3 ms·

"Believe it or not, no payment service is going to allow you to collect tens of thousands of dollars in a few days with just a name and an e-mail to identify yo

by pc 15y ago

"Believe it or not, no payment service is going to allow you to collect tens of thousands of dollars in a few days with just a name and an e-mail to identify you." Using the email address and name is hardly the best way to evaluate the trustworthiness of Diaspora. There are lots of reasonable questions about how to scale underwriting systems, and how this might work generally, but we shouldn't neglect the fact that in this particular situation 1) Diaspora not being able to receive donations is a bad outcome, and 2) there isn't exactly a paucity of public information about them.

dangrossman 15y ago
For all PayPal knows at the point they freeze the account, it's some teen in Romania that has no connection to the project and is using its name to collect donations for personal use. First they have to stop the potential fraud from growing even more damaging to them by freezing the account, then they need to figure out who they're really working with, then they need to evaluate the risk of accepting those payments.
- pc 15y ago
  From the post: "Even though we’ve complied with every PayPal request, including providing them with our certificate of incorporation, they still won’t give us an explanation for any of their moves." It seems that Diaspora weren't unwilling to verify their identity.
  - dangrossman 15y ago
    Yes, although the blog post that their account was frozen is dated yesterday, so who knows if anyone at PayPal has even had a chance to review it yet. That indie developer (I forget their name to look it up again) had also posted on their blog that their account was closed, then a few days later PayPal reversed itself and reopened it -- that may still happen here. I hope it does, as on its face Diaspora doesn't seem like an organization that would attract too much risk.

3 ms·

"Believe it or not, no payment service is going to allow you to collect tens of thousands of dollars in a few days with just a name and an e-mail to identify yo

by pc 15y ago

dangrossman 15y ago
For all PayPal knows at the point they freeze the account, it's some teen in Romania that has no connection to the project and is using its name to collect donations for personal use. First they have to stop the potential fraud from growing even more damaging to them by freezing the account, then they need to figure out who they're really working with, then they need to evaluate the risk of accepting those payments.
- pc 15y ago
  From the post: "Even though we’ve complied with every PayPal request, including providing them with our certificate of incorporation, they still won’t give us an explanation for any of their moves." It seems that Diaspora weren't unwilling to verify their identity.
  - dangrossman 15y ago
    Yes, although the blog post that their account was frozen is dated yesterday, so who knows if anyone at PayPal has even had a chance to review it yet. That indie developer (I forget their name to look it up again) had also posted on their blog that their account was closed, then a few days later PayPal reversed itself and reopened it -- that may still happen here. I hope it does, as on its face Diaspora doesn't seem like an organization that would attract too much risk.