6 ms·

It's an absolute egregious shame that PayPal, after more than a decade of problematic behavior, is still relevant.

by kintamanimatt 11y ago

dimgl 11y ago
Maybe because they're extremely useful and I've never had a problem with PayPal? Like, ever?
- aroch 11y ago
  If you're solely a customer, you're unlikely to ever have any real problems with Paypal. For vendors though they are the devil.
  - braythwayt 11y ago
    This is the other side of the phenomenon that was Apple’s relationship with mobile carriers. They put the people buying ahead of the people selling. It’s the same with PayPal, really. They’re prioritizing the people buying stuff over the people selling stuff.
    - mikeash 11y ago
      Credit cards too. It seems like buyers prefer protection a lot more than sellers do. Or maybe sellers just don't have any power to decide, and have to go where the buyers are.
      - AnthonyMouse 11y ago
        > It seems like buyers prefer protection a lot more than sellers do. It's a consequence of the regulations on credit cards. The cardholder can reverse allegedly-fraudulent transactions. Paypal can't reasonably do something else while processing credit cards, so they don't. It's quite stupid because you end up with customers who aren't even looking for credit, they're willing to prepay and are willing to trust the seller, they just want to transfer funds digitally. But they can't because the seller/card processor doesn't trust the buyer not to reverse the transaction and the regulations don't allow the buyer to abandon that right up front.
        mikeash 11y ago
        PayPal could at least offer the option for purchases funded entirely from existing funds in the buyer's account. That they don't suggests that protecting buyers is more valuable to them than protecting sellers.
        deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
        andybak 11y ago
        Isn't that whata debit card does
        mikeash 11y ago
        Debit transactions have the same sort of protections. The main difference between debit and credit is that if you're the victim of fraud with a debit card, money has been taken from your bank account and you have to fight to get it back. The fight is usually not very hard, but it takes some time. If it hits at the wrong moment you may have trouble buying food or paying rent on time, even though you'll get the money back before too long.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- tyingq 11y ago
  Or that the barrier to entry for competitors is too high. It's pretty difficult to replicate the synergy PayPal had with eBay, which drove the number of Paypal customers up so high, so quickly.
- arnorhs 11y ago
  same here, except you can't use the same paypal account for credit cards issued in different countries. but you just end up using two paypal accounts.
- qb45 11y ago
  Like, they never blocked your account for logging in from abroad? My first account is still in zombie state because it can't be closed without sending them scans of some papers I couldn't care less about sending (and didn't have them abroad). There was no money there so I simply opened another one, but still an annoyance.
jdietrich 11y ago
Until quite recently, they offered the only way of accepting credit cards without a written application and a substantial security deposit. In many countries, they're still the only realistic option. The "problematic behaviour" you describe is invariably related to the fraud prevention mechanisms required to offer their service. That's the deal - Paypal are incredibly liberal in opening accounts, but they reserve the right to freeze an account pending investigation if something looks sketchy. Paypal still fills a very useful role. I've used their services to receive payments for over a decade without incident.
- preinheimer 11y ago
  I run a small business in Canada, and a hundred times this. For a long time my options were: PayPal, or sign a contract with a bank to get a binder with some instructions to use a horrible API. There may have been some weird options like e-gold, but nothing I could pitch to a business user. PayPal was easy to set up, captured credit cards so I didn't need to think about PCI, and did a non-zero amount of work to block fraud. We've since migrated to start preferring Stripe over PayPal, but it was Paypal all the way for the first 5 years. Stripe only launched in Canada late 2012: https://stripe.com/blog/stripe-in-canada https://stripe.com/blog/stripe-in-canada So did braintree: https://www.braintreepayments.com/blog/braintree-in-europe-and-canada/ https://www.braintreepayments.com/blog/braintree-in-europe-a... And we're america's hat. Many countries are still bereft of options. (disclosure: I'm now a stripe employee, opinions are my own)
  - gcb0 11y ago
    it's not because paypal is better. paypal is only relevant because they invented the uber-way. They ignore all legislation. push away. and nobody makes them accountable for anything. they are pretty much a bank for free
    - dangrossman 11y ago
      > They ignore all legislation. They are pretty much a bank for free. They're more regulated than all but a handful of international banks, and it's not at all free. PayPal is a licensed money transmitter in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Most of those states have bond requirements for MTAs, typically six figure deposits. They're subject to 52 different regulatory agencies in the US, in addition to Regulation E consumer protections and the USA Patriot Act federally. Their US<->international transfers are overseen by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control like any bank. They're not an ordinary bank in the US only because many years ago a judge ruled that they don't qualify to be one by the nature of their business; they tried unsuccessfully to be licensed as one in order to get FDIC insurance on deposits. They are a licensed bank in all of the EU, with a bank charter in Luxembourg, regulated by the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier. In Australia, they're licensed by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission as a financial product and by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority as a purchased payment facility provider, which is a type of authorized depository institution (i.e. bank). In most of southeast Asia, they operate under their subsidiary PayPal Pte. Ltd. which is a licensed stored value facility regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore. They operate in 203 markets in total, most of which have separate financial regulations and regulatory bodies PayPal has to comply with. https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/licenses https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/licenses
MicroBerto 11y ago
PayPal is more relevant than ever. As simple as it seems, sending legitimate money from point A to point B could not possibly be any easier than with this service. Their invoicing system is ridiculously simple, nearly everyone I'm working with keeps cash in there or connected to it (or very worst, a credit card attached), it hooks up easily with FreshBooks, contractors like it since PayPal handles the 1099-K themselves, and it just works. I see no reason to change. I just don't keep an absurd amount of money in the account and I feel safe using it.
- hotcool 11y ago
  As simple as it seems, sending legitimate money from point A to point B could not possibly be any easier than with this service. You obviously have never used Bitcoin.
  - dexterdog 11y ago
    Bitcoin has never been considered easy
    - ryan-c 11y ago
      Honestly, when I'm dealing with a trusted merchant, Bitcoin is less painful than a credit card, especially if there's nothing to ship (e.g. with Namecheap and Prgmr). I have Mycelium on my phone - I scan the QR code, punch in my pin, and order completes a few seconds later.
  - LeoPanthera 11y ago
    With the potential imminent fork, this is a bad time to make such a comparison.
    - hotcool 11y ago
      Imminent fork? Bitcoin already forked back in August 2015: http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-software-forked-in-bid-to-resolve-scalability-issue/ http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-software-forked-in-bid-to-re...
cm2187 11y ago
And with an absolutely useless website. They have two UIs, like windows 10, an old one and a new one with the website randomly switching between the two and many options or data that are only visible in one but not the other.
tluyben2 11y ago
Yep. I stopped using them years ago; I cannot understand how such a bad company is still used by so many people.
such_a_casual 11y ago
I explained this in another post about paypal. Basically, paypal has a monopoly on international transactions for Americans. I ended up switching to Bitcoin, but not everyone is able to do that. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10911837 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10911837
kbart 11y ago
"It's an absolute egregious shame that PayPal, after more than a decade of problematic behavior, is still relevant." What alternatives could you offer? I really don't feel like entering my Visa details in some random website and Bitcoin is still a mess to acquire and use. Yes, PayPal has it's cons, but unless some other service arise that could offer comparable convenience (fast email & password checkout) and safety (no need to enter personal or financial information) I don't see how it can become irrelevant.

It's an absolute egregious shame that PayPal, after more than a decade of problematic behavior, is still relevant.

dimgl 11y ago

Maybe because they're extremely useful and I've never had a problem with PayPal? Like, ever?

aroch 11y ago
If you're solely a customer, you're unlikely to ever have any real problems with Paypal. For vendors though they are the devil.
- braythwayt 11y ago
  This is the other side of the phenomenon that was Apple’s relationship with mobile carriers. They put the people buying ahead of the people selling. It’s the same with PayPal, really. They’re prioritizing the people buying stuff over the people selling stuff.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    Credit cards too. It seems like buyers prefer protection a lot more than sellers do. Or maybe sellers just don't have any power to decide, and have to go where the buyers are.
    - AnthonyMouse 11y ago
      > It seems like buyers prefer protection a lot more than sellers do. It's a consequence of the regulations on credit cards. The cardholder can reverse allegedly-fraudulent transactions. Paypal can't reasonably do something else while processing credit cards, so they don't. It's quite stupid because you end up with customers who aren't even looking for credit, they're willing to prepay and are willing to trust the seller, they just want to transfer funds digitally. But they can't because the seller/card processor doesn't trust the buyer not to reverse the transaction and the regulations don't allow the buyer to abandon that right up front.
      - mikeash 11y ago
        PayPal could at least offer the option for purchases funded entirely from existing funds in the buyer's account. That they don't suggests that protecting buyers is more valuable to them than protecting sellers.
        deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
        andybak 11y ago
        Isn't that whata debit card does
        mikeash 11y ago
        Debit transactions have the same sort of protections. The main difference between debit and credit is that if you're the victim of fraud with a debit card, money has been taken from your bank account and you have to fight to get it back. The fight is usually not very hard, but it takes some time. If it hits at the wrong moment you may have trouble buying food or paying rent on time, even though you'll get the money back before too long.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
tyingq 11y ago
Or that the barrier to entry for competitors is too high. It's pretty difficult to replicate the synergy PayPal had with eBay, which drove the number of Paypal customers up so high, so quickly.
arnorhs 11y ago
same here, except you can't use the same paypal account for credit cards issued in different countries. but you just end up using two paypal accounts.
qb45 11y ago
Like, they never blocked your account for logging in from abroad? My first account is still in zombie state because it can't be closed without sending them scans of some papers I couldn't care less about sending (and didn't have them abroad). There was no money there so I simply opened another one, but still an annoyance.

jdietrich 11y ago

Until quite recently, they offered the only way of accepting credit cards without a written application and a substantial security deposit. In many countries, they're still the only realistic option. The "problematic behaviour" you describe is invariably related to the fraud prevention mechanisms required to offer their service. That's the deal - Paypal are incredibly liberal in opening accounts, but they reserve the right to freeze an account pending investigation if something looks sketchy. Paypal still fills a very useful role. I've used their services to receive payments for over a decade without incident.

preinheimer 11y ago
I run a small business in Canada, and a hundred times this. For a long time my options were: PayPal, or sign a contract with a bank to get a binder with some instructions to use a horrible API. There may have been some weird options like e-gold, but nothing I could pitch to a business user. PayPal was easy to set up, captured credit cards so I didn't need to think about PCI, and did a non-zero amount of work to block fraud. We've since migrated to start preferring Stripe over PayPal, but it was Paypal all the way for the first 5 years. Stripe only launched in Canada late 2012: https://stripe.com/blog/stripe-in-canada https://stripe.com/blog/stripe-in-canada So did braintree: https://www.braintreepayments.com/blog/braintree-in-europe-and-canada/ https://www.braintreepayments.com/blog/braintree-in-europe-a... And we're america's hat. Many countries are still bereft of options. (disclosure: I'm now a stripe employee, opinions are my own)
- gcb0 11y ago
  it's not because paypal is better. paypal is only relevant because they invented the uber-way. They ignore all legislation. push away. and nobody makes them accountable for anything. they are pretty much a bank for free
  - dangrossman 11y ago
    > They ignore all legislation. They are pretty much a bank for free. They're more regulated than all but a handful of international banks, and it's not at all free. PayPal is a licensed money transmitter in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Most of those states have bond requirements for MTAs, typically six figure deposits. They're subject to 52 different regulatory agencies in the US, in addition to Regulation E consumer protections and the USA Patriot Act federally. Their US<->international transfers are overseen by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control like any bank. They're not an ordinary bank in the US only because many years ago a judge ruled that they don't qualify to be one by the nature of their business; they tried unsuccessfully to be licensed as one in order to get FDIC insurance on deposits. They are a licensed bank in all of the EU, with a bank charter in Luxembourg, regulated by the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier. In Australia, they're licensed by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission as a financial product and by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority as a purchased payment facility provider, which is a type of authorized depository institution (i.e. bank). In most of southeast Asia, they operate under their subsidiary PayPal Pte. Ltd. which is a licensed stored value facility regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore. They operate in 203 markets in total, most of which have separate financial regulations and regulatory bodies PayPal has to comply with. https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/licenses https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/licenses

MicroBerto 11y ago

PayPal is more relevant than ever. As simple as it seems, sending legitimate money from point A to point B could not possibly be any easier than with this service. Their invoicing system is ridiculously simple, nearly everyone I'm working with keeps cash in there or connected to it (or very worst, a credit card attached), it hooks up easily with FreshBooks, contractors like it since PayPal handles the 1099-K themselves, and it just works. I see no reason to change. I just don't keep an absurd amount of money in the account and I feel safe using it.

hotcool 11y ago
As simple as it seems, sending legitimate money from point A to point B could not possibly be any easier than with this service. You obviously have never used Bitcoin.
- dexterdog 11y ago
  Bitcoin has never been considered easy
  - ryan-c 11y ago
    Honestly, when I'm dealing with a trusted merchant, Bitcoin is less painful than a credit card, especially if there's nothing to ship (e.g. with Namecheap and Prgmr). I have Mycelium on my phone - I scan the QR code, punch in my pin, and order completes a few seconds later.
- LeoPanthera 11y ago
  With the potential imminent fork, this is a bad time to make such a comparison.
  - hotcool 11y ago
    Imminent fork? Bitcoin already forked back in August 2015: http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-software-forked-in-bid-to-resolve-scalability-issue/ http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-software-forked-in-bid-to-re...

cm2187 11y ago

And with an absolutely useless website. They have two UIs, like windows 10, an old one and a new one with the website randomly switching between the two and many options or data that are only visible in one but not the other.

tluyben2 11y ago

Yep. I stopped using them years ago; I cannot understand how such a bad company is still used by so many people.

such_a_casual 11y ago

I explained this in another post about paypal. Basically, paypal has a monopoly on international transactions for Americans. I ended up switching to Bitcoin, but not everyone is able to do that. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10911837 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10911837

kbart 11y ago

"It's an absolute egregious shame that PayPal, after more than a decade of problematic behavior, is still relevant." What alternatives could you offer? I really don't feel like entering my Visa details in some random website and Bitcoin is still a mess to acquire and use. Yes, PayPal has it's cons, but unless some other service arise that could offer comparable convenience (fast email & password checkout) and safety (no need to enter personal or financial information) I don't see how it can become irrelevant.