5 ms·

Google, Can Indie Stone Have Their Money?

65 points by oewolf 15y ago

dexen 15y ago
Can Google Checkout (or any payment processor, really) be forced not to profit from transactions they refused to complete? Pass all the money either to the seller or the buyer, no fees, as they (rightly) refused to serve the transaction. Without delay, to ensure no revenue from interest either. If there was no incentives in leaving transaction in such `limbo', the payment processors would be less hasty to lock up accounts.
- chc 15y ago
  Seems to me it's nothing but an assumption on your part that they do profit from these transactions. The comments on the OP suggest otherwise. You'll see two opposite complaints about payment processors: 1. They let fraud run rampant. 2. They're too hasty to lock accounts. In order to have less of one, you have to have more of the other. As for why customer service is so sketchy: Google's customer service is infamously bad across the board. It's not specific to Checkout.
singular 15y ago
This is vastly disturbing. Surely there is a gap in the market here for a payment processor that doesn't do shit like this? Are there any startups in this area? Or is this just an inevitable result of working with money (having to be very careful to avoid scammers/criminals)? I really can't believe that's the case though. As @dexen said, perhaps there should be some provisions put in place to disincentivise current processors at least. Perhaps bitcoin has a role to play to avoid such situations, Or would we just have the same problems over again? Perhaps somebody more knowledgeable than I could comment.
- pilif 15y ago
  > This is vastly disturbing. Surely there is a gap in the market here for a payment processor that doesn't do shit like this? While I agree that there is probably a market for a payment processor that doesn't punish TOS violations, I really doubt that's a market anybody would want to play in. Google's TOS disallow the use of the word "donation" unless you are a non-profit organization. And "donation" is precisely the term used. For every "benign" TOS violation, I'm sure there must be hundreds of malicious ones trying to scam google or consumers out of their money. Not making exceptions at least is fair and users know exactly where they stand. Still. I think Google should maybe a) warn users before just banning them (though even this might lead to people trying to game the system) b) hand out the money either back to the buyers or to the just banned seller (after manual investigation which might be what Google doesn't want to do) c) maybe provide an appeal process, though, again, this might lead to people gaming that.
  - singular 15y ago
    It's the 'frozen without explanation' aspect I don't like. I didn't realise that this was a legitimate ToS violation, but agreed, they should have at least warned them first. I suspect that evil people ruin it for everyone, money is just too tempting for people with 'flexible morality'. EDIT: But still, these providers should do better, regardless.
    - jws 15y ago
      When google puts robots in charge of enforcing policy without a mechansims for the affected humans to request human oversight, that is the very definition of dehumanizing. I wonder if you could sell hand crafted, polished oak, donation boxes with google checkout and not be attacked by their robots.
  - fragmede 15y ago
    d) Make the restriction on the word 'donation' more explicit and obvious.
- eitland 15y ago
  Bitcoin _can_ solve this problem because it is totally distributed and doesn't depend on traditional banks which means transferring value directly between individuals and organization becomes much simpler.
  - dexen 15y ago
    Currency (at least metal coins) was, at first, distributed and did not depend on banks for transfer. Banks came about later on, as an additional help in some business and private money handling. Currently banks are pretty much necessary for two reasons: network effect -- everybody has bank account and expects you to interface with it, and better loan rates -- banks can give loans at lower percent than small time lenders, thanks to pooling of risk and economies of scale of processing. It is expected some Bitcoin users (be it private or institutional) will become quite bank-alike in some future (as per various posts on blogs and HN in discussions of Bitcoin). In short, Bitcoin doesn't remove banks -- neither need for them, nor ability to operate them. They just haven't moved into this space yet. EDIT: first episode of ``The Ascent of Money'' [1], `Dreams of avarice', explains how banking, as we know it, came to be. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_ascent_of_money http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_ascent_of_money
    - HelloBeautiful 15y ago
      >> Bitcoin doesn't remove banks Yes, it does in this case. One can receive money electronically through Bitcoin, without account with a bank, PayPal or Google.
      - cube13 15y ago
        Which is the same as mailing cash. It's possible to do that without a bank as well. Since the Bitcoin protocol allows third-parties to hold user's wallets, it's entirely possible to create a bank. In fact, the protocol seems to encourage the aggregation of wallets.
        HelloBeautiful 15y ago
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- citricsquid 15y ago
  the reason it hasn't happened is because money is hard to deal with.
  - joelhaus 15y ago
    Yup, Econtalk did a recent podcast on bitcoin which is a great intro for anyone interested. The discussion on HN: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2011/04/andresen_on_bit.html http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2011/04/andresen_on_bit.htm...
- cyberguppy 15y ago
  I wonder what would have happened if Indie Stone was using Amazon Payments here? They seem to have better customer service and it seems more clear to me how to differentiate commercial from non-profit transactions https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/helpTab/Amazon-Simple-Pay/Integrating-with-Amazon-Simple-Pay/Requirements-for-Raising-Donations https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/helpTab/Amazon-Simple-...
mgkimsal 15y ago
I don't get it. Google Checkout sweeps money to my account every few days. I was confused at first about how it was going to work, because I didn't see a 'transfer money' option, but it's done it automatically for me for two years.
oewolf 15y ago
Seems it's been solved now: http://projectzomboid.com/blog/index.php/2011/04/happy-days/ http://projectzomboid.com/blog/index.php/2011/04/happy-days/ :)
lucraft 15y ago
Using the word "Donate" to describe a, uh, donation is reasonable. Hiding strange terms in the TOS no one is going to read and then keeping your customers money is not reasonable.
- spot 15y ago
  How do you know they kept the money instead of returning it to those who bought/donated?
ansy 15y ago
Why doesn't Indie Stone use Kickstarter? They fit the model perfectly, Kickstarter has no history of withholding money, and 5% is quite reasonable.
- TillE 15y ago
  It's a good question. They've certainly reached the threshold of being a serious project, given the amount of press coverage they've received in the past. The whole mess is an object lesson about the need to take non-development aspects of business seriously. They're trying to accept payments without reading the terms they agreed to. They're trying to run a web server while clearly not being experts on that (there's no need for a VPS or a dedicated server when their site is a perfect fit for something like Squarespace). If you can't afford to bring in an expert, you've really got to do the due diligence yourself, or it's bound to blow up in your face.
spot 15y ago
http://projectzomboid.com/blog/index.php/2011/04/happy-days/ http://projectzomboid.com/blog/index.php/2011/04/happy-days/
grav1tas 15y ago
Sometimes I wonder if these payment processing companies behave like this so they can keep their books straight/solvent.

65 points by oewolf 15y ago

dexen 15y ago

Can Google Checkout (or any payment processor, really) be forced not to profit from transactions they refused to complete? Pass all the money either to the seller or the buyer, no fees, as they (rightly) refused to serve the transaction. Without delay, to ensure no revenue from interest either. If there was no incentives in leaving transaction in such `limbo', the payment processors would be less hasty to lock up accounts.

chc 15y ago
Seems to me it's nothing but an assumption on your part that they do profit from these transactions. The comments on the OP suggest otherwise. You'll see two opposite complaints about payment processors: 1. They let fraud run rampant. 2. They're too hasty to lock accounts. In order to have less of one, you have to have more of the other. As for why customer service is so sketchy: Google's customer service is infamously bad across the board. It's not specific to Checkout.

singular 15y ago

This is vastly disturbing. Surely there is a gap in the market here for a payment processor that doesn't do shit like this? Are there any startups in this area? Or is this just an inevitable result of working with money (having to be very careful to avoid scammers/criminals)? I really can't believe that's the case though. As @dexen said, perhaps there should be some provisions put in place to disincentivise current processors at least. Perhaps bitcoin has a role to play to avoid such situations, Or would we just have the same problems over again? Perhaps somebody more knowledgeable than I could comment.

pilif 15y ago
> This is vastly disturbing. Surely there is a gap in the market here for a payment processor that doesn't do shit like this? While I agree that there is probably a market for a payment processor that doesn't punish TOS violations, I really doubt that's a market anybody would want to play in. Google's TOS disallow the use of the word "donation" unless you are a non-profit organization. And "donation" is precisely the term used. For every "benign" TOS violation, I'm sure there must be hundreds of malicious ones trying to scam google or consumers out of their money. Not making exceptions at least is fair and users know exactly where they stand. Still. I think Google should maybe a) warn users before just banning them (though even this might lead to people trying to game the system) b) hand out the money either back to the buyers or to the just banned seller (after manual investigation which might be what Google doesn't want to do) c) maybe provide an appeal process, though, again, this might lead to people gaming that.
- singular 15y ago
  It's the 'frozen without explanation' aspect I don't like. I didn't realise that this was a legitimate ToS violation, but agreed, they should have at least warned them first. I suspect that evil people ruin it for everyone, money is just too tempting for people with 'flexible morality'. EDIT: But still, these providers should do better, regardless.
  - jws 15y ago
    When google puts robots in charge of enforcing policy without a mechansims for the affected humans to request human oversight, that is the very definition of dehumanizing. I wonder if you could sell hand crafted, polished oak, donation boxes with google checkout and not be attacked by their robots.
- fragmede 15y ago
  d) Make the restriction on the word 'donation' more explicit and obvious.
eitland 15y ago
Bitcoin _can_ solve this problem because it is totally distributed and doesn't depend on traditional banks which means transferring value directly between individuals and organization becomes much simpler.
- dexen 15y ago
  Currency (at least metal coins) was, at first, distributed and did not depend on banks for transfer. Banks came about later on, as an additional help in some business and private money handling. Currently banks are pretty much necessary for two reasons: network effect -- everybody has bank account and expects you to interface with it, and better loan rates -- banks can give loans at lower percent than small time lenders, thanks to pooling of risk and economies of scale of processing. It is expected some Bitcoin users (be it private or institutional) will become quite bank-alike in some future (as per various posts on blogs and HN in discussions of Bitcoin). In short, Bitcoin doesn't remove banks -- neither need for them, nor ability to operate them. They just haven't moved into this space yet. EDIT: first episode of ``The Ascent of Money'' [1], `Dreams of avarice', explains how banking, as we know it, came to be. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_ascent_of_money http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_ascent_of_money
  - HelloBeautiful 15y ago
    >> Bitcoin doesn't remove banks Yes, it does in this case. One can receive money electronically through Bitcoin, without account with a bank, PayPal or Google.
    - cube13 15y ago
      Which is the same as mailing cash. It's possible to do that without a bank as well. Since the Bitcoin protocol allows third-parties to hold user's wallets, it's entirely possible to create a bank. In fact, the protocol seems to encourage the aggregation of wallets.
      - HelloBeautiful 15y ago
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
citricsquid 15y ago
the reason it hasn't happened is because money is hard to deal with.
- joelhaus 15y ago
  Yup, Econtalk did a recent podcast on bitcoin which is a great intro for anyone interested. The discussion on HN: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2011/04/andresen_on_bit.html http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2011/04/andresen_on_bit.htm...
cyberguppy 15y ago
I wonder what would have happened if Indie Stone was using Amazon Payments here? They seem to have better customer service and it seems more clear to me how to differentiate commercial from non-profit transactions https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/helpTab/Amazon-Simple-Pay/Integrating-with-Amazon-Simple-Pay/Requirements-for-Raising-Donations https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/helpTab/Amazon-Simple-...

mgkimsal 15y ago

I don't get it. Google Checkout sweeps money to my account every few days. I was confused at first about how it was going to work, because I didn't see a 'transfer money' option, but it's done it automatically for me for two years.

oewolf 15y ago

Seems it's been solved now: http://projectzomboid.com/blog/index.php/2011/04/happy-days/ http://projectzomboid.com/blog/index.php/2011/04/happy-days/ :)

lucraft 15y ago

Using the word "Donate" to describe a, uh, donation is reasonable. Hiding strange terms in the TOS no one is going to read and then keeping your customers money is not reasonable.

spot 15y ago
How do you know they kept the money instead of returning it to those who bought/donated?

ansy 15y ago

Why doesn't Indie Stone use Kickstarter? They fit the model perfectly, Kickstarter has no history of withholding money, and 5% is quite reasonable.

TillE 15y ago
It's a good question. They've certainly reached the threshold of being a serious project, given the amount of press coverage they've received in the past. The whole mess is an object lesson about the need to take non-development aspects of business seriously. They're trying to accept payments without reading the terms they agreed to. They're trying to run a web server while clearly not being experts on that (there's no need for a VPS or a dedicated server when their site is a perfect fit for something like Squarespace). If you can't afford to bring in an expert, you've really got to do the due diligence yourself, or it's bound to blow up in your face.

spot 15y ago

http://projectzomboid.com/blog/index.php/2011/04/happy-days/ http://projectzomboid.com/blog/index.php/2011/04/happy-days/

grav1tas 15y ago

Sometimes I wonder if these payment processing companies behave like this so they can keep their books straight/solvent.