PayPal penalised for 'deceptive' practices • Hacker News Board

Re: PayPal penalised for 'deceptive' practices

#91

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

1_player wrote: post #19

coffeedrinker wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PayPal has some serious issues with regards to what you say, but I used it last summer to transfer money from USA to Europe for my daughter and the fee was a fraction of what the bank wanted. Banks can be pretty scummy in their own way.

Have you ever tried TransferWise? With customers and family around the world, I'm thinking of switching to them to handle transfers instead of Paypal/Stripe. They seem to have the most honest fees around. Disclaimer: not affiliated with them. Just genuinely curious.

I've used Xoom in the past as to send money to family in the UK, it's always been fast and easy.

However they charge $4.99 up to $2999, with TransferWise there's no fee and slightly better rates (0.6346 vs. 0.6262). I'm going to try them out next time, thanks for the tip!

Re: PayPal penalised for 'deceptive' practices

#92

Post by sblawrie » Wed, May 20, 2015, 5:32 PM UTC

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…

What if you just need a page (the page can be external to your own site) that accepts payment and emails you a receipt, and you don't want to write any server-side code? Can Stripe do that the way PayPal can?

Re: PayPal penalised for 'deceptive' practices

#93

Post by pix64 » Wed, May 20, 2015, 5:32 PM UTC

quadrangle wrote: post #50

!@(*#& I was one of those tricked by this scheme which is 5,000% obviously deceptive. There is ZERO chance that Paypal folks were unaware that people would accidentally use the credit product. I wrote them a complaint and changed the default but never heard back. FUCK YOU Paypal, you MUGGED me and stole money from me. I am CERTAIN they end up getting more than $25m out of this scheme. This settlement just means they…

When I signed up they gave me an option for it to not become the default, but then gave me at least one other page trying to trick me into setting it as the default.

Re: PayPal penalised for 'deceptive' practices

#94

Post by donarb » Wed, May 20, 2015, 5:34 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.

There are two types of laws, criminal and civil. Illegal means against the law.

Re: PayPal penalised for 'deceptive' practices

#95

Post by dimino » Wed, May 20, 2015, 5:39 PM UTC

Chinjut wrote: post #40

Wow, nothing but complaints about PayPal here. Interesting to keep in mind next time the Elon Musk hagiography starts up again...

I've been very wary of PayPal given the vocality of those who've had issues, but I've used it a couple of times, in a couple of different ways, and have seen no issues.

I've used PayPal to:

    * Buy/sell things from eBay (~$2k in transactions)
    * Send money/receive money from friends (~$5k in transactions)
    * Use their PayPal card abroad as a pair of primary cards
      (one in my name, on in my girlfriend's name) ($~2k in 
      transactions in various foreign countries)

I even had to settle a disputed transaction from eBay on a sale I made, and though they returned the ~$140 USD to the buyer, since I provided proof of delivery in the form of a tracking number, I was "covered" under their sellers protection policy, and didn't lose any of my money.

Re: PayPal penalised for 'deceptive' practices

#96

Post by gav » Wed, May 20, 2015, 5:39 PM UTC

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…

To add to the anti-PayPal anecdotes: I once used it to checkout from a merchant that I hadn't used before and didn't trust; there was no shipping charge added until I completed the order. Given the merchant didn't respond to emails, I contacted PayPal. They couldn't do anything until the order was shipped, then after it did they didn't care because the guarantee only covers receiving the item that was promised.

It's a combination of a bad UX that won't confirm the price of the order until you've confirmed and service that's lacking compared to using a credit card.

Re: PayPal penalised for 'deceptive' practices

#97

Post by JustSomeNobody » Wed, May 20, 2015, 5:40 PM UTC

Things like this amaze me. I really would like to be a fly on the wall just to see if this is incompetence or if they actively choose to deceive people. I would love to hear the conversations that occur around this.

I've never worked for a company that was shady, so this really does fascinate me that companies do this and think they can get away with it (assuming, of course, that this simply was not incompetence).

Re: PayPal penalised for 'deceptive' practices

#98

Post by joshstrange » Wed, May 20, 2015, 5:45 PM UTC

> The eBay-owned company has offered to settle the case, without admitting wrongdoing.

I'm getting REALLY sick of this shit. Wish normal people could just pay off the government to avoid facing consequences for their actions...

Re: PayPal penalised for 'deceptive' practices

#99

Post by madez » Wed, May 20, 2015, 5:45 PM UTC

thirdsun wrote: post #34

NelsonMinar wrote: post #27

This is the product PayPal advertises in every single purchase customers make online. I don't understand why any serious business uses PayPal for payments when the company is injecting an extra step (or two) into the purchase workflow. How many sales do merchants lose because of the interruption?

Well, here in Germany, maybe europe in general, you can't assume that your customers own a credit card. I like Stripe a lot, but using it as the only payment option wouldn't work for us. Credit cards have become more common here recently but for a long time it was either Paypal connected to the customers bank account or plain old bank wire transfer. Sure, there are some niche services like Sofortüberweisung, but they…

I, as a customer, actually prefer Sofortüberweisung compared to PayPal. I also don't have a credit card and I don't want to have one.

Re: PayPal penalised for 'deceptive' practices

#100

Post by benihana » Wed, May 20, 2015, 5:46 PM UTC

joshstrange wrote: post #98

> The eBay-owned company has offered to settle the case, without admitting wrongdoing. I'm getting REALLY sick of this shit. Wish normal people could just pay off the government to avoid facing consequences for their actions...

They can. It's called a fine.