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More Paypal nonsense

regretsy.com

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Re: More Paypal nonsense

#141

Post by jahewson »

TheAmazingIdiot wrote: post #40

I'm going to be somewhat direct here. I allege that what Paypal is doing here (holding funds over 10 days) is illegal. In order to do what Paypal does in the USA, you need licensure. They point out that they are not a bank. Indeed, they aren't: in many states they are classified as a money transmitter. In 8 states, they have no license to operate.#1 And, Indiana also requires licensure for money transmission. IC 28-8…

However, Regretsy are dealing with EU PayPal, which is regulated as a bank in Luxembourg. No idea what the rules are there...

Re: More Paypal nonsense

#142

Post by einhverfr »

saurik wrote: post #91
einhverfr wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how Paypal is liable for taxes collected, so I don't see how that should concern them.

PayPal is not in a position to be running money for someone else's "dirty books" (which is a rather strongly negative term, but you have to realize that that is how PayPal is going to be seeing this specific pseudo-charity, and is the mental framework from which they are going to be dealing with this likely hostile person on the phone), and to the extent to which it "shouldn't concern them" (and it starts to, such as…

I don't know about you but I would never do business with a financial service provider that would essentially decide if I was running "dirty books" by your loose definition and cut off services. The problem is here you have a major problem:

1) You can't prove bad bookkeeping practices without an audit and

2) I am not consenting to an audit if that removes me from 4th Amendment search protections (meaning the auditor can be compelled by the government to turn over info without a warrant, when they'd normally be required to get a warrant to search my business).

No bank I do business with is going to just decide "oh you might not be collecting sales tax, so we are suspending your account and keeping your money for six months." There's no ethical justification for that. I am sorry.

Re: More Paypal nonsense

#143

Post by non123 »

danilocampos wrote: post #95
gergles wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that's histrionic. PayPal's customers are the people who use it. You, as a merchant, are not a customer of theirs, but a necessary evil to keep the customers coming. PayPal's customers love it. PayPal's merchants don't like it because PayPal has fraud prevention methods that are opaque and hamfistedly applied. That's a fine complaint, but this breathless "for the sake of the world don't ever use PayPal" garbage…

> but this breathless "for the sake of the world don't ever use PayPal" You know, I've been working on my condescension. I really have – my last girlfriend hated that shit. And it's gotten a lot better. But you just had to use a cutely loaded little word like "histrionic," so there's really no other course... So what I'd like to do now is offer a brief explanation of how quotation marks work. Generally, quotation mar…

> A single word or a short phrase may be enclosed in quotation marks to indicate ironic use.

http://www.wikihow.com/Use-Quotation-Marks-Correctly

I think it was pretty clear that this was the case, when I read it didn't make me think that you said that.

Re: More Paypal nonsense

#144

Post by einhverfr »

saurik wrote: post #128
waitwhat wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US you cannot run that company: if you accept money in exchange for goods (or even sometimes services), and are not a registered non-profit, you need to pay sales taxes on the sales, must declare any residual as income, and the people giving you the money cannot claim it as a write off. The sales tax issue is a red herring. Regretsy was (presumably) buying the toys at a rate that included sales tax, and if the…

I believe this is only true if the sales tax as purchased is less greater than or equal to the sales tax as sold, and even in that case I believe still requires a business registration and declaration of the non-taxed receipts. I am not yet, however, an expert at this stuff, and would love to be given more information to learn more about how sales tax works in these situations (I am unfortunately starting to sell phy…

There are plenty of cases where the sales tax may not apply. For example, if I replace a warranty part, I do so without collecting or remitting sales tax because the transaction had no monetary value. Assuming shipping and handling is not taxable in the jurisdiction, and assuming that the company uses all the money gained for either shipping or purchasing the toys, then even assuming it's taxable it's already covered.

The sales tax is a red herring. The issue is probably one of a computerized algorithm being tripped somewhere.

Re: More Paypal nonsense

#145

Post by einhverfr »

bigiain wrote: post #112
sk5t wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe most people understand the difference between donating money to a "good cause" and making a tax-deductible donation to a registered charity. Making it difficult for an honest person to collect donations and forward the proceeds to the needy (where the donors have no expectation of any tangible good in return ), or forcing Boy Scouts to obtain a peddler's license to collect canned foods for a food bank, is s…

"Paypal has no legal or even formally self-elected responsibility ... " Paypal may or may not have any legal responsibility there, it makes no difference. I think a lot of people overlook the underlying business model of Paypal. They're betting they can do a better job of fraud prevention than the entrenched credit card processing industry, and by doing so they can offer credit card facilities to more (read "higher r…

One interesting question will be what impact the re-organization of financial services regulation enforcement has long-term over Paypal. I know I have heard anytime your account is frozen write a letter to the Office of the Comptroller of Currency at the US Treasury Department and CC the CEO of Paypal to get traction........

Re: More Paypal nonsense

#146

Post by einhverfr »

sp332 wrote: post #50
geuis wrote: post #18

At the risk of being perceived as the devil's advocate, let me ask a question. I've heard of dozens of stories about Paypal along a similar vein. "They locked my account for unreasonable reason X and now are keeping the money". Most of these stories seem anecdotal. Can someone point to a rigorously documented set of cases where both Paypal and the customer's side of things are reviewed? Over the last few years, all o…

The problem isn't so much being cut off as having no recourse. PayPal didn't just freeze the assets temporarily, pending investigation. They arbitrarily decided that this organization shouldn't be allowed to access the customers' money. No appeal or review is offered. That's the horror story.

Of course you have recourse. It's called "District Court." Unfortunately you have to sue them where the court has jurisdiction, which means hiring a lawyer where they are located.....

Re: More Paypal nonsense

#147

Post by einhverfr »

rmc wrote: post #135
saurik wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and sales tax is different for different classes of product in the US, with some things getting better treatment, such as groceries, and some things worse, such as car tires. I did not expect it to be relevant to this specific case, but yes: I guess children's clothing is an interesting one for this Regretsy charity drive; that said, they stated "toys", not "clothing", and I don't remember toys being on that exemp…

As an aside, the company that makes Jaffa Cakes, a popular biscuit in the UK, went to court to get their biscuits counted as cakes. Cheaper VAT. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa_Cakes#Cake_or_biscuit.3F

This varies by tax jurisdiction. For a while in Washington State, snickers bars were taxed as candy but Twix were tax-free because they were "groceries"....

Re: More Paypal nonsense

#148

Post by morsch »

jacques_chester wrote: post #132
etheric wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Because there is no alternative and they fucking know it. Off the top of my head, https://payments.amazon.com/ is a great alternative. Not sure how the rates stack up, but I definitely trust Amazon more than I trust PayPal. I'm sure there are more alternatives available, I don't know why so many people insist on using PayPal. I think Amazon allows donations cause kickstarter.com uses it, and you don't necessarily g…

You didn't read closely. Inside the US there are lots of alternatives. Outside the US it is, as the fellow said, a wasteland. Take Amazon payments, for example: "Q: What countries and currencies are supported by Amazon FPS? Amazon FPS allows U.S. as well as international customers to use major credit cards to make payments on Amazon FPS-powered websites. ... All transactions are in U.S. dollars. " Emphasis mine, beca…

I don't know about other European countries, but there is a German subsidiary of Amazon Payments, so EUR transactions are possible.

https://payments.amazon.de/home

Re: More Paypal nonsense

#149

Post by einhverfr »

bigiain wrote: post #114
einhverfr wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a client who is a payment processor who specializes in high risk transactions. Paypal is not. The problem though is that Paypals definition of risk can be overinclusive to the point of being arbitrary. When I had my account frozen, I was told it was because my wife had sent money to someone else who was accused of violating the ToS. So here we have an account suspended because someone from the same IP address…

"I don't envy Paypal's position here. However, their approaches are unprofessional at best..." From one point of view, they're no more "unprofessional" with their customer service than Google. At least there was a phone number to call and a person to answer it - even if they were apparently not highly trained enough or authorized to solve the problem. Paypal are trying to solve the credit card version of "web scale"…

If you can look critically at what you're doing, and it seems like it _might_ be an "edge case", you might want to think twice about using Paypal.

Given that in my case, IT services were an "edge case" I would suggest that we can just shorten that to "you might want to think twice about using Paypal."

Re: More Paypal nonsense

#150

Post by morsch »

masklinn wrote: post #100
danilocampos wrote: post #24

I've been sitting here for the last five minutes trying to make a point eloquently. I'm having a hard time with it. So I'll just put it like this: What else can we really expect from a product whose parent is eBay ? This company is a fucking fossil with all the hunger for customer satisfaction of a used tissue. Is it convenient for users? Yeah. Is it worth gambling your entire business on? Given the lack of accountab…

> Why trust a business to such a stagnant concern? Because there is no alternative and they fucking know it . Oh if you're in the US for the US you might be able (and want) to gamble on an other younger service, but in the wider world? It's a fucking wasteland , it's either Paypal or Big Bank Merchant Account, and those are no fun at all either. My card expired (and was renewed) recently, I decided to stop using payp…

I haven't seen the developer side of it, but from the consumer POV in Germany, it hardly looks like a wasteland. There are a couple of services like Moneybookers, ClickandBuy, which are very PayPal-like.

There are also a few services circumventing both money "escrow" (not sure if the term is applicable) and the credit card companies by interfacing directly with your bank deposits, either directly (using your PIN/TAN, which you have to give to them, which seems insane) or through cooperation with the banks.

Fewer people over here have credit cards, which has lead to a different landscape. For many things, simple bank transfers are a viable payment option, too, as they are typically very fast (with ever shortening legal limits to how long they may take).

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