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WePay Drops 600lbs of ice in front of PayPal Conference

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Re: WePay Drops 600lbs of ice in front of PayPal Conference

#111

Post by billclerico »

paraschopra wrote: post #87
csallen wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Personally, I wouldn't do business with an organization that doesn't respect its competitors. It seems every month someone is posting about their money being held hostage or outright stolen by PayPal. Most of these complaints are from well-known bloggers/engineers/HN members, so I can only imagine how many people without a voice online are getting screwed. When you're dealing with people's money, you have a strong…

> Why should WePay have respect for a competitor that doesn't respect its own customers? A company has to have its own culture of respect irrespective of what culture its competitors have. No where in my comment did I say that I admire Paypal's practices. I just said I found what WePay did a bit naive and a cheap trick. It has nothing to do with Paypal HNers: just because you disagree with a comment doesn't mean that…

we here at wepay have a tremendous amount of respect for paypal. they have built a huge business, growing at 27% per year, with large margins and nearly a hundred billion dollars in annual payment volume.

however - we do vehemently disagree with the way they treat their customers and won't pull punches when we express ourselves about a topic we care dearly about

Re: WePay Drops 600lbs of ice in front of PayPal Conference

#112

Post by billclerico »

ahi wrote: post #91
ahi wrote: post #85

For my purposes WePay is close to being a perfect solution, but just falls short: "Who owns the money in a Group Account? Groups make it easy to track finances and share information, but the Group Administrator owns the money in the Group Account and is the sole cardholder on the WePay Prepaid Visa® Card." From the group perspective, it shouldn't be too hard to make a group administrator sign an agreement in regards…

arg, from the WePay site. "(1)Depositing the money into your personal bank account is a bad idea, but (2)applying for an EIN and waiting in line at the bank to open an account just for your class reunion is a huge hassle." Depositing the money into your personal bank account is precisely what you are doing with WePay. WePay should be solving problem (2) but instead has tried to just obscure problem (1).

I disagree with you here.

As you stated earlier, the amount of funds being protected is usually out of proportion to the amount of effort required to register an organization, obtain an EIN and open a bank account.

For groups that want the additional protection, we encourage them to setup a full fledged bank account. In the future, we are exploring ways to have our accounts in the name of organization tax IDs as well.

For the most part, we are replacing cash and checks in personal bank accounts with a simple & transparent solution. We are a far better solution here, and are not trying to "obfuscate" anything.

Re: WePay Drops 600lbs of ice in front of PayPal Conference

#113

Post by citricsquid »

lsc wrote: post #82
citricsquid wrote: post #70

I don't get it? Wepay and Paypal are different . Paypal markets itself as a sort of online bank account, whereas Wepay markets themselves as a place to get money from your room mates. Their comparison page includes DonorsChoose, why would I (assuming I'm an online retailer looking to accept payments) care for DonorsChoose? They need to change their product and/or marketing direction if they want to compete with Paypa…

but paypal /is/ a way to pay your roommates. The draw of paypal is that it's a merchant account that is so easy to set up that anyone can have one. They are actually doing a big marketing push in that direction right now. "paid out of pocket for tickets?" the paypal screen said earlier today, "Collect via paypal" hell, I've paid employees, and yes, even roommates via paypal in the past. So yeah, while paypal seems to…

Wepay is to Paypal what Hackernews is to reddit. It has a small subset of features, but not everything and it's everything that makes Paypal so appealing. Sure Wepay and Hackernews work for some people, but the majority they do not.

Re: WePay Drops 600lbs of ice in front of PayPal Conference

#114

Post by CamperBob »

jasonlotito wrote: post #9
noodle wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

indeed. if wepay would provide a very basic, simple method for sending/receiving payments and provide something like paypal's IPN, i'd be all over it. the focus on groups is good for carving out a niche for the service, but its not something i need.

Providing PayPal's IPN is technically easy. PayPal succeeds because it can do what it does and still operate. PayPal is protected in so many ways, it's not even funny. I have no idea how someone would disrupt their model.

PayPal is protected in so many ways, it's not even funny. I have no idea how someone would disrupt their model.

Wrap them. My guess is that fewer than 1% of PayPal transactions go awry, and that PayPal renders it difficult or impossible for the injured part to recover their loss in perhaps 1% of those transactions. If there is in fact any real, widespread dissatisfaction with this state of affairs, then you could set up a site to act as a proxy for receiving PayPal transactions and self-insure it again PayPal's malice and/or incompetence. Monetize by keeping a very small premium over PayPal's own rate.

If PayPal is really that risky to do business with, then sellers won't mind paying 2.6% instead of 2.5%, or whatever PayPal charges.

If, on the other hand, all this talk of PayPal freezing accounts is mostly just a bunch of FUD, then there's no point trying to compete with them at all unless you can do it on the basis of lower transaction charges.

Re: WePay Drops 600lbs of ice in front of PayPal Conference

#115

Post by trickjarrett »

jscore wrote: post #107
bobf wrote: post #16

The funny part, as TC mentions, is that PayPal pulled a similar guerrilla marketing stunt in its early days by paying people to wear PayPal t-shirts at an eBay conference. Could we say... revenge is a dish best served cold ?

More like an unprovoked incident. eBay and PayPal were involved in a serious war back then.

WePay wants to be in a serious war with Paypal.

Re: WePay Drops 600lbs of ice in front of PayPal Conference

#116

Post by meinhimmel »

davidw wrote: post #90
noglorp wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer petty thieves to institutional ones.

From what I read about some of their early troubles, some of the thieves trying to use the system were anything but petty.

Do you have a link? I'd really like to read more about that.

Re: WePay Drops 600lbs of ice in front of PayPal Conference

#117

Post by davidw »

meinhimmel wrote: post #116
davidw wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I read about some of their early troubles, some of the thieves trying to use the system were anything but petty.

Do you have a link? I'd really like to read more about that.

It's more a vague recollection. Isn't there something about it in "Founders at Work"?

Re: WePay Drops 600lbs of ice in front of PayPal Conference

#118

Post by caf »

nkassis wrote: post #79
jacquesm wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's a good way to get payments from customers to you, but it sucks as a way of paying for auction goods and freelance work, which is how I used to use paypal. International wire transfers are a lot harder to do without actually visiting a branch of the bank I'm with and filling out a bunch of forms, and they take much longer to process too.

"International wire transfers are a lot harder to do without actually visiting a branch of the bank I'm with and filling out a bunch of forms, and they take much longer to process too." That's my personal problem too. Sending money from US to Canada or Canada to the US is a pain. If only they had the same check clearance system, it would solve so much. Same as how having similar phone numbers makes it so much easier.

I can do international wire transfers straight from my bank's online interface - is there a regulatory reason that US and Canadian banks can't offer something similar?

Re: WePay Drops 600lbs of ice in front of PayPal Conference

#120

Post by zaidf »

DeusExMachina wrote: post #76
jacquesm wrote: post #10

What a funny way to grab a ton of free press. They must have planned this for some time given the logistics involved and the time it takes to freeze quantity of water that size and get a nice and clear chunk. My own paypal saga isn't over yet, though there have been some surprising developments. I sincerely hope that someone will one of these days replace paypal with a better way of doing peer-to-peer payments, but o…

I can understand that some security measures are required, but I moved away from paypal because after being locked very easily it's then really hard and painful to show that your account is legit. Especially when all you get are automatic responses to your emails.

What happens when you called them?
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