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PayPal CEO writes personal response

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Re: PayPal CEO writes personal response

#81

Post by lancewiggs »

rhizome wrote: post #72
dmbaggett wrote: post #61

From the skepticism here, it's clear Mr. Marcus has his work cut out for him. Even with far fewer people ever reporting to me (directly and indirectly) than him, I sympathize with his inability to get the unvarnished truth from his own people. "We're routinely screwing people out of hard cash" is probably a scary message to relay up. His email sounded sincere, and he's new to the job. I'd be inclined to give him the…

It's not hard to make an email sound sincere, especially when vetted by a PR agency.

I suspect no PR involved here - that email is repetitive, not polished, and feels like a new CEO trying to do the right thing and light a fire.

Re: PayPal CEO writes personal response

#82

Post by angryasian »

The level of discourse on HN lately is absurd. Here is a new CEO that appears to be looking to change things for the positive, yet everyone wants to be cynical and doubting. Yet when startups have major f* ups, the conversation is much different.

Lets all admit change is slow and that paypal is still one of the more trusted payment solutions accepted globally. It would be nice to be able to use them in the future with some continued reliability.

Re: PayPal CEO writes personal response

#83

Post by geuis »

To everyone, on both sides, that feel this is just a stunt or a sign of real change, just give it time.

Either things get better at Paypal, or they don't. Yes, big lumbering companies can change for the better. Microsoft, IBM, and Apple come to mind. Yahoo may be on that road now too. But it takes time to see. The wheels of change move slowly.

Re: PayPal CEO writes personal response

#84

Post by pygorex »

angryasian wrote: post #82

The level of discourse on HN lately is absurd. Here is a new CEO that appears to be looking to change things for the positive, yet everyone wants to be cynical and doubting. Yet when startups have major f* ups, the conversation is much different. Lets all admit change is slow and that paypal is still one of the more trusted payment solutions accepted globally. It would be nice to be able to use them in the future wit…

The skepticism about PayPal is well founded. PayPal has rightfully earned a reputation of imposing arbitrary decisions on account holders. Maybe if PayPal was more transparent and actually provided some semblance of customer service their decisions would appear more fair.

While its nice that the CEO has personally responded this actually shows a far greater dysfunction. Why should it take escalating all the way up to the CEO level to get someone at PayPal to listen and advocate for the customers position?

The contrast with startups is misleading. PayPal has been in business for a long time and is a billion dollar company. They have the resources to stop making stupid mistakes, but still persist in their bad behavior. They can get away with this because they've cornered a large part of the online payments marketplace.

Sure, a startup is going to make mistakes. And they're expected to. That's all a startup is really - a machine that generates mistakes in an attempt to find (or build) a profitable market.

Re: PayPal CEO writes personal response

#85

Post by notyourwork »

IsaacL wrote: post #60
noonespecial wrote: post #38

This isn't special... Yet. What happened here can happen even in the most dysfunctional customer service paradigms. A promblem randomly and luckily escalated from the people who can't do anything about the problem to the people who (generally speaking) won't do anything about the problem. As a lucky break, the person/department who generally won't do anything, decided in their mercy to do something this one time. IMH…

"IMHO, what was said in the email is just marketing duck-speak, no matter how sincere it sounds until proven otherwise." I agree that this looks like a PR stunt, but it also shows some potential changes underfoot at Paypal. Here's my read of the situation: Paypal has been known for being beauracratic ever since the eBay acquisition, when all the smart people left and the bozos and middle managers remained. You know t…

"it's the smooth-talking-but-not-that-bright individuals who do well, and any smart employees who perceive the real problems the company is in find themselves a part of an outcast fringe."

Extremely well said and sadly often true.

Re: PayPal CEO writes personal response

#86

Post by vadiml »

ig1 wrote: post #66
njloof wrote: post #8

Step one for PayPal would be to always provide a reason when they take action, for all users. Every bad experience I have had with PayPal began with them doing something negative, and never explaining why they did it. I have had methods of payment locked out, I have had funds not released, I have been told I could not make an instant payment, and not once was I given a reason why.

Try asking your regular bank how their fraud detection works, or your insurance company, or the secret service. Basically if you work in fraud detection (or broadly any kind of crime detection) you keep your techniques secret because otherwise you're helping the criminals avoid you. Look at the source code for Reddit or Hacker News, notice how in the publicly released codebases they've both chosen specifically not to…

The security by obscurity approach usually give you only an ILLUSION of security

Re: PayPal CEO writes personal response

#87

Post by teaneedz »

angryasian wrote: post #82

The level of discourse on HN lately is absurd. Here is a new CEO that appears to be looking to change things for the positive, yet everyone wants to be cynical and doubting. Yet when startups have major f* ups, the conversation is much different. Lets all admit change is slow and that paypal is still one of the more trusted payment solutions accepted globally. It would be nice to be able to use them in the future wit…

Well put ... PayPal has some housecleaning to do but here is someone that appears to be listening ... listening in a big way.

I give PayPal credit for this response. Rather than being cynical, I'm happier giving credit to someone who wants to make things better.

Mr. Marcus - some of us appreciate your efforts here.

Re: PayPal CEO writes personal response

#88

Post by Corrado »

angryasian wrote: post #82

The level of discourse on HN lately is absurd. Here is a new CEO that appears to be looking to change things for the positive, yet everyone wants to be cynical and doubting. Yet when startups have major f* ups, the conversation is much different. Lets all admit change is slow and that paypal is still one of the more trusted payment solutions accepted globally. It would be nice to be able to use them in the future wit…

What about the Yahoo! transformation currently being led by their new CEO, Mrs. Mayer? My view, and most of the things I've read about the Yahoo! situation is that people are generally optimistic about the change in leadership and feel that she is not only talking the talk, but walking the walk.

I don't have the same confidence in this type of change happening inside PayPal and I'm not sure why. Maybe its because, as a financial institution, I view it as a very "corporate" entity that resists change. Whereas Yahoo! is, in my mind, has a "hacker" feel that recognizes the problems and really wants to make things better. I guess I have more faith in Marisa and the kind of company that I know Yahoo! can become, whereas I've already written off PayPal as a necessary evil that can/will be replaced as soon as possible.

Re: PayPal CEO writes personal response

#89

Post by jasonlotito »

dlikhten wrote: post #52
rhizome wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which leaves us only to assume there will be a second step.

I am always wiery of these maneuvers because they can swing both ways. I must say, good for the CEO to response; smart man who realizes the company is going to get hit, hard, and soon. The only question left is: to trust or not to trust? Let's see if PP makes any official announcements on policy to combat this.

> The only question left is: to trust or not to trust?

RTFE. This entire thread is basically regurgitating what was already said in the email. It already says they hope to win back trust, but with action, not words. To trust or not to trust?

Email makes that very clear: wait and see what they do.

Re: PayPal CEO writes personal response

#90

Post by koenigdavidmj »

vadiml wrote: post #86
ig1 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try asking your regular bank how their fraud detection works, or your insurance company, or the secret service. Basically if you work in fraud detection (or broadly any kind of crime detection) you keep your techniques secret because otherwise you're helping the criminals avoid you. Look at the source code for Reddit or Hacker News, notice how in the publicly released codebases they've both chosen specifically not to…

The security by obscurity approach usually give you only an ILLUSION of security

Yes...once they figure it out, you still need to change your spam filtering/fraud detection methods. But if they have the algorithms, then they can figure out how to bypass it offline, on their own hardware, and you'll never now that it is happening until it is too late.
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