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PayPal has permanently banned The Hacker News and hold funds for 180 days

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Re: PayPal has permanently banned The Hacker News and hold funds for 180 days

#131

Post by farazbabar »

eximius wrote: post #110

All this talk of monopoly in this sector of finance makes me wonder how you'd start a service in this space. And it made me realize I have no idea how it works. I swipe (or insert w/ chip) at a POS... which then beamz the transaction to VISA? So do you need to get a partnership with all of the POS vendors? Is that open or closed? Of course, that presupposes that someone has your card. VISA doesn't make cards, they ju…

There is a lot more to it than that, there is merchant acquiring (merchant relationship with a payment services provider that gives merchants the credentials and equipment to accept payments), there are sometimes aggregators that transactions then funnel into. Next the transactions hit a network which acts as the router between acquirers and issuers (more on this later). The network can also act as a default stand in when the issuing bank is not reachable. From here the transaction goes into the issuing bank which runs a host of fraud and risk rules to answer the questions: 1. Should I authorize this? AND of-course PayPal as the issuer with PayPal credit. Obviously not all transactions go through all tiers in case PayPal (a credit card transaction goes to card network and card issuer in the back for example) but Pay upon invoice, Bank transfers and PayPal credit (bill me later) are all examples of PayPal extending credit to buyer. Payments are quite fascinating, you are correct that a lot of issues are political but don't underestimate the complexity of the ecosystem, especially in global context. And I have not even gotten into bad faith actors and the war between good and bad guys yet.

Re: PayPal has permanently banned The Hacker News and hold funds for 180 days

#132

Post by adrianhel »

endless1234 wrote: post #124
arisAlexis wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you are kind of asking for it... :) Bitcoin

...how do you get bitcoin without some kind of a third party?

How do you get money without some kind of third party?

What's positive is that there is no monopoly with regards to who can be that third party.

Re: PayPal has permanently banned The Hacker News and hold funds for 180 days

#133

Post by Eliezer »

zdkl wrote: post #80
ineedasername wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"completely relying on a 3rd party..." Okay, agreed it's not ideal, but for payment processing what's the alternative?

GNU Taler is aimed at this. https://taler.net/en/

They say phishing is impossible and don’t immediately explain why? All kinds of alarm bells going off.

Re: PayPal has permanently banned The Hacker News and hold funds for 180 days

#134

Post by arisAlexis »

gcb0 wrote: post #121
arisAlexis wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you are kind of asking for it... :) Bitcoin

you still need a 3rd party to realistically convert USD into BTC. at this point, might as well trade in casino chips. (see gnu taller for a less cassino-like alternative to payments)

this third party is not linked to where you want to send them. anybody can get BTC from fiat conversion and send it wherever they want without censorship. That's what we are talking about right?

Re: PayPal has permanently banned The Hacker News and hold funds for 180 days

#135

Post by timthorn »

simonh wrote: post #123
jorams wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paypal is practically the only commonly accepted online payment method that doesn't require me to have a credit card. The reason people use Paypal today is that they offer a service without much competition to people who want to pay , so if you want to get paid you're leaving money on the table if you don't accept Paypal. This does of course depend on where your customer base is. Credit cards are universal in the US,…

In the UK we mostly use debit cards these days, although the term ‘credit card’ seems to generally include debit cards. I haven’t had a credit card for almost a decade. Everytime an online store says credit cards only, it’s taken my debit card.

> we mostly use debit cards these days

Which seems odd to me. Credit cards offer the advantages of points/cashback and more importantly the Consumer Credit Act, such that the card issuer is jointly liable for the goods. I only use my debit card to withdraw cash as the protections and incentives with my credit cards are much better.

Re: PayPal has permanently banned The Hacker News and hold funds for 180 days

#136

Post by barry-cotter »

exogeny wrote: post #62
jseliger wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same thing happened to me years ago: https://jakeseliger.com/2011/12/09/december-2011-links-paypa... . Why anyone uses Paypal today is beyond me. Why anyone doesn't expect this is really beyond me.

The percentage of links to your blog that you post in your comments is extremely high and extremely notable. Make of that what you will.

It’s almost like he’s written a lot about many things for years and would like to point others to his thoughts and experiences.

Re: PayPal has permanently banned The Hacker News and hold funds for 180 days

#137

Post by mrep »

projektfu wrote: post #112
mrep wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MasterCard and Visa, 2 seperate companies in the same space are "monopolies"? You literally just proved yourself wrong.

Sometimes people say "monopoly" when they mean "cartel". Are you arguing that these companies do not have substantial market power compared to more competitive markets or are you just trying to distract from the discussion with an argument over definitions? Do we see Mastercard and Visa competing on price (e.g. interchange rates)?

Having 4 main companies (mastercard, visa, discover, and american express) doesn't make you a monopoly or cartel.

Obviously, they do have more market power than purely competitive environments but they do compete a lot on rewards which cut into the profitability of those interchange rates. I cannot find any source to measure the interchange fees - rewards profitability but I did find one that shows most of their profits don't come from those but instead interest rates [0] and I'd bet they don't make so much after the rewards (I get minimum 1% cash back on my cards and sometimes up to 5%).

[0]: https://www.fool.com/credit-cards/2017/04/13/this-is-how-cre...

Re: PayPal has permanently banned The Hacker News and hold funds for 180 days

#138

Post by tlogan »

zarkov99 wrote: post #58
twayback wrote: post #18

This is a fraud website which has mercilessly ripped off content from other sites and published as its own. Also it has published a ton of proprietary information from time to time. Good riddance!

Perhaps they are, but then they should be sued out of existence or left alone if what they do isn't ilegal. That is far preferable to a world where giant, unaccountable corporations act like police, judge and executioner.

Maybe they are getting sued or under investigation and PayPal dedicated to kick them because they got subpoena to testify or similar.

And these scary letters from gov will sometime clearly state what SaaS provider needs to answer when person ask "why I'm banned". Sometimes, the court or investigator will explicitly ask not to ban user and they can ban user only after investigation is finished (or grand jury makes decision if it is something more complex).

I would not fly to US if I'm one of them....

Re: PayPal has permanently banned The Hacker News and hold funds for 180 days

#139

Post by SilasX »

ccnafr wrote: post #59
japaget wrote: post #3

Please note that "The Hacker News" is a separate site unrelated to "Hacker News".

They intentionally named their site that way to capitalize on Google search result traffic. If you read their articles, you realize they can barely put together two English sentences with proper grammar and structure. Furthermore, most of their articles are stolen from other sites. I've seen journalists from Motherboard, The Register, and Bleeping Computer accuse them of blatantly copying articles, and when I checked…

So ... PayPal made the right call.

Re: PayPal has permanently banned The Hacker News and hold funds for 180 days

#140

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

ddtaylor wrote: post #47
febin wrote: post #20

Paypal has done this multiple times, here are some incidents. https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/My-Account/Permanent-BAN... https://medium.com/@puntofisso/paypal-closed-my-account-with... https://www.elliott.org/blog/banned-from-palpal-account-limi... https://www.success.grownupgeek.com/index.php/2008/04/05/pay... Completely relying on any third party is a bad idea. We should consider the risks when we signup to an…

> Completely relying on any third party What other options are there that exist where a regular person could still make a payment?

Good, old fashioned, non-electronic money orders and cashier's checks, perhaps? Granted, you're still relying on a bank but I can't imagine any bank refusing them for a person without refusing all that person's business entirely.
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