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Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

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Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#11

Post by davelittle »

I understand why he is annoyed. I don't have things nearly so bad, but I do live overseas and use bank accounts in the United States (where I am from) on a regular basis. It leads to constant fraud flags - which I can, at least, normally clear up by talking to the companies involved and explaining myself. Paypal is disagreeable about it, so I've had to give up on using them for the most part.

Anyway - I agree with him that it's a pain. My solution is to use a VPN, too. As long as that gets the problem solved I'm happy.

Fraud IS a major concern in general. I don't have the data to even have an opinion on whether rejecting everything out of Nigeria so aggressively is justified, but if it was my business, would I flag it for manual inspection? Absolutely.

I'd also be willing to listen to my customers and manually approve things when it's justified. I can't really ask for more than that. Now, as I said, I'm sure the situation if you are coming from Nigeria is even worse. But I think what he should be asking for is a little more openness in the "manual validation" area, rather than full up-front acceptance of his transactions. I don't think asking for that is realistic.

His response to "the amount of fraud necessitates it" is "F you" ... well, what, is he saying there isn't a fraud problem, or if there is businesses should ignore it? Please. Give me a break. It's one thing to feel personally frustrated to that point, but to write it up like it's some kind of answer won't do anything.

I don't know what answer is better than the status quo, and apparently he doesn't either. Anyone have a comment on what that might be?

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#12

Post by markessien »

dangrossman wrote: post #9

This is a problem that will be fixed only when payment fraud in the country decreases. That'll happen in part simply by increasing the number of people online and making purchases. There are several countries my websites won't allow payments from, but Nigeria isn't currently on that list because it's not been a problem country for me in recent years. I'm sure other retailers are acting on real data too and would stop…

If paypal blocks Nigeria now...how will they ever know that payment fraud from Nigeria is decreasing?

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#13

Post by gyardley »

pointillistic wrote: post #5

Are these famous "get money from your dead uncle in Nigeria", are the spamers really from Nigeria? Or is it operated from some basement in Brooklyn?

They're really from Nigeria (and other countries in Africa, but primarily Nigeria). They're known as '419 scams' there, after the section of the Nigerian criminal code that deals with advance-fee fraud.

This sort of fraud isn't something everyone does, but everyone's aware of it - it's certainly a part of popular culture. For example, see the song 'I Go Chop Your Dollar', performed by a popular Nigerian actor:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1nKR3gYRY8

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#14

Post by mycroftiv »

rsheridan6 wrote: post #3

"I cannot ignore two very fair arguments. The amount of fraud from this end has necessitated these measures. Hey! That’s a gap in the market, why don’t you guys in Africa do something about it?0 Fuck off." That's really not a very convincing counterargument.

As I interpret the sentiment, the author is indicating that he is writing simply to express his frustration at being an innocent victim of collective punishment. He is stating that he is aware of the causes of the situation, and that there may be ways to engage in productive change, but neither of those things changes the basic personal injustice he is directly experiencing. In other words, he is not attempting to make a counterargument, he is disinterested in engaging in debate, he is simply very irritated by obstacles he encounters through no fault of his own.

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#15

Post by jan_g »

markessien wrote: post #10
rsheridan6 wrote: post #3

"I cannot ignore two very fair arguments. The amount of fraud from this end has necessitated these measures. Hey! That’s a gap in the market, why don’t you guys in Africa do something about it?0 Fuck off." That's really not a very convincing counterargument.

Hmm, how many paypal killers have been created? Now you want to go create a paypal killer from an african country with a low internet population, and expect big sites to support this? I think "fuck off" is an appropriate answer to people suggesting this - it's just not going to happen! It's obvious that it won't happen, so anyone suggesting it...just doesn't get it, I guess.

But there's a possibility, for example, to use credit cards and wire transfers. I use them all the time (especially wire transfer), while I never use paypal. There's lots of stuff I bought that way online and had it shipped to my country.

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#16

Post by rmc »

markessien wrote: post #10
rsheridan6 wrote: post #3

"I cannot ignore two very fair arguments. The amount of fraud from this end has necessitated these measures. Hey! That’s a gap in the market, why don’t you guys in Africa do something about it?0 Fuck off." That's really not a very convincing counterargument.

Hmm, how many paypal killers have been created? Now you want to go create a paypal killer from an african country with a low internet population, and expect big sites to support this? I think "fuck off" is an appropriate answer to people suggesting this - it's just not going to happen! It's obvious that it won't happen, so anyone suggesting it...just doesn't get it, I guess.

Small population? Nigeria has 180 million people. The rest of Africa has similar paypal issues, and a population of 600 million people

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#17

Post by gbengasesan »

markessien wrote: post #10
rsheridan6 wrote: post #3

"I cannot ignore two very fair arguments. The amount of fraud from this end has necessitated these measures. Hey! That’s a gap in the market, why don’t you guys in Africa do something about it?0 Fuck off." That's really not a very convincing counterargument.

Hmm, how many paypal killers have been created? Now you want to go create a paypal killer from an african country with a low internet population, and expect big sites to support this? I think "fuck off" is an appropriate answer to people suggesting this - it's just not going to happen! It's obvious that it won't happen, so anyone suggesting it...just doesn't get it, I guess.

"small african country with a low population"?

How does 144 million people sound to you? 85,208,008 mobile phone users and 44 million internet users low? Hmmm. For the rest, Bing/Google is your friend.

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#18

Post by yummyfajitas »

markessien wrote: post #4

What I dislike about the attitude of many businesses towards Nigeria is the way they just dismiss the country with a wave of their hand. Sure, there is some scam coming out of the country, but some guy just looks at the numbers and then sends an email "Block Nigeria". And we're not talking of some small site, we're talking of one of the the biggest payment processors in the world. The country is the biggest market in…

Paypal, Google adwords, and many other services, do use statistical predictors to determine what is likely to be fraud. Many innocent people get flagged by them. This is a known and accepted risk of using such services.

The fact is, if Paypal were not permitted to statistically discriminate, they wouldn't exist. Is it really a moral travesty that they are using nation of origin as one of the predictors?

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#19

Post by piramida »

Not only Nigeria, may I point out that most countries of the world, besides the very few top ones (US, Canada, Japan, Australia and Eurozone countries) are in about the same position regarding e-commerce and web acceptance in general. You can't start a paypal account, you can't pay online with locally issued credit cards, and you generally are prejudiced as a criminal.

Which must be contributing to the online crime coming from this countries, since if you are already treated as a thief, why not just be one? :)

Re: Life as a Second Class Citizen of the Web

#20

Post by varjag »

markessien wrote: post #12
dangrossman wrote: post #9

This is a problem that will be fixed only when payment fraud in the country decreases. That'll happen in part simply by increasing the number of people online and making purchases. There are several countries my websites won't allow payments from, but Nigeria isn't currently on that list because it's not been a problem country for me in recent years. I'm sure other retailers are acting on real data too and would stop…

If paypal blocks Nigeria now...how will they ever know that payment fraud from Nigeria is decreasing?

PayPal isn't in this business to do justice. Nigeria's market size to risk factor is extremely bad, and perception of it generally is not improving. There is no point for them to absorbing the risk.

Any given day I can dive into my spam folder and see at least a dozen of Nigerian scam offers, perhaps that explains the general perception. While on the dawn of the Web there was a number of places deemed to be sources of fraud (e.g. much of Eastern Europe), most of them got a grip on electronic crime, and their reputations improved. It's long overdue for Nigeria to get their act together.

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