Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

mailpile.is

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 366 posts

Re: PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

#351

Post by llimllib »

likeclockwork wrote: post #347
paisawalla wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bizarre to think we should be sympathizing with, enticing, or otherwise fellating PayPal in this situation. While I understand how easy it is to sympathize with the merchant here, as none of us will ever be payment processors, the reality is that the sum of your suggestions or assertions, if explored just as a thought experiment, quickly lead to a world where nobody can do payment processing without imposing absurdly…

The thing is... ...nothing is being sold.

Which, presumably, would not stop people filing chargebacks if Mailpile fails to deliver on their promises.

Re: PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

#352

Post by downandout »

patio11 wrote: post #118

Indulge me in a flight of fancy in which we pretend, for the sake of argument, that a) Paypal is run not by Snidely Whiplash clones but b) by smart geeks working with thin margins in a highly regulated industry where c) customers are at risk essentially never, d) merchants eat 100% of the risk if they stay in business, and e) Paypal eats 100% of the risk if the merchant doesn't. Why is Paypal very skeptical of pre-sa…

This entirely misses the point. Merchants do not and should not care about PayPal's plight. They care that customers paid them while a third party is preventing them from accessing those funds. They care that they can't pay their employees and/or suppliers, or in this case, that they can't use any of the money raised as intended. Merchants can and should gravitate toward providers that do not have a reputation for this kind of thing.

Re: PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

#353

Post by pantaril »

danielweber wrote: post #105
MacsHeadroom wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> no fraud Only for extremely specific and useless definitions of "no fraud." If I send my bitcoins to someone to buy something, I have no protection if they decide not to deliver. At which point the Bitcoin enthusiasts will say "but you can use a third party escrow service," which is true, and puts us right back into the same situation we are with PayPal .

> At which point the Bitcoin enthusiasts will say "but you can use a third party escrow service," which is true, and puts us right back into the same situation we are with PayPal.

Bitcoin escrow doesn't work that way. Escrow cannot decide by itself to freeze your money. There are three parties in the transaction and you'd need the consensus of at least two of them to move the money. It's either the buyer and seller (in ideal transaction), or the escrow and seller or the escrow and buyer in a situation where transaction is disputed. The bitcoin escrow cannot behave like paypal do in this case.

Re: PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

#354

Post by honzzz »

anigbrowl wrote: post #270
M4v3R wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But with Bitcoin, if you trust the merchant/recipient you can opt out of using escrow and transfer the money directly to him. With Paypal it's impossible.

Just send a money order or cash through the mail. After all, you trust the recipient, so you don't need all that customer protection stuff that Paypal offers.

I live in the Czech Republic and by far the most used payment method here is 'cash on delivery' - you send something and the postal service collects the money for you and than just sends you the cheque. It can hardly get simpler and it's safe. I wonder why this solution is apparently so rarely used in western countries.

Re: PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

#355

Post by pantaril »

annnnd wrote: post #89
fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>But with BTC every time you make a purchase you can be linked to all your previous and future purchases.

This is simply not true. If i make my first purchuase using address A and my second purchuase using address B, how can they be linked together?

Re: PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

#356

Post by rmc »

jedunnigan wrote: post #330
rmc wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

use an escrow service. Something like PayPal for Bitcoins? Sounds like we're back to square one. What's the point of bitcoin again?

Not exactly. Bitcoin enables multi signature transactions, so power rests not only with the escrow service, but also with the parties involved. There can also be more than one dispute mediator involved, as to maintain a balance. For the delivery of real world goods you can write small scripts in the tx that monitor tracking numbers, have time locks, and the like as to maintain more control over the flow of money. Bit…

A script in the transaction cannot check if the the item sent was as described. No matter what, you will need people/courts/judges involved.

Re: PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

#357

Post by gtirloni »

Xylakant wrote: post #320
rmc wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're presuming IGG and PP have the same risk calculation. IGG might be more willing to take on risk than PP.

Then why does PP work as Payment Provider for IGG if they are so risk-averse?

Because PayPal has enough evidence that they will have resources to pull from IndieGoGo in case things go bad? IGG's risk to PP is much lower than MailPile's.

Re: PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

#358

Post by gtirloni »

likeclockwork wrote: post #347
paisawalla wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bizarre to think we should be sympathizing with, enticing, or otherwise fellating PayPal in this situation. While I understand how easy it is to sympathize with the merchant here, as none of us will ever be payment processors, the reality is that the sum of your suggestions or assertions, if explored just as a thought experiment, quickly lead to a world where nobody can do payment processing without imposing absurdly…

The thing is... ...nothing is being sold.

The other thing is, things don't work like that in the real world. If you go to court over this, the judge will check the material evidence (for example, that MailPile's page says they will deliver a beta by Jan2014) and will want to know if that was delivered.

Re: PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

#359

Post by gtirloni »

Xylakant wrote: post #310
wmf wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the difference is that IGG takes a higher cut, then fair enough, let PayPal take a higher cut. So you're asking PayPal to create a new level of service. (They probably won't, but their business is up to them.) That's fine, but you[1] should probably do that before using PayPal. And if PayPal doesn't create the new service you want, don't use PayPal . [1] By "you" I really mean anyone who's crowdfunding.

> So you're asking PayPal to create a new level of service. No, I'm just saying that the problem seems not to be a fundamental one. And the point here is that PP does accept payments on behalf of IGG. If I decide to fund a campaign, one of the payment options is PayPal (obviously that can be configured and turned off, since it's off for mailpile atm). The funds donated to mailpile via PayPal were donated via the IGG…

It IS a fundamental one. Most of your comments center on "why it's not a problem for IGG" while failing to understand the risks involved (and the risk mitigation actions taken).

Re: PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds

#360

Post by lambda »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #345
lambda wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So wait. You want Paypal to require everyone who opens a PayPal account to have to write up what it's going to be used for, and wait in a queue before you can receive funds so that they can review it to ensure that it's not something like crowdfunding, and then require that you either never change what you use your PayPal account for, or submit any changes back to them, so that they can re-review it and approve your…

"So wait. You want Paypal to require everyone who opens a PayPal account to have to write up what it's going to be used for, and wait in a queue before you can receive funds so that they can review it to ensure that it's not something like crowdfunding, and then require that you either never change what you use your PayPal account for, or submit any changes back to them, so that they can re-review it and approve your…

Was the link I gave, about not allowing pre-sales for items that won't ship within 20 days, not clear enough?

It's not some little footnote hidden within a wall of legalese. It's a pretty clear statement of what they allow and what they don't.

And why would you think that crowdfunding counts as "apparently-innocuous"? Crowdfunding is an area that is ripe for scamming. You create a glitzy campaign, get lots of backers, keep promising something that never quite gets finished, and then disappear with the money.

Apparently, ever since the Ubuntu Edge crowdfunding campaign failed, there's been a whole bunch of fake knock-off campaigns, of people capitalizing on the interest and trying to trick people into funding things that pretend to be related but really aren't.

Any time you have some kind of "amazing new investment opportunity", there are going to be scammers. And when you get down to it, crowdfunding is just an "amazing new investment opportunity".

Post reply on HN