4 ms·

It's odd though cause Masterbucks isn't crypto, it's just a gift-card-esque balance service. Similar to how you'd have a PayPal "balance" you can send to other

It's odd though cause Masterbucks isn't crypto, it's just a gift-card-esque balance service. Similar to how you'd have a PayPal "balance" you can send to other people or spend on stuff, and "top up" buy linking a CC or buying a card at 7-Eleven. PayPal might've just realized they're a competitor.

NovemberWhiskey 6y ago
PayPal is undeniably a money transmitter, a type of money service business that is required to required to register as such and perform certain minimum levels of compliance work. If Masterbucks is "like PayPal" from that perspective, subject to certain de minimis thresholds, then they too are likely to require registration. Frankly, if this is the case, and the Epik people are complaining that PayPal's due-diligence questions on these topics are "absolutely absurd, and well outside of any knowledge or experience [they] have as a domain registrar" then perhaps they oughtn't to be running that kind of a business?
- parliament32 6y ago
  It's fair, but is it PayPal's job to enforce that? If I sell MasterCard pre-paid cards at my corner store, will Visa come audit me and ask what sort of people I'm selling those cards to?
  - gruez 6y ago
    >It's fair, but is it PayPal's job to enforce that? Yes, because it's using their payment network. I'm not sure why your example involves Visa auditing a purchase of a prepaid mastercard.
  - nemothekid 6y ago
    Yes. When you deposit the money you earned from your pre-paid cards in your bank account, once you reach a certain size your bank will certainly start asking how you are making money, and if you say "gift cards/cash equivalents that can be traded online" they will also start to ask you who you are selling these cards to. From the banks point of view, they don't want the FBI to come knocking saying that carders in Russia were using the banks money to launder purchases from stolen credit cards. If the bank can't cough up those records they are in hot water. PayPal is the middleman that turns Masterbucks into cold hard cash into your bank account. If PayPal didn't enforce it, then in the eyes of the government PayPal is complicit also.
  - NovemberWhiskey 6y ago
    From my point of view, PayPal has a reasonable case to want to understand that its business partners are legally compliant if acting as a money service business. Your example is not really the same. If you started using your merchant terminal to take payments on your own off-brand money transfer service, you can be pretty sure that you're going to get cut off just as soon as your processor finds out.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    It is emphatically PayPal’s job to enforce it. That is the way that AML laws are written.

NovemberWhiskey 6y ago

PayPal is undeniably a money transmitter, a type of money service business that is required to required to register as such and perform certain minimum levels of compliance work. If Masterbucks is "like PayPal" from that perspective, subject to certain de minimis thresholds, then they too are likely to require registration. Frankly, if this is the case, and the Epik people are complaining that PayPal's due-diligence questions on these topics are "absolutely absurd, and well outside of any knowledge or experience [they] have as a domain registrar" then perhaps they oughtn't to be running that kind of a business?

parliament32 6y ago
It's fair, but is it PayPal's job to enforce that? If I sell MasterCard pre-paid cards at my corner store, will Visa come audit me and ask what sort of people I'm selling those cards to?
- gruez 6y ago
  >It's fair, but is it PayPal's job to enforce that? Yes, because it's using their payment network. I'm not sure why your example involves Visa auditing a purchase of a prepaid mastercard.
- nemothekid 6y ago
  Yes. When you deposit the money you earned from your pre-paid cards in your bank account, once you reach a certain size your bank will certainly start asking how you are making money, and if you say "gift cards/cash equivalents that can be traded online" they will also start to ask you who you are selling these cards to. From the banks point of view, they don't want the FBI to come knocking saying that carders in Russia were using the banks money to launder purchases from stolen credit cards. If the bank can't cough up those records they are in hot water. PayPal is the middleman that turns Masterbucks into cold hard cash into your bank account. If PayPal didn't enforce it, then in the eyes of the government PayPal is complicit also.
- NovemberWhiskey 6y ago
  From my point of view, PayPal has a reasonable case to want to understand that its business partners are legally compliant if acting as a money service business. Your example is not really the same. If you started using your merchant terminal to take payments on your own off-brand money transfer service, you can be pretty sure that you're going to get cut off just as soon as your processor finds out.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  It is emphatically PayPal’s job to enforce it. That is the way that AML laws are written.