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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

#131

Post by bluelu »

Most of the paypal horror stories always relate to paypal users not providing or not willing to provide valid information to identify their accounts.

In Luxembourg (and paypal is a registred and regulated bank in Luxembourg), the government requires the bank to know it's customers identities, otherwise the bank is not allowed to do business with their customers. And an email will not be enough. You have to provide passports/identity cards.

And I guess that's what happens here. After a certain transaction amount, paypal requires more information than just an email address.

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

#132

Post by mey »

ergo98 wrote: post #128
jemfinch wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd much rather pay them through PayPal (where I can even pay from a bank account) than to give my CC numbers to some micro operation. Really? I certainly wouldn't. I have recourse with American Express. They have far better fraud detection than Paypal, in large part because they know my spending habits far better than Paypal does. On the single instance I've dealt AMEX's fraud detection, they called me before they…

>Really? I certainly wouldn't. I have recourse with American Express. When I pay with Paypal I have recourse with both Paypal AND my credit card. It doesn't remove that right. >Paypal, on the other hand, flagged a transaction as potentially fraudulent simply because I had the purchase shipped to my workplace Why is the fact that it's a well known Bay Area address of any significance at all? Paypal demands that shippe…

Not if you pay with Paypal through it connecting directly to your bank account.

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

#133

Post by pbhjpbhj »

jws wrote: post #119
houseabsolute wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their strategy for this seems to be to make people jump over a low paperwork barrier, then wait long enough that the payments have all cleared before they pay out. I wonder why they don't just do this by default? Personally I would not be offended at all if they just had a status on the payments called "waiting for payment to clear."

Consumers can reverse credit card payments up to six months out.

That's a product insurance system though isn't it, it's not clearing or failing to pay.

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

#134

Post by tedunangst »

jemfinch wrote: post #126
ergo98 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are exceedingly few global payment systems, almost none of which, from a consumer perspective, are as trustworthy and easy to use as PayPal: When it comes to small vendors, I'd much rather pay them through PayPal (where I can even pay from a bank account) than to give my CC numbers to some micro operation. PayPal, like all payment processors, deals with a large amount of fraud, yet they seem to manage to keep i…

> I'd much rather pay them through PayPal (where I can even pay from a bank account) than to give my CC numbers to some micro operation. Really? I certainly wouldn't. I have recourse with American Express. They have far better fraud detection than Paypal, in large part because they know my spending habits far better than Paypal does. On the single instance I've dealt AMEX's fraud detection, they called me before they…

You are assuming that "better fraud detection" means "fraud detection that isn't triggered". Credit card companies aren't as concerned about as fraud because they don't lose money, the merchant loses money. It costs them little to be lax.

Paypal loses their own money when they don't detect fraud. They can't afford to be lax.

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

#135

Post by tedunangst »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #133
jws wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumers can reverse credit card payments up to six months out.

That's a product insurance system though isn't it, it's not clearing or failing to pay.

If a transaction can be reversed, it hasn't cleared.

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

#136

Post by cma »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #133
jws wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumers can reverse credit card payments up to six months out.

That's a product insurance system though isn't it, it's not clearing or failing to pay.

If a merchant (paypal) has a high triggering rate on that insurance, the credit card company might raise their rates on that merchant.

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

#137

Post by tedunangst »

blasdel wrote: post #130
lotusleaf1987 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They probably also make a fortune on the interest accrued. I wonder if they defer to freezing accounts so easily is because they realize that it's easy money.

You would think so, and that was their original business plan — just make money off the float. Instead they ended up charging fees (30¢ + %3) to get to profitability.

I don't think the original business plan included credit card payments. You only ever put "real" money into your account, and in order to use the service you basically had to keep enough in there for them to float it. Adding credit card payments changed that. Notice that paypal still doesn't charge fees for payments that come straight from a bank account.

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

#138

Post by ergo98 »

lotusleaf1987 wrote: post #120
jdietrich wrote: post #68

We've been going around in circles with stories like this for years. In spite of all the horror stories, people are still using PayPal. That would indicate to me that either PayPal are exploiting a monopoly position, or there is a massive gap in the market for a fast, easy payment system that doesn't treat serious customers like dirt. I completely understand the Googley argument that you can't provide much customer s…

They probably also make a fortune on the interest accrued. I wonder if they defer to freezing accounts so easily is because they realize that it's easy money.

Firstly, no.

Secondly, most PayPal purchases happen through credit cards. Credit card companies hold onto the payments for up to 60 days, meaning PayPal is holding onto absolutely nothing.

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

#139

Post by weaksauce »

btilly wrote: post #78
jdietrich wrote: post #68

We've been going around in circles with stories like this for years. In spite of all the horror stories, people are still using PayPal. That would indicate to me that either PayPal are exploiting a monopoly position, or there is a massive gap in the market for a fast, easy payment system that doesn't treat serious customers like dirt. I completely understand the Googley argument that you can't provide much customer s…

That would indicate to me that either PayPal are exploiting a monopoly position, or there is a massive gap in the market for a fast, easy payment system that doesn't treat serious customers like dirt. You're missing the third possibility, which is that efficiently doing what PayPal requires requires "treating serious customers like dirt." PayPal is in the business of efficiently detecting and not paying for fraud. On…

Yeah seems plausible... Why not have a rate limit to how much you can take out of the account at a given time until they provide some kind of authentication that it is indeed you. An analog to that would be the ATM limit of $400/day and you can walk inside to get as much as you want out.(as long as the account does not have a daily limit for cash transactions.)

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

#140

Post by [deleted] »

btilly wrote: post #78
jdietrich wrote: post #68

We've been going around in circles with stories like this for years. In spite of all the horror stories, people are still using PayPal. That would indicate to me that either PayPal are exploiting a monopoly position, or there is a massive gap in the market for a fast, easy payment system that doesn't treat serious customers like dirt. I completely understand the Googley argument that you can't provide much customer s…

That would indicate to me that either PayPal are exploiting a monopoly position, or there is a massive gap in the market for a fast, easy payment system that doesn't treat serious customers like dirt. You're missing the third possibility, which is that efficiently doing what PayPal requires requires "treating serious customers like dirt." PayPal is in the business of efficiently detecting and not paying for fraud. On…

[deleted]
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