I am so glad I turned down that job with Paypal
More Paypal nonsense
171–180 of 257 posts
Re: More Paypal nonsense
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I realize that you like to look only at my statements regarding sales tax, but these people were literally selling the promise of shipping an undisclosed good and a sweaty wad of cash to a random third party for an arbitrarily large sum of "donated" money as an unlicensed charity.
Remember: this money they were using for these purposes is actually /not/ their money, nor is it PayPal's: you don't really own money transferred over credit or ACH for six months, which is the window of time during which the money can be nearly unilaterally taken back.
This is a high risk transaction class, and if they had a normal merchant account they would have been required to do all kinds of paperwork verification, accept super-high fees, and pay massive retainers, and in the end likely have a hold enforced on their money anyway until they were considered a good credit risk (and we really are talking "credit risk" here: PayPal is loaning people money until such point as it clears).
Claiming that PayPal should not be looking into these things is about as silly as claiming that you shouldn't be denied a post-pay phone contract just because you don't ever pay your electric bill: this company is exactly as much of a risk (in dollars) to PayPal as PayPal is to this company.
Re: More Paypal nonsense
#173A little experiment: Apply for a merchant account, saying that you're not a registered nonprofit, but intend to take donations to buy gifts for kids. I just phoned my bank and they literally laughed in my face.
People who have customer service nightmares with Paypal are generally doing something that no other payment processor would touch. I hear complaints from people who have been accepting pre-orders of a game or pre-registration for a conference, which is obviously a massive risk for a payment processor. If you found a merchant account provider willing to take such risky business, they'd demand a huge deposit and charge well above the odds.
Paypal provide an absolutely exceptional service in allowing pretty much anyone to accept card payments without a great deal of fuss. The flipside of this is that they have to deal with risky accounts retroactively, which means they have little choice but to freeze accounts that set off their fraud detection algoritms. If you prefer to know where you stand, apply for a merchant account - in most of the world, that will involve a long, expensive vetting process.
People continue to use Paypal because for many use cases, there aren't any better alternatives. This isn't because Paypal or the card companies are abusing monopoly power, but because payment processing is hard and fraud is expensive.
Re: More Paypal nonsense
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
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,…
I haven't had a great experience with Moneybookers. I asked a question about their business account, and in response they shut down personal account without notice. They eventually changed their mind when I pointed out they'd violated their own terms of service, but it wasn't handled very well.
I didn't like ClickandBuy very much, either. IIRC I used them to pay using credit card, and when I got a refund from the merchant, of course the money ended up in the CnB account. I almost forgot about the money and had to pay some stupid fee to get them to close the account and transfer the money to my bank account. Not more than a few Euros, but I still felt cheated and more than that, it was a hassle.
As I said they're similar to PayPal. ;)
Re: More Paypal nonsense
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
> Because there is no alternative and they fucking know it. Hopefully in a few years time when it's matured, Bitcoin will be that alternative.
In order to be a real alternative to PayPal, Bitcoin will have to avoid the problems that digital gold currencies had, since it's far more similar to them than to PayPal. What were those problems? Accounts differ.
Re: More Paypal nonsense
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
I don't know about Amazon.de (I don't speak German), but at least for the UK version you need to have the following before you can sign up for a Amazon Payments merchant account:
* Have a phone with a UK-based billing address available for our registration service to contact you. * Have a credit card (issued by a UK-based bank) * Have a current account with a UK-based bank. (Optional; you can set this up after registration)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/gateway-eu
So unless in you're in one of the few countries supported by Amazon Payments, you're out of luck (as far us Amazon Payments is concerned).
Re: More Paypal nonsense
#177At 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…
A friend of mine down the street tried to sell an online account via PayPal. The would-be buyers sent the money to his PayPal account, got the online account credentials from him, then took the money out of PayPal. The money was lost but the admins for the software he used the account on reinstated it to him since this happens a lot. There are scammers with deep penetration into PayPal.
I have also experienced one such scammer when selling software using Paypal. Now for me it was nothing important since no physical object was lost. But that time I learned that Paypal chargebacks are an excellent way to scam vendors, and that the conflict resolution tools of Paypal are a joke.
Re: More Paypal nonsense
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also, VAT isn’t charged for certain product categories in the EU. In the UK, for instance, children’s clothing is VAT-free.
Technically, it is not VAT Free. It's rather that the rate of VAT is 0%. Effectively the same I know...
Not the same. Business that sell VAT 0% items (zero-rated items) can still deduct VAT on supplies, whilst providers of VAT exempt goods can't claim back VAT on supplies.
For example, admission to a charitable event is VAT exempt in the UK, while goods sold at a charity shop are zero-rated.
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/vat/forms-rates/rates/goods-services....
Re: More Paypal nonsense
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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,…
Germany is a special country.
In germany you can have direct, instant bank transfers, through internet. And that's free. No fees.
So that's like paypal, but faster, more secure, cheaper also.
Many use that. I know PostBank makes <1min transfers, as I used to be a customer not long ago, for example.
Re: More Paypal nonsense
#180So just to be clear, when the Paypal rep says "We know what you are trying to do and we aren't going to let you do it", what do they think the scam is?
That the site would accept "donations" for a fraudulent reason?