41–50 of 66 posts
We had a few small issues the first year where paypal froze our account until additional verification had taken place but since then and three years of continuous use we haven't had a single problem. However we've also never had a chargeback so I would imagine that's heavily worked into their risk calculations.
It's been said before, but it's worth repeating. Conferences are a high risk business operation. For every SXSW, there's a thousand "Learn to Buy Real Estate with No Money Down" conferences at the Ramada Inn next to the airport. Paypal is not in the business of assuming your risk. They are in the business of processing payments while mitigating their own.
Whatever happened to "caveat emptor"? If you're attending a real estate conference at a Ramada Inn, you weren't defrauded - you're just an idiot.
Feel free to run your own conference where "caveat emptor" is the rule for buying tickets, but you won't be able to take credit cards or various other forms of payment for it.
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It is true that Bitcoin adoption levels don't make it feasible to rely on completely for conference registration, but it makes sense to start offering it as an option so we can gradually grow an alternative to Paypal, who has been pulling these shenanigans for years. It usually takes a day or two to convert Bitcoin to currency so there isn't a big reason not to offer it as a payment option.
By offering it as an option, you no longer have the option to not rely on it completely . What happens when everyone decides to pay in Bitcoins? I don't think the caterers will accept them as a form of payment - they'll echo Doug Shaftoe's sentiment: " Doug’s regained his composure now, and is back to belly laughs. "What’ll that buy me? Pictures of naked girls on the World Wide Web?" "
Regarding caterers, as I said in the previous comment in this thread it usually takes 1-2 days to withdraw fiat currency from a Bitcoin exchange. Really not a problem.
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It is true that Bitcoin adoption levels don't make it feasible to rely on completely for conference registration, but it makes sense to start offering it as an option so we can gradually grow an alternative to Paypal, who has been pulling these shenanigans for years. It usually takes a day or two to convert Bitcoin to currency so there isn't a big reason not to offer it as a payment option.
By offering it as an option, you no longer have the option to not rely on it completely . What happens when everyone decides to pay in Bitcoins? I don't think the caterers will accept them as a form of payment - they'll echo Doug Shaftoe's sentiment: " Doug’s regained his composure now, and is back to belly laughs. "What’ll that buy me? Pictures of naked girls on the World Wide Web?" "
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These circumstances include the fact that this business had had an account with PayPal for six years and had run hundreds of thousands of pounds through it. If you never trust businesses that appear to be legitimate, no matter how long they maintain this appearance, eventually all your legitimate (and highly profitable) business customers will leave. That risk should be weighed against the fraud risk.
Let's do a back-of-an-envelope calculation and say Paypal makes 1% of a transaction (after accounting for CC processing, etc.) - if the company in question had processed say £200,000 through Paypal then Paypal would have made £2,000 from it. That's a fraction of the £11,000+ that they would have been on the hook for if it turns out the event had been a fake and they'd allowed the account holder to withdraw the money.…
Your point about PayPal's risk vs. their profit on this account is valid, but look at it from the other side. Let's take a more plausible scenario than one in which the account was opened for fraudulent purposes from the beginning. Let's imagine our business owner has had every intention of running a legitimate business and has been doing so, but as a result of personal misfortune is now in a state of desperation. Would it really make sense to torpedo a running business in order to get a final payout of maybe £50,000, and put oneself very much on the wrong side of the law in the process? For £500,000, I could see this, but I don't think many people, even those desperate or venal enough to ignore the ethical difficulties, would do it for an amount comparable to a year's revenue from a business they've worked for years to build.
Or conversely, if there really are fraudsters with the patience to run a legitimate business for six years in order to run a large scam, surely they would also be shooting for a payout well into six figures if not seven.
I think PayPal has made the considered decision that it's not worth their time to think about individual cases. That's their right, though they certainly are inviting competition.
We use Eventbrite for all our Entrepreneurs Unpluggd events, and while they're not multi-day conferences, I still think Eventbrite is the best platform for any size event to use for ticket sales, registration, waiting list, and all that jazz. Never once had an issue with them on any level. And no, I don't work for them or get paid by them in any way. They just have a kick ass product. :) EDIT: The reason I'm even say…
No, he says he started up a second EventBrite listing for the conference. EventBrite lets you use your own PayPal account. http://www.eventbrite.com/paypal-info Maybe EventBrite should warn its users about PayPal's policies.
We used PayPal for our first event, but their extra cut on top of Eventbrite's made little sense, so we too switched to using Eventbrite's processor and haven't looked back.
And while the Author seems to understand that (and hence didn't keep a lot of money under their control) it is something a number of people 'miss.'
What I find most interesting is that a lot of people would like Paypal to be a bank (or certainly more bank like) and complain bitterly when it comes up short, and yet few actual banks seem able or willing to extend their business model to include a lighter weight payments services.
The discontinuity in the market (a demand for services served poorly because the best entity to serve it doesn't enter the market) is one of those things that makes me wonder if anyone is paying attention or not.
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That they let you accrue thousands or even millions in charges and then lock your account unexpectedly with poor customer service is the rub. There's no warning, just a surprise logistical nightmare that they benefit enormously from.
Imagine you were Paypal - what would you have done differently in these circumstances which wouldn't disproportionately benefit fraudsters ?
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No, he says he started up a second EventBrite listing for the conference. EventBrite lets you use your own PayPal account. http://www.eventbrite.com/paypal-info Maybe EventBrite should warn its users about PayPal's policies.
You're right. He said he was switching from PayPal as the payment processor to Eventbrite. We used PayPal for our first event, but their extra cut on top of Eventbrite's made little sense, so we too switched to using Eventbrite's processor and haven't looked back.
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What? Just sell the bitcoins and pay for things in dollars.
Hasn't the market fluctuated fairly rapidly in the past few months? I'd hate to accept $10,000 worth of conference fees in bitcoins, only to find out that I can only get $5,000 out of them. At a rate of $1,000 a day - or whatever the exchanges are limiting the daily trades to these days.