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PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

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Re: PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

#71

Post by ballard »

HarrietJones wrote: post #54
mootothemax wrote: post #34

They just don't want to, and we cannot help but wonder why. The risk of complaints, refunds, and chargebacks for non-delivery would be my guess. "Please provide an itemized budget and your development goal dates for your project" This puts us in an incredibly uncomfortable position... ...of having a roadmap for your product's development. It's really not unreasonable, and if you don't have even a vague idea right now…

Mailpile sets off alarm bells for me. The web page seems big on promises, and decent webmail isn't the eaiest thing in the world to make a decent UI for. Never mind that it's all wrapped around some kind of seamless background application. I'm doubtful that they'll do what they think they can do. Good luck to them, but I'm unsuprised that paypal has witheld funds.

FUD. Every project that's not yet done is a crystal ball of promises until its delivered. IGG and KS have good records so far. And these guys that put their names on this project are highly motivated to deliver.

Re: PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

#72

Post by [deleted] »

HerraBRE wrote: post #58
mootothemax wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that they had previously stated that they wanted to release the funds as slowly as possible. Asking us to provide a detailed budget is basically asking us to justify that None of this contradicts my point about mitigating risk, nor that it's a Very Good Idea to have even the most basic of development roadmaps.

Sure, but we have no reason to give those details to PayPal, and very good reasons not to. Edit: Delaying payments by months is not acceptable or reasonable. There are tax implications (we have to deal with multiple jurisdictions) and opportunity costs. Also, this very obviously goes against the wishes of our community of backers - they are supporting a free software development project, not buying a product.

[deleted]

Re: PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

#73

Post by ballard »

HerraBRE wrote: post #58
mootothemax wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that they had previously stated that they wanted to release the funds as slowly as possible. Asking us to provide a detailed budget is basically asking us to justify that None of this contradicts my point about mitigating risk, nor that it's a Very Good Idea to have even the most basic of development roadmaps.

Sure, but we have no reason to give those details to PayPal, and very good reasons not to. Edit: Delaying payments by months is not acceptable or reasonable. There are tax implications (we have to deal with multiple jurisdictions) and opportunity costs. Also, this very obviously goes against the wishes of our community of backers - they are supporting a free software development project, not buying a product.

I support your position. This is like a bad investor trying to type on your keyboard and criticize your bikeshed's color. Paypal needs to MTOB.

Re: PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

#74

Post by [deleted] »

mootothemax wrote: post #59
HerraBRE wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but we have no reason to give those details to PayPal, and very good reasons not to. Edit: Delaying payments by months is not acceptable or reasonable. There are tax implications (we have to deal with multiple jurisdictions) and opportunity costs. Also, this very obviously goes against the wishes of our community of backers - they are supporting a free software development project, not buying a product.

Sure, but we have no reason to give those details to PayPal You'll reduce your risk profile, and increase your chances of receiving payment inside the next year. and very good reasons not to Aside from potentially delayed payouts, what are your other good reasons? Edit, replying to your edit: Our community of backers... are supporting a free software development project, not buying a product Do you know for a fact th…

[deleted]

Re: PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

#75

Post by mosselman »

So we keep reading this kind of thing on Paypal. Are there any viable alternatives for consumers? As a company you could use Stripe or Paymill (for Europe), but as a consumer the only alternative is to pull out a credit card when I buy games on Steam. I don't want to do this, I want a login for a payment provider that is coupled to my bank account. I don't want to walk around with my credit card as it is too unsafe (something that Americans probably don't understand).

Re: PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

#76

Post by Xylakant »

kalms wrote: post #67
mootothemax wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but we have no reason to give those details to PayPal You'll reduce your risk profile, and increase your chances of receiving payment inside the next year. and very good reasons not to Aside from potentially delayed payouts, what are your other good reasons? Edit, replying to your edit: Our community of backers... are supporting a free software development project, not buying a product Do you know for a fact th…

I see your point. PayPal is a business partner in this setup, and they are shouldering a lot of risk on the developers behalf. I can understand not wanting to share something as intimate as a business/developement plan, but PayPal is within their rights, boty legally and morally, to ask for one. If the developers are having trouble with this, they should find another partner for their venture. (imho) That said, PayPa…

> but PayPal is within their rights, boty legally and morally

No and no. They're a payment provider, a utility, not a partner. They could have stated up front that they want a business plan or could have denied acting as payment provider. They could have demanded the backers to waive their refund rights. I'd even be on their side if they kept a percentage of the funds as security.

The backers have a moral right to see a business plan, if any person at all has one. It's their money and they did not give it to paypal so that paypal can collect interest on it, they gave it to mailpile and they collectively are shouldering a much bigger risk than paypal in that transaction.

Re: PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

#77

Post by dpcx »

kalleboo wrote: post #51
bowlofpetunias wrote: post #38

People should start to understand that crowdfunding is not a trivial business from a legal and regulatory perspective. Yes, PayPal sucks, but you can run into this crap with any bank or payment service provider you don't have clear and direct business dealings with, and who you haven't informed upfront about what you're up to. Also, it's just plain lazy and irresponsible of IndieGogo to pay out via PayPal, at least n…

I'm surprised PayPal still haven't taken a clear stance against crowdfunding like Amazon Payments have. That's part of the problem - it's really vague as to what situations PayPal will intervene in.

That's funny, because Amazon Payments is exactly what crowdfunding site Kickstarter uses[0] to pay out to projects.

[0]: http://www.kickstarter.com/help/amazon

Re: PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

#78

Post by paulgerhardt »

Part of the reason we open-sourced Selfstarter was to prevent situations like this happening to other companies. With Selfstarter and by extension Crowdtilt's Crowdhoster [1] if you have a problem like this, it would merely be a setback rather than a crisis.

You manage your relationship with your customers, not someone else. If your payment processor gives you trouble, have your customers re-auth with a friendlier provider like Stripe, WePay or Amazon. If nothing else, even having the option to do so gives you more leverage should you find yourself in this position.

If you need further convincing about the benefits of self-hosting your crowdfunding campaign, please see this earlier comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6261442

[1] http://www.crowdhoster.com/

Re: PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

#79

Post by eksith »

Two things people need to keep in mind when using PayPal.

1) The company functions as an uninsured bank while essentially skipping the label thereby giving itself a legal loophole to function as it pleases. However, unlike a bank, you can't get to an actual human being in a timely manner unless you're dealing with hundreds of thousands of dollars or even millions. You're simply not important enough and PayPal is big enough that none of your complaints will really make a dent.

2) PayPal puts a value on risk. Your perception of this risk may be markedly different from PayPal's, however it is still there and if you trip over that threshold, you will be shut down with extreme prejudice. Projects like Mailpile function in a different world than even digital goods of a few years ago. You're not really donating for a product, but the expectation of a service which will, hopefully, come to fruition. The risk threshold set by PayPal is still under the older digital goods model which is an ill fit for Mailpile to begin with.

Those two aren't the only reasons why no one should use PayPal, but keep in mind that nothing you do, show or even consider reasonable matters to them as it's their assessment that ultimately holds sway. You're dealing with a banking megalith with an equivalent responsiveness.

Do not use PayPal.

Re: PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

#80

Post by hackerboos »

justysebitcoin wrote: post #63
gaius wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What should they use - Google Checkout? https://support.google.com/checkout/sell/answer/3080449?hl=e... For better or worse, Paypal has survived and looks like it's going to go on surviving, that's why people if they only support one method, choose it.

Bitcoin

Because everyone wants to limit their crowd-funding project to a micro-niche of internet users competent enough to use this internet currency.

Bitcoin has a long way to go before it's as easy to use as Paypal.

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