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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

#171

Post by jacquesm »

sorbits wrote: post #169
jacquesm wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's pretty clear where the money is coming from and this post alone will get paypal to sort it immediately. I wouldn't bank on that. It's possible, but by no means sure. > But why do you have to be a celeb to get decent support from paypal? Consider the fact that he is a celebrity and does not get decent support, you can imagine how it is for the rest of the world. Especially when you're not in the US. > Freezing…

I am not in the US and I do have a dedicated account manager which I can call or write. He even calls me occasionally just to hear how things are. With >€600,000 in revenue since the 25th of August there is no doubt that this qualifies for an account manager. As for the blog post saying that “if they decide something bad’s being going on, they’re going to keep the money” — I think that must have been part of a misund…

> As for the blog post saying that “if they decide something bad’s being going on, they’re going to keep the money”

That's complete nonsense. I'm not aware of paypal never paying out money owed, they just drag their feet about it.

A 6 month holdback is enough to kill a smaller company, so it's bad enough.

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

#173

Post by flatulent1 »

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…

>PayPal is in the business of efficiently detecting and not paying for fraud.

I think it is likely that since PayPal has become an Ebay property, they are tighter with releasing funds to reduce their losses related to "Ebay Buyer Protection" on Ebay sales. On a sale where that protection is provided, a purchaser gets his money back from Ebay (which generally means paypal) when buyers have failed to deliver what was promised and failed to work out the problem directly.

So Ebay/PayPal needs/wants to be able to snatch the cash back. If the funds are held long enough, they're covered. I seem to recall Ebay recently updating their user agreement terms related to PayPal funds.

I doubt that PayPal is trying to rip off or upset customers. They're trying to combat various types of theft/fraud and do so without using much in the way of resources. They should be more transparent with whatever is going on though.

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

#174

Post by wallflower »

stuhacking wrote: post #76
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.

Fun gameplay is the key. For the rest, we have our imaginations. (I can't remember the last time a game scared me as much as when I fell down a pitch black cave and heard the groaning coming from all directions! :eek:) Edit: Sorry, I'm not trying to make a counterpoint, I agree with your statement.

Re: Fun/Imaginative gameplay.

Jason Rohrer

http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/jason-rohrer/

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

#175

Post by argv_empty »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #167
argv_empty wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can decry paypal's customer service, no doubt, but recognize that the root cause of these problems are all of the very real scammers who have abused the system and never make the news. If you discover that you have processed a fraudulent transaction, undoing it is quite understandable, but keeping the money for yourself (as per the link) is a pretty shady solution.

Fraud is not so simple. Step 1 is identifying a potentially fraudulent transaction. Most financial institutions put the breaks on any funds transfer in that case until a further investigation has completed, rather than merely reversing the previous operation (indeed, that would lead to an even greater adverse impact on false positive cases and would aid the fraudsters as well). If withdrawals from your bank account i…

Why not extend paypal the same courtesy?

From my previous post: "keeping the money for yourself (as per the link)"

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

#176

Post by dangrossman »

adrianwaj wrote: post #112
michaels0620 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it interesting that in limiting the account, they still allow deposits but not withdrawals along with a threat of keeping the money. If they were truly concerned about that something fraudulent was going on they would not allow people to deposit money in either.

I wonder how much money PayPal has made keeping so-called fraudulent money in their coffers.

PayPal doesn't keep money it freezes for risk checks. If they determine fraud, then the money is returned to the sender (usually by force, as the reason it was held was due to a chargeback or bank reversal). If there was no fraud, then it's paid out after a 6 month hold.

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

#178

Post by jemfinch »

jemfinch wrote: post #142
tedunangst wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> You are assuming that "better fraud detection" means "fraud detection that isn't triggered". It means "fraud detection that catches actual fraud and doesn't bother me otherwise. > Credit card companies aren't as concerned about as fraud because they don't lose money, the merchant loses money. Wrong. The merchant is indemnified against fraud and the CC company takes the loss if the merchant can show that they follow…

A note for those reading me above: I'm wrong. It turns out that merchants are stiffed in cases of CC fraud.

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

#179

Post by bosch »

When will:

1) Companies learn that to cheap out on the payment process and go through PayPal is stupid and things like this WILL happen. You deserve what happens when you go through PayPal as it means you either didn't research it's history or didn't listen to the warnings.

2) Customers learn not to do business with a company that is too cheap to setup their own payment process and not go through PayPal. By supporting business' that are using PayPal we allow the cycle to continue.

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

#180

Post by InclinedPlane »

argv_empty wrote: post #175
InclinedPlane wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fraud is not so simple. Step 1 is identifying a potentially fraudulent transaction. Most financial institutions put the breaks on any funds transfer in that case until a further investigation has completed, rather than merely reversing the previous operation (indeed, that would lead to an even greater adverse impact on false positive cases and would aid the fraudsters as well). If withdrawals from your bank account i…

Why not extend paypal the same courtesy? From my previous post: "keeping the money for yourself (as per the link) "

I addressed that. Do you not appreciate that when a bank freezes an account for fraud that it too is "keeping the money for itself"? Indeed, this is the appropriate course of action until a better determination of whether or not fraud is involved is made, whether you're Chase or PayPal.

Let me be more clear: what, precisely, makes you believe that when paypal freezes an account due to suspected fraud that it is more likely actually due to nefarious purposes on their part than when Chase or Bank of America or any other bank takes exactly the same actions for exactly the same reasons?

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