re: Paypal is holding over 600,000 euros from the minecraft developer

#31

Post by drtse4 »

laverick wrote: post #21
drtse4 wrote: post #2

Another Paypal horror story added to the list. If someone was wondering (as i did), no, he didn't let 600k on his paypal account. That's what he's earned since they limited his account 25th august. See http://twitter.com/Toucanator/status/24089600756 and http://twitter.com/xnotch/statuses/24089647124 . EDIT: Minecraft complete steam sales data,amazing: http://m00d.net/minecraft/sales/

So he's sold 60k prepurchases at EUR 9.95 in a little over two weeks?! Holy cow. Found some stats - http://www.minecraft.net/stats.jsp

This game is nearly everyday on the front-page of reddit/digg/etc... , and a lot of people are making youtube videos of their creations. With all this web coverage he doesn't need to spend money in advertising :).

A game that makes people build something (even if useless, it's still a game) and make it easy to share, instead of bovinely click around like in Zynga's games. Recipe for success?

Re: Paypal is holding over 600,000 euros from the minecraft developer

#32

Post by die_sekte »

pmichaud wrote: post #19
smutticus wrote: post #7

I bought Minecraft so I guess part of this money is/was mine. I never understand why people still use Paypal. There are so many horror stories and so many alternatives. Just don't use them.

What alternatives?

There's Google Checkout and Amazon Payments, neither of which work outside the US. There's also AlertPay, which is apparently used by IPREDator and which is sometimes used by 7chan. I'm not sure whether I trust them more than PayPal.

Re: Paypal is holding over 600,000 euros from the minecraft developer

#33

Post by mkr-hn »

jimbokun wrote: post #28
shin_lao wrote: post #4

The "paypal blocked my money" stories are frequent. I'm curious to which extent this is legal. I'm pretty sure a bank isn't allowed to block access to your accounts without a formal request from a legal entity. Paypal doesn't "own" the money. This sounds to me as extremely abusive. Is that this frequent?

Can anyone explain how PayPal is not constantly in court defending against class action law suits? No lawyer anywhere has considered the possibility of a massive payout from representing all of the clients over the world whose money PayPal has swallowed without explanation? Or, somehow, PayPal has managed to craft contracts so legally airtight that they can do absolutely anything with anyone's money with absolutely n…

Anyone with the money and will to tangle with Paypal has the clout to get enough attention to make Paypal change their mind.

Re: Paypal is holding over 600,000 euros from the minecraft developer

#34

Post by [deleted] »

jimbokun wrote: post #28
shin_lao wrote: post #4

The "paypal blocked my money" stories are frequent. I'm curious to which extent this is legal. I'm pretty sure a bank isn't allowed to block access to your accounts without a formal request from a legal entity. Paypal doesn't "own" the money. This sounds to me as extremely abusive. Is that this frequent?

Can anyone explain how PayPal is not constantly in court defending against class action law suits? No lawyer anywhere has considered the possibility of a massive payout from representing all of the clients over the world whose money PayPal has swallowed without explanation? Or, somehow, PayPal has managed to craft contracts so legally airtight that they can do absolutely anything with anyone's money with absolutely n…

[deleted]

Re: Paypal is holding over 600,000 euros from the minecraft developer

#35

Post by div »

I wonder what someone's legal recourse is in a situation like this. I mean what gives Paypal the right to claim 'suspicious activity, your money is ours' without having to provide some kind of evidence.

And IF something is a legitimate case of fraud, aren't they required to simply freeze the assets and turn the account holder over to the appropriate authorities ?

It's hard to imagine that this type of due process can be waived simply by having agreed to certain terms & conditions.

Re: Paypal is holding over 600,000 euros from the minecraft developer

#36

Post by [deleted] »

div wrote: post #35

I wonder what someone's legal recourse is in a situation like this. I mean what gives Paypal the right to claim 'suspicious activity, your money is ours' without having to provide some kind of evidence. And IF something is a legitimate case of fraud, aren't they required to simply freeze the assets and turn the account holder over to the appropriate authorities ? It's hard to imagine that this type of due process can…

[deleted]

Re: Paypal is holding over 600,000 euros from the minecraft developer

#37

Post by jacquesm »

[deleted] wrote: post #34
jimbokun wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can anyone explain how PayPal is not constantly in court defending against class action law suits? No lawyer anywhere has considered the possibility of a massive payout from representing all of the clients over the world whose money PayPal has swallowed without explanation? Or, somehow, PayPal has managed to craft contracts so legally airtight that they can do absolutely anything with anyone's money with absolutely n…

[deleted]

I've had this happen to me with $50K and it wasn't 'lies or made up' in that case, I suspect most of them are much like mine.

You realize you're up against a giant in a foreign country that says they'll release your funds in 6 months time. So rather than spend 50 K on American lawyers and end up with nothing even if you win you grit your teeth and get on with your job vowing to never use the service again. And they did pay out after 6 months.

In my case I've not even managed to stand by my vow because I had to pay a few people using paypal. But I'm no longer accepting paypal payments myself and I would advise everybody to keep their account balances as low as possible.

Re: Paypal is holding over 600,000 euros from the minecraft developer

#38

Post by ido »

buster wrote: post #24

What.. just bought Minecraft last week, awesome :) Hope he gets this sorted out.. Also i think it's quite interesting to see one person making such an amount of money with an alpha version of a game that has not much content and graphics from the last century but fun gameplay. EA and friends should learn from this.

He was recently visiting Bethesda, Valve & Bungie - seems like "friends" are already learning :)

Re: Paypal is holding over 600,000 euros from the minecraft developer

#39

Post by [deleted] »

jacquesm wrote: post #37
[deleted] wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

I've had this happen to me with $50K and it wasn't 'lies or made up' in that case, I suspect most of them are much like mine. You realize you're up against a giant in a foreign country that says they'll release your funds in 6 months time. So rather than spend 50 K on American lawyers and end up with nothing even if you win you grit your teeth and get on with your job vowing to never use the service again. And they d…

[deleted]

Re: Paypal is holding over 600,000 euros from the minecraft developer

#40

Post by gnaffle »

helium wrote: post #8

I'm building a website that I would like to launch soon and were planning on selling digital goods. My initial idea was to just use the PayPal shopping cart, since I already have a PayPal account and it so easy to set up(I definitely don't want to go through the hassle of setting up a merchant account). But all these horror stories I have read on HN the last few days have scared me a bit. I also seems that its even w…

Yes, for instance WorldPay and others, see: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2556/whats-the-best-onlin...

You'll usually have to pay monthly fees, and some will keep your money for some weeks before they release them, to cover for chargebacks. But as mentioned earlier, as soon as you have enough sales to cover the cost, switch to something other than PayPal. NEVER let it become your only source of income.

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