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PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

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81–90 of 366 posts

Re: PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

#81
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because indiegogo forces you to do it more ore or less. Glad I didn't donate yet. If necessary I'll fly over and deliver it in person ;)

IndieGoGo actually support direct credit card donations, but a lot of people asked for PayPal as an option and we relented. So donating via. IGG actually works just fine - we have obviously disabled the PayPal option.

Wait... really? Because when the ubuntu phone campaign happened, I wanted to buy one, and didn't purely because I couldn't figure out a way to do it without PayPal.

Did I miss something on the page that would have let me pay without it? Oh well; too late now I guess.

Re: PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

#82

I don't know why, in 2013, people are surprised when they use PayPal and wind up without access to the money for months or years. Paypal apologists will say that this is relatively rare. Even if that is true, since the criteria they use to take these actions are often beyond the control of merchants, using PayPal is an unacceptable risk for any business that doesn't have at least 6 months of working capital. Always a…

I've seen PayPal nearly put several small businesses out of business. There are some things that cause PayPal to just freeze an account, and it's next to impossible to speak to a human or to otherwise get the situation resolved. Pretty much the only threat to Stripe's eventual world domination would be PayPal getting its act together.

Most of Paypal's competitors weren't wiped out by Paypal being good, they were wiped out because they weren't as good as handling risk and fraud as Paypal. They got wiped out by criminals.

Paypal is risk averse, which means you shouldn't use them for cases where you're taking a large amount of money up front and not delivering in the near future (i.e events, crowd-funding), or alternatively get pre-approval from Paypal.

I've no idea what the current fraud level against Stripe is, but as they become more mainstream they're going to need to employ more anti-fraud and anti-risk measures as their exposure increases.

Re: PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

#83
post #70
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.

People can get tired of other people telling this, but really, they should use Bitcoin. There are several advantages of this: accountability (you can verify with the block chain that they really received your payment), ease of use (utilizing 3rd parties like Coinbase, BitPay and others you don't really have to know how Bitcoin works to pay with them) and most importantly - irreversibility - once you receive Bitcoin t…

Of course you also have about zero privacy with bitcoin (by design), but who cares about that, right?

Re: PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

#84
post #83
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People can get tired of other people telling this, but really, they should use Bitcoin. There are several advantages of this: accountability (you can verify with the block chain that they really received your payment), ease of use (utilizing 3rd parties like Coinbase, BitPay and others you don't really have to know how Bitcoin works to pay with them) and most importantly - irreversibility - once you receive Bitcoin t…

Of course you also have about zero privacy with bitcoin (by design), but who cares about that, right?

Just like everything else.

Re: PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

#85
post #26
post #7

This is not the first time Paypal did that [1] and it most certainly won't be the last time. That's one of the reasons Bitcoin was invented. I hope that events like this will drive its adoption as a safe alternative for crowd funding and online shopping. [1] http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-04-23-skullgirls-... and probably there's more of this

Bitcoin ftw. Sure, not everybody can contribute in bitcoin. But on balance, bitcoin beats paypal by a factor of infinity. Why infinity? Well, with bitcoin you could at least have some contributions, i.e. > 0. With paypal you get 0 contributions. (N>1)/0 = infinity.

> Sure, not everybody can contribute in bitcoin.

Why would anyone WANT to contribute in Bitcoin? From a contributor point of view, Bitcoin leaves them massively vulnerable to fraud--it is almost as bad as mailing an envelope full of cash.

Re: PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

#86
post #70
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.

People can get tired of other people telling this, but really, they should use Bitcoin. There are several advantages of this: accountability (you can verify with the block chain that they really received your payment), ease of use (utilizing 3rd parties like Coinbase, BitPay and others you don't really have to know how Bitcoin works to pay with them) and most importantly - irreversibility - once you receive Bitcoin t…

> irreversibility - once you receive Bitcoin there are no chargebacks.

Unless I receive the goods before paying, I would never buy anything with Bitcoin online. There’s no buyer or fraud protection whatsoever. I don’t understand how any legitimate merchant would be alright with that. If a merchant would only accept Bitcoin, that would come across just as sketchy as a merchant who wants me to mail him a cashier’s check – never gonna happen.

Re: PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

Coinbase (out of Y combinator) is getting there.

Re: PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

#88
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen PayPal nearly put several small businesses out of business. There are some things that cause PayPal to just freeze an account, and it's next to impossible to speak to a human or to otherwise get the situation resolved. Pretty much the only threat to Stripe's eventual world domination would be PayPal getting its act together.

Most of Paypal's competitors weren't wiped out by Paypal being good, they were wiped out because they weren't as good as handling risk and fraud as Paypal. They got wiped out by criminals. Paypal is risk averse, which means you shouldn't use them for cases where you're taking a large amount of money up front and not delivering in the near future (i.e events, crowd-funding), or alternatively get pre-approval from Payp…

> I've no idea what the current fraud level against Stripe is, but as they become more mainstream they're going to need to employ more anti-fraud and anti-risk measures as their exposure increases.

I'm one of Stripe's cofounders. For what it's worth -- we already process billions of dollars a year. (More than PayPal when it was acquired.) There'll always be more we can do on the fraud/risk side, but we're already operating at a scale that requires a decent amount of sophistication.

Re: PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

#89
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course you also have about zero privacy with bitcoin (by design), but who cares about that, right?

Just like everything else.

Not really - can USA spy on credit cards issued by Chinese banks? And vice-versa? There is at least some level of privacy. But with BTC every time you make a purchase you can be linked to all your previous and future purchases.

Re: PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

#90
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen PayPal nearly put several small businesses out of business. There are some things that cause PayPal to just freeze an account, and it's next to impossible to speak to a human or to otherwise get the situation resolved. Pretty much the only threat to Stripe's eventual world domination would be PayPal getting its act together.

Most of Paypal's competitors weren't wiped out by Paypal being good, they were wiped out because they weren't as good as handling risk and fraud as Paypal. They got wiped out by criminals. Paypal is risk averse, which means you shouldn't use them for cases where you're taking a large amount of money up front and not delivering in the near future (i.e events, crowd-funding), or alternatively get pre-approval from Payp…

And then there's Bitcoin- no fraud, no charge backs.

Payments are final and instant and, best of all, don't require a middle man.

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