PayPal penalised for 'deceptive' practices • Hacker News Board

Re: PayPal penalised for 'deceptive' practices

#81

Post by dangrossman » Wed, May 20, 2015, 5:15 PM UTC

s73v3r wrote: post #75

arbitrage wrote: post #5

PayPal is not a bank, although people seem to think it is, and they seem to be more than happy to let people think that. It's long overdue for some serious regulatory oversight.

Why aren't they a bank? Because they claim they aren't?

Because federal regulators said so over 10 years ago. They don't accept deposits as defined by FDIC, engage in fractional reserve banking, or otherwise meet the definitions of a bank in the US. They're more like an escrow service, holding funds on your behalf in accounts at actual banks. They are a money transmitting entity, which means obtaining 54 state/territory licenses to operate in the entire US, and they hold all of those.

Re: PayPal penalised for 'deceptive' practices

#82

Post by Lawtonfogle » Wed, May 20, 2015, 5:17 PM UTC

aleksandrm wrote: post #6

rip747 wrote: post #4

About time, but $25M is nothing for them. Nowadays we have all our clients using Stripe for their CC processing, but back in the day, our clients could use anyone they want. One poor soul choose to use PayPal against our insisting he not. Three days before he had to give the security deposit to the convention center where his organization was hosting their conference, PayPal froze the account. I can't express the str…

Agreed, $25M is nothing and they should be slapped with a much higher penalty. PayPal is the scummiest company on Earth. A buyer opened a dispute with them, and PayPal robbed me of $2500, tried fighting them for 2 years but eventually gave up.

>PayPal is the scummiest company on Earth.

Maybe second. Nestle still wins worst place with their infant formula scandal.

Re: PayPal penalised for 'deceptive' practices

#83

Post by EGreg » Wed, May 20, 2015, 5:17 PM UTC

jklein11 wrote: post #66

saurik wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PayPal does not consider conferences a "false positive". Small events often fail: the speakers cancel, the venue falls through, not enough people buy tickets to cover costs... if you are using incoming ticket money today for things, you are essentially taking investments, not payments. PayPal's response to this is to hold most of the money until one day after the conference, as otherwise, when your conference fails,…

This all makes perfect sense. My only problem is that this is not communicated with the seller clearly. If it is a stated policy that Paypal will hold the host of a conference's money until the event materializes to cover their costs then no party involved has a right to feel cheated. Instead Paypal is classifying this risk which is inherent to their business, which is the risk of the conference materializing, as fra…

You always have a right to feel a certain way, no?

Re: PayPal penalised for 'deceptive' practices

#84

Post by railsisfails » Wed, May 20, 2015, 5:21 PM UTC

Right now, any other payment company could hold your money, kill your cat, fill your car with stinky waste, spoof rude emails to your friends and family, and finally blow raspberries at you, and it would still be heads and shoulders above the stinkfest of paypal.

Re: PayPal penalised for 'deceptive' practices

#85

Post by [deleted] » Wed, May 20, 2015, 5:23 PM UTC

fsargent wrote: post #76

cmdrfred wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$20 in 'investigation fees'? can anyone confirm this? I won't use them again if true.

Save yourself the trouble and just don't use them!

[deleted]

Re: PayPal penalised for 'deceptive' practices

#86

Post by mewm » Wed, May 20, 2015, 5:23 PM UTC

TorKlingberg wrote: post #35

hurin wrote: post #21

Many years ago I tried to sell a World of Warcraft account via. Paypal. I got lots of buyers -- all of whom tried to pay with stolen paypal accounts. After they made a payment I would ask for a photo-copy of their ID, or to wait 3-days to make sure the payment went through properly (Paypal's normalized way of handling this was to mark the Payment as confirmed leaving the seller thinking everything was okay only to re…

Does PayPal even allow selling things like WoW accounts? Otherwise you don't really have a right to complain.

I guess not, but you'd just describe the goods as "Virtual goods".

Re: PayPal penalised for 'deceptive' practices

#87

Post by Lawtonfogle » Wed, May 20, 2015, 5:23 PM UTC

ohitsdom wrote: post #78

daj40 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory, they shouldn't. Its not allowed by Blizzard, and if memory serves, Blizzard considers it a breach of EULA and takes the account down as a whole. PayPal was supposed to be cracking down when this was rampant, because essentially its an illegal product. Though really, paying for crap is different than selling it. More of an eBay domain problem than PayPal. Two totally different businesses.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but breaking the EULA does NOT make an action illegal. It puts you in breach with an agreement you had with Blizzard, so they could terminate your account. But that doesn't make it a law. Blizzard may have some means to enforce the "contract" in civil court, though.

The difficulty comes in when the only use of the account, which would consist of the username and password, would be to log into Blizzard's servers, and since the account has been sold, it would be doing so in violation of the EULA and thus accessing their servers and circumventing a login without protection. This can possibly be a federal crime (there are a few cases tried as such, though it is rare).

So while the item being sold isn't illegal, it is pretty close to have no legal uses.

That said, I rather paypal (or any other business) not be the arbiter of law.

Re: PayPal penalised for 'deceptive' practices

#88

Post by fastball » Wed, May 20, 2015, 5:27 PM UTC

aleksandrm wrote: post #6

rip747 wrote: post #4

About time, but $25M is nothing for them. Nowadays we have all our clients using Stripe for their CC processing, but back in the day, our clients could use anyone they want. One poor soul choose to use PayPal against our insisting he not. Three days before he had to give the security deposit to the convention center where his organization was hosting their conference, PayPal froze the account. I can't express the str…

Agreed, $25M is nothing and they should be slapped with a much higher penalty. PayPal is the scummiest company on Earth. A buyer opened a dispute with them, and PayPal robbed me of $2500, tried fighting them for 2 years but eventually gave up.

Scummiest for sellers. They are quite a good deal for buyers.

Re: PayPal penalised for 'deceptive' practices

#89

Post by fastball » Wed, May 20, 2015, 5:31 PM UTC

jliptzin wrote: post #58

sombremesa wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, it's not that I prefer PayPal, it's that I don't want to give my credit card details to a business if I'm not sure they can keep it reasonably secure. And the fewer places I have my card the better. You might get the same results with Amazon Payments, unless you have an international audience.

You can use a virtual credit card number for such instances

What's a virtual credit card?

Re: PayPal penalised for 'deceptive' practices

#90

Post by webjprgm » Wed, May 20, 2015, 5:31 PM UTC

jliptzin wrote: post #58

sombremesa wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, it's not that I prefer PayPal, it's that I don't want to give my credit card details to a business if I'm not sure they can keep it reasonably secure. And the fewer places I have my card the better. You might get the same results with Amazon Payments, unless you have an international audience.

You can use a virtual credit card number for such instances

But that's a hassle.

First you have to figure out how to use the webpage / app to get the virtual credit card number. Once you know, you still have to log into a separate service and click a few buttons. With PayPal or Amazon Payments you just click your password manager's button to log you in right in the checkout process on the same webpage.