Good riddance, PayPal • Hacker News Board

Re: Good riddance, PayPal

#151

Post by debacle » Thu, Sep 06, 2012, 7:24 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #102

reitzensteinm wrote: post #35

The customer service angle sucks, no question, and I'm worried about getting into similar trouble (I sell downloadable games via PayPal). But I actually think holding an issues worth of revenue in reserve is a decent enough compromise. If the company goes bankrupt before an issue ships, for whatever reason, PayPal themselves are going to be on the hook for refunding every single payment, as well as chargeback fees th…

I believe it's a classic business mistake to think that you must turn a profit on every single customer. It's much better to think like a casino: as long as you're in the black for a service and segment of customers, it's a win. That's especially true for PayPal now. Before merchants didn't have much choice. If PayPal continues to be seen as difficult and risky, the better-qualified merchants will be the first to shi…

The financial industry is a different beast. If one customer can wipe out the profit of 100, you need to be much more careful about how you do business and who you do business with.

Re: Good riddance, PayPal

#152

Post by raverbashing » Thu, Sep 06, 2012, 7:30 PM UTC

onli wrote: post #147

jellicle wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? Debit transactions are not easy to reverse, at all, and in the U.S. at least are covered by much less generous consumer protection laws than are credit card transactions.

I was of course only talking about developed countries ;) Really, afaik in europe and for sure in germany this is totally easy. It is not equally easy to reverse a transaction you started yourself. But when another person has you account-number and the public data belonging to this, all he can do is a "lastschrift" (direct debit), which is easily reverseable. No need to downvote me. The USA is different than europe,…

A bank account number is different than a debit card number

About the direct debt, sure, I can undo this, via internet banking.

But a fraudulent debt card purchase takes time to process and you don't have you money in the account anymore.

With a credit card I can check for fraud and my money is not gone if this happens (and yes, it has happened to me)

Re: Good riddance, PayPal

#153

Post by darkarmani » Thu, Sep 06, 2012, 7:36 PM UTC

tylerrooney wrote: post #27

Perhaps someone who runs their own company can answer this question for me: If you don't use PayPal, how do you receive payment from customers who don't have credit cards? Are your customers exclusively in North America? Or do you just write those customers off (which is a valid option if PayPal integration would be that painful)? Adding PayPal as a payment option has been an enormous pain for us but a non-consequent…

They send cash like my grandma does.

Re: Good riddance, PayPal

#154

Post by onli » Thu, Sep 06, 2012, 7:41 PM UTC

raverbashing wrote: post #152

onli wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was of course only talking about developed countries ;) Really, afaik in europe and for sure in germany this is totally easy. It is not equally easy to reverse a transaction you started yourself. But when another person has you account-number and the public data belonging to this, all he can do is a "lastschrift" (direct debit), which is easily reverseable. No need to downvote me. The USA is different than europe,…

A bank account number is different than a debit card number About the direct debt, sure, I can undo this, via internet banking. But a fraudulent debt card purchase takes time to process and you don't have you money in the account anymore. With a credit card I can check for fraud and my money is not gone if this happens (and yes, it has happened to me)

Sure, those are different things. Maybe I misunderstood what the first comment was talking about, as I know of no system where you enter your debit card number to do anything.

This just highlights the fact that our global banking system works very differently in different parts of the world. And maybe, to close the cicle, as the article claims paypal really shouldn't forget this, as it has to behave differently outside of the US if it wants to stay successful. A different environment probably always needs a different strategy.

Re: Good riddance, PayPal

#155

Post by nathanb » Thu, Sep 06, 2012, 7:46 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #102

reitzensteinm wrote: post #35

The customer service angle sucks, no question, and I'm worried about getting into similar trouble (I sell downloadable games via PayPal). But I actually think holding an issues worth of revenue in reserve is a decent enough compromise. If the company goes bankrupt before an issue ships, for whatever reason, PayPal themselves are going to be on the hook for refunding every single payment, as well as chargeback fees th…

I believe it's a classic business mistake to think that you must turn a profit on every single customer. It's much better to think like a casino: as long as you're in the black for a service and segment of customers, it's a win. That's especially true for PayPal now. Before merchants didn't have much choice. If PayPal continues to be seen as difficult and risky, the better-qualified merchants will be the first to shi…

I don't think any reasonable person has a problem with PayPal deciding to freeze funds in order to ensure that they make a profit. The problem is that, once they have done so, it requires Moses and ten Biblical plagues in order for them to let your money go.

Re: Good riddance, PayPal

#156

Post by jvrossb » Thu, Sep 06, 2012, 7:48 PM UTC

TomGullen wrote: post #150

davidmarcus wrote: post #148

Hey, everyone — I'm David Marcus, and I've been running PayPal for the past 5 months. Hard for me not to comment on this thread. PayPal brought a lot of goodness to millions of merchants, and hundreds of millions of users around the world. But yes... as the company grew exponentially we were met with growing pains. And developers, merchants, and consumers sometimes had to pay the price for it. I still want to stress…

I have to say I do like the new business phone number which every time seems to connect me to a friendly and helpful person each time. That's where the positives end for me however. For Paypal, I fear it's too little too late. You've done too much damage to yourselves. I get the reasons why you do things, but the communication over the last years has been atrocious. We're in the UK and are just waiting for Stripe to…

Every time I've called PayPal I get connected to a real person. Once they even proactively called me to warn me of suspicious behaviour on my account. My account (which I've used to make thousands of dollars in payments for years now) has been blocked by them several times and every time a quick call sorts things out. I wonder if I am the norm and OP is the exception or vice versa?

Re: Good riddance, PayPal

#157

Post by TomGullen » Thu, Sep 06, 2012, 7:51 PM UTC

jvrossb wrote: post #156

TomGullen wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to say I do like the new business phone number which every time seems to connect me to a friendly and helpful person each time. That's where the positives end for me however. For Paypal, I fear it's too little too late. You've done too much damage to yourselves. I get the reasons why you do things, but the communication over the last years has been atrocious. We're in the UK and are just waiting for Stripe to…

Every time I've called PayPal I get connected to a real person. Once they even proactively called me to warn me of suspicious behaviour on my account. My account (which I've used to make thousands of dollars in payments for years now) has been blocked by them several times and every time a quick call sorts things out. I wonder if I am the norm and OP is the exception or vice versa?

We've never had our account blocked, but we've had a call every now and then to confirm transactions we carry out which is appreciated.

I think if you process enough transactions you get good phone support. They've been great every time.

All the other problems though cancel this benefit out and more in my opinion.

Re: Good riddance, PayPal

#158

Post by propercoil » Thu, Sep 06, 2012, 8:06 PM UTC

davidmarcus wrote: post #148

Hey, everyone — I'm David Marcus, and I've been running PayPal for the past 5 months. Hard for me not to comment on this thread. PayPal brought a lot of goodness to millions of merchants, and hundreds of millions of users around the world. But yes... as the company grew exponentially we were met with growing pains. And developers, merchants, and consumers sometimes had to pay the price for it. I still want to stress…

I don't know if this post is legit but if it is then you must know that currently: 1. your api is by far the most hated one in the space. the only good thing about it is the sandbox.

2. there were many instances where you were greedy ( diaspora, wikileaks). Alot of stories in IM forums that you freeze money from vendors and never return the money ( to either side).

3. tens of thousands vendors are waiting for stripe to go abroad including me so we could run away from your draconian "service"

Re: Good riddance, PayPal

#159

Post by citricsquid » Thu, Sep 06, 2012, 8:10 PM UTC

davidmarcus wrote: post #148

Hey, everyone — I'm David Marcus, and I've been running PayPal for the past 5 months. Hard for me not to comment on this thread. PayPal brought a lot of goodness to millions of merchants, and hundreds of millions of users around the world. But yes... as the company grew exponentially we were met with growing pains. And developers, merchants, and consumers sometimes had to pay the price for it. I still want to stress…

please could you verify your identity (tweet from http://twitter.com/davidmarcus) just for peace of mind? :)

Re: Good riddance, PayPal

#160

Post by redm » Thu, Sep 06, 2012, 8:11 PM UTC

milesskorpen wrote: post #116

redm wrote: post #108

"PayPal have all the power of a bank and yet none of the responsibility." That is precisely the problem, PayPal is on the hook for any credit card charges for 6 months so they are much more willing to protect themselves then to try to understand a specific situation. They are a black box when it comes to these types of issues, you feed lots of information in but you get almost nothing in return. Banks usually transfe…

No, its not. PayPal is a bank in the European Union.

From a purely end user perspective, PayPal does not operate like any of the Merchant services I've worked with. I'm sure its partially related to the additional liability PayPal takes on for processing a CreditCard that they do not issue but, in the end, the way they operate is not pleasant in any sense.