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

Today I learned that random people can send you money on PayPal and disputed it

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 73 posts

Re: Today I learned that random people can send you money on PayPal and disputed it

#31

Post by FartyMcFarter »

Fradow wrote: post #24
hexfish wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10-15 years ago (when I started using paypal) most Europeans didn't have a credit card and most US-based services (and things like Ebay and Dealextreme) didn't accept anything but credit cards and paypal. And this sometimes is still the case.

Credit card is a rarity in Europe, because what we call a "credit card" is actually a debit card. Credit card are available at a premium, and while they offer some other advantages, few people use those. Visiting the US is actually one of the compelling reasons to get one. In France (and I'm going to guess similar rules exist in other EU countries), businesses are required to accept at least 2 different payment optio…

That's not true. Debit cards are more common, but credit cards are also very common in Europe:

https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/people_with_credit...

Re: Today I learned that random people can send you money on PayPal and disputed it

#33

Post by Forge36 »

astrange wrote: post #17
addandsubtract wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Umm... just do a password reset on their PayPal account?

Sounds illegal? As in, I thought about it and that's the reason I haven't done it.

It's tied to your identity. If they commit any fraud it may fall back on you.

Re: Today I learned that random people can send you money on PayPal and disputed it

#34

Post by devoutsalsa »

arcticbull wrote: post #18
danShumway wrote: post #6

I know that FedNow isn't really a digital currency system and I'm not making any assumptions about how it's going to play out, but I hope one consequence of it is that sites like Paypal start seeing a lot more competition and lose a lot of power. I know other countries have similar systems, but the US being a holdout and having terrible money transfer options despite being a massive market in the tech space maybe (ho…

The dollar is already a digital currency, and its issuance is largely decentralized. Most dollars are issued by retail banks. What you can't do is self-custody the digital dollars or have an account at the Fed. FedNow is going to be fine, just like ACH but faster. PayPal sucks in a lot of ways, but there are reasons you would use it over an actual money sending service like Zelle, FedNow or Wise. For what it's worth…

How do retail banks issue dollars?

Re: Today I learned that random people can send you money on PayPal and disputed it

#35

Post by GuB-42 »

Dah00n wrote: post #2

For the life of me I cannot understand anyone would use PayPal. I'd rather trust the postal system with an envelope of money. I have yet to see an area where there aren't better options.

PayPal is excellent for sending money (buying) for the same reason it is terrible for receiving money (selling).

Essentially, the buyer is always right, and so, as a buyer, it is very easy to get your money back in case of a problem. The seller is the one who gets all the fees, and needs to justify himself if there is a dispute. Sellers offer PayPal because even though it is really bad for them, it gets them customers.

Re: Today I learned that random people can send you money on PayPal and disputed it

#36

Post by plantain »

arcticbull wrote: post #18
danShumway wrote: post #6

I know that FedNow isn't really a digital currency system and I'm not making any assumptions about how it's going to play out, but I hope one consequence of it is that sites like Paypal start seeing a lot more competition and lose a lot of power. I know other countries have similar systems, but the US being a holdout and having terrible money transfer options despite being a massive market in the tech space maybe (ho…

The dollar is already a digital currency, and its issuance is largely decentralized. Most dollars are issued by retail banks. What you can't do is self-custody the digital dollars or have an account at the Fed. FedNow is going to be fine, just like ACH but faster. PayPal sucks in a lot of ways, but there are reasons you would use it over an actual money sending service like Zelle, FedNow or Wise. For what it's worth…

>it's pretty rare that I have been materially adversely affected by the latency of an ACH payment

What about every time you make a credit card payment (and associated fees)?

Re: Today I learned that random people can send you money on PayPal and disputed it

#37

Post by smcl »

seszett wrote: post #27
smcl wrote: post #21

I don't get the angle of the "random people" here - is it just to cause a nuisance by causing target accounts to incur fees? I mean it's stupid but a lot of PayPal stuff is stupid. > To a point, I am suspecting Paypal pretends to be the random online stranger that sent me the money and then disputed it I would highly doubt this.

> is it just to cause a nuisance by causing target accounts to incur fees? Most likely, they give money to a random email address using a stolen card, then dispute it and receive that money back, but now it's clean money because it comes from Paypal.

I suppose, I'm not sure how far these cases get pursued but it feels like you could track the movement of money between a stolen card and the scammer's account if you really wanted. But maybe they give up after seeing a charge to PayPal

Re: Today I learned that random people can send you money on PayPal and disputed it

#38

Post by WesternWind »

devoutsalsa wrote: post #34
arcticbull wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dollar is already a digital currency, and its issuance is largely decentralized. Most dollars are issued by retail banks. What you can't do is self-custody the digital dollars or have an account at the Fed. FedNow is going to be fine, just like ACH but faster. PayPal sucks in a lot of ways, but there are reasons you would use it over an actual money sending service like Zelle, FedNow or Wise. For what it's worth…

How do retail banks issue dollars?

loans basically, I think?A deposits $100 you loan $97 of it to B who deposits that in their account. But A still has their $100.

Re: Today I learned that random people can send you money on PayPal and disputed it

#39

Post by zimpenfish »

seanhunter wrote: post #11
Dah00n wrote: post #2

For the life of me I cannot understand anyone would use PayPal. I'd rather trust the postal system with an envelope of money. I have yet to see an area where there aren't better options.

At the moment I use paypal when my bank rejects a credit card transaction due to fraud risk. For example this happened yesterday when I tried to make a payment to a (very reputable) educational institution for an application fee. This is by no means a high risk transaction. In fact I would go so far as to say the payment could never in a million, billion, Brazillian years be fraud, but it was rejected. But they take…

> I think some UK banks are much more trigger-happy than the global average

For a good year, Barclays would ask me if my monthly Oyster purchase, for the same cost, at the same station, on roughly the same day of the month, was actually me doing it. Natwest, similarly, have blocked my "early September, about £1200, to Apple" payment for 5 years in a row now. It's infuriating.

Post reply on HN