4 ms·

Hopefully, this means Paypal sees Google as a legitimate threat. Good. The world could only improve if Paypal ceased to exist.

zengr 15y ago
And why is that?
- ianl 15y ago
  Paypal, at least in my experience gouges its customers at every turn. For instance, the exchange rates they used are generally highly outdated. However, I have not used Paypal in several years so they might have fixed that.
- suking 15y ago
  Because he doesn't understand how hard it is to easily allow payments when so much fraud is out there - especially once you go int'l. He's just naive.
- mishmash 15y ago
  Paypal has a long documented history of freezing accounts for ambiguous reasons, often with little or no recourse for the account holders. One quick/recent example: http://www.theindiestone.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=588 http://www.theindiestone.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=20&#3...
  - dangrossman 15y ago
    There's nothing ambiguous about that case. Accepting pre-orders and "donations" is an enormous risk for a payment processor. The merchant isn't sending anything out in exchange for the payments. They could fail to complete or send the product. The risk continues to increase the more pre-orders come in. The merchant can't substantiate that they can fulfill the orders since they have no history of shipping that product in the past. If they were taking payments through a real merchant account (why aren't they? well, they'd have a real tough time getting underwriting to allow it), the bank's risk department probably would've frozen them or required establishment of a risk reserve account too.
    - chmike 15y ago
      Strange. Isn't that the business model of kickstarter ? There was this system for iphones allowing to film at 360°. The collected money is mainly preorders and they obtain nearly 8x the money they asked for.
      - smackfu 15y ago
        Kickstarter uses Amazon payments, perhaps for this very reason.
- proexploit 15y ago
  People get upset about the way Paypal deals with fraud because they lose a lot of money to it and take extra precautions. While that is reasonable, they do a lot of things other people (and I) find to be ineffective and hurtful to users. For example, Paypal escapes banking regulation in the US due to loopholes. If you have your account locked for any reason they will hold your money for 6 months without interest. No exceptions. Their customer service sucks, it's nearly impossible to get ahold of a human and they'll require documentation they have no legal right to in order to unlock your account (example: complete bank statements: http://openca.mp/blog/paypal-hates-conferences-especially-opencamp/ http://openca.mp/blog/paypal-hates-conferences-especially-op...). I believe the world without Paypal would certainly be a better place. I emphasize with their difficult issue of preventing fraud but that doesn't make their actions ok. Edit: In response to following comments, I amended above where it made it sound like Paypal escaped a banking regulation to withhold your money. My issue is that they use the 180 hold on account that haven't been locked for good reason. Some people may be able to get customer service. They offer different kinds of accounts and maybe with a merchant account through Paypal or a business account. I've personally found Paypal to be lacking when trying to get in touch with them. I had someone attempt to scam me out of money by doing a chargeback for an eBay product I shipped via USPS (no tracking number). When they opened a hold on the account because the person said they didn't receive the item, Paypal had a field where I could put the tracking number. Having no tracking number, I tried to attach a note saying I shipped via USPS. I tried contacting support and no one ever answered. I offered to sign something making my personally liable if there was a lawsuit (as I had shipped the item). After all of that, their response was to refund the money so I was out the product and money, and close my account. Don't act like I'm the only person who's got problems with Paypal. If you have had only great experiences with them, more power to you, but there's many more people who have been wrong by Paypal than other money processors: "paypal sucks" About 65,800 results "visa sucks" About 3,970 results "mastercard sucks" About 1,760 results If they had a true competitor, they'd be struggling to stay in business.
  - dangrossman 15y ago
    Holding your money for 6 months without interest IS the banking regulation. That's a rule that comes straight from the Visa Operating Regulations which was written by the member banks that comprised Visa and MasterCard. Those regulations specifically say 180 days and that the funds be held in a non-interest-bearing account. It's exactly the same policy enforced on every merchant account underwritten by every regulated bank in the country. PayPal has customer service by phone, and they answer on the first ring. No automated system on the business support line either. Your opinion on PayPal is entirely baseless.
itg 15y ago
You have to look at the lawsuit separately from whatever feelings you have towards either company. I'm not a huge fan of Paypal but it seems as if they have a good case against Google. I wouldn't want a employee giving trade secrets to a competitor, especially if that competitor was Google.
- jrockway 15y ago
  But here's the thing: where are the trade secrets? Displaying a picture of a credit card on a phone's screen while you send that card's info to the NFC card reader is not exactly hard to come up with on your own.
  - mpclark 15y ago
    With all due respect, there's an awful lot more to it than that. There are also the many, many relationships that need to be set up to get a mobile wallet going. This is certainly part of what irritates PayPal.
lurker19 15y ago
How would the world be be better if Google steals and deploys the evil from Paypal, which is exactly what is at issue here?
- tnorthcutt 15y ago
  the evil What, exactly, does that refer to?
  - megablast 15y ago
    And what is this 'computer' that every seems to be talking about these days.

zengr 15y ago

And why is that?

ianl 15y ago
Paypal, at least in my experience gouges its customers at every turn. For instance, the exchange rates they used are generally highly outdated. However, I have not used Paypal in several years so they might have fixed that.
suking 15y ago
Because he doesn't understand how hard it is to easily allow payments when so much fraud is out there - especially once you go int'l. He's just naive.
mishmash 15y ago
Paypal has a long documented history of freezing accounts for ambiguous reasons, often with little or no recourse for the account holders. One quick/recent example: http://www.theindiestone.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=588 http://www.theindiestone.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=20&#3...
- dangrossman 15y ago
  There's nothing ambiguous about that case. Accepting pre-orders and "donations" is an enormous risk for a payment processor. The merchant isn't sending anything out in exchange for the payments. They could fail to complete or send the product. The risk continues to increase the more pre-orders come in. The merchant can't substantiate that they can fulfill the orders since they have no history of shipping that product in the past. If they were taking payments through a real merchant account (why aren't they? well, they'd have a real tough time getting underwriting to allow it), the bank's risk department probably would've frozen them or required establishment of a risk reserve account too.
  - chmike 15y ago
    Strange. Isn't that the business model of kickstarter ? There was this system for iphones allowing to film at 360°. The collected money is mainly preorders and they obtain nearly 8x the money they asked for.
    - smackfu 15y ago
      Kickstarter uses Amazon payments, perhaps for this very reason.
proexploit 15y ago
People get upset about the way Paypal deals with fraud because they lose a lot of money to it and take extra precautions. While that is reasonable, they do a lot of things other people (and I) find to be ineffective and hurtful to users. For example, Paypal escapes banking regulation in the US due to loopholes. If you have your account locked for any reason they will hold your money for 6 months without interest. No exceptions. Their customer service sucks, it's nearly impossible to get ahold of a human and they'll require documentation they have no legal right to in order to unlock your account (example: complete bank statements: http://openca.mp/blog/paypal-hates-conferences-especially-opencamp/ http://openca.mp/blog/paypal-hates-conferences-especially-op...). I believe the world without Paypal would certainly be a better place. I emphasize with their difficult issue of preventing fraud but that doesn't make their actions ok. Edit: In response to following comments, I amended above where it made it sound like Paypal escaped a banking regulation to withhold your money. My issue is that they use the 180 hold on account that haven't been locked for good reason. Some people may be able to get customer service. They offer different kinds of accounts and maybe with a merchant account through Paypal or a business account. I've personally found Paypal to be lacking when trying to get in touch with them. I had someone attempt to scam me out of money by doing a chargeback for an eBay product I shipped via USPS (no tracking number). When they opened a hold on the account because the person said they didn't receive the item, Paypal had a field where I could put the tracking number. Having no tracking number, I tried to attach a note saying I shipped via USPS. I tried contacting support and no one ever answered. I offered to sign something making my personally liable if there was a lawsuit (as I had shipped the item). After all of that, their response was to refund the money so I was out the product and money, and close my account. Don't act like I'm the only person who's got problems with Paypal. If you have had only great experiences with them, more power to you, but there's many more people who have been wrong by Paypal than other money processors: "paypal sucks" About 65,800 results "visa sucks" About 3,970 results "mastercard sucks" About 1,760 results If they had a true competitor, they'd be struggling to stay in business.
- dangrossman 15y ago
  Holding your money for 6 months without interest IS the banking regulation. That's a rule that comes straight from the Visa Operating Regulations which was written by the member banks that comprised Visa and MasterCard. Those regulations specifically say 180 days and that the funds be held in a non-interest-bearing account. It's exactly the same policy enforced on every merchant account underwritten by every regulated bank in the country. PayPal has customer service by phone, and they answer on the first ring. No automated system on the business support line either. Your opinion on PayPal is entirely baseless.

itg 15y ago

You have to look at the lawsuit separately from whatever feelings you have towards either company. I'm not a huge fan of Paypal but it seems as if they have a good case against Google. I wouldn't want a employee giving trade secrets to a competitor, especially if that competitor was Google.

jrockway 15y ago
But here's the thing: where are the trade secrets? Displaying a picture of a credit card on a phone's screen while you send that card's info to the NFC card reader is not exactly hard to come up with on your own.
- mpclark 15y ago
  With all due respect, there's an awful lot more to it than that. There are also the many, many relationships that need to be set up to get a mobile wallet going. This is certainly part of what irritates PayPal.

lurker19 15y ago

How would the world be be better if Google steals and deploys the evil from Paypal, which is exactly what is at issue here?

tnorthcutt 15y ago
the evil What, exactly, does that refer to?
- megablast 15y ago
  And what is this 'computer' that every seems to be talking about these days.