9 ms·

Yet another person finding out that Paypal is sh*t. What a world where you have to worry about four random letters in your messages that may just happen to coin

Yet another person finding out that Paypal is sh*t. What a world where you have to worry about four random letters in your messages that may just happen to coincidentally have terrorist connotations "Alep" ffs. When I ran a company >10 years ago we swept our Paypal account daily to mitigate this risk.

tsukikage 4y ago
> we swept our Paypal account daily to mitigate this risk ...so, is there a list of forbidden character combinations one should scan for somewhere? That sounds like a super useful thing to have.
- personjerry 4y ago
  "Swept" in this case means withdrawing all the cash from the Paypal account
maxgashkov 4y ago
This is not an option for the majority of businesses now as PayPal requires mandatory funds hold which may routinely be on the order of 90 days. So even if you sweep it daily, you still have 1-3 months of your MRR sitting in flight and at risk indefinitely.
- rodgerd 4y ago
  I'm pretty sure that seizing customer funds is part of their profit model. They've been doing it for a very long time, and well beyond anything that could reasonably be explained via regulatory or card scheme requirements.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
  I do all my business via PayPal, and have done so for 20 years. No mandatory funds hold. My account is cleared monthly, but I could have chosen daily (that screws with my own personally accounting). $200k/year transaction volume. Too many people generalize specific stories or their own PP experience to all of PP.
- eric-hu 4y ago
  This is such a terrible business risk, why are their customers not fleeing them like clients fled SVB?
  - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
    PayPal is an enormous percent of total sales at my company. We accept all sorts of other payments types. So we drop PayPal and then what exactly? Suffer the loss of customers?
    - kibwen 4y ago
      If using Paypal imposes additional operational risk, it's entirely reasonable to charge users extra for using Paypal. Offer them lower prices for using a payment method that isn't 100% shite.
      - mcv 4y ago
        This is indeed what I would do if I'd absolutely have to use PayPal. Customers can use it if they really want to, but they're the ones paying for the risk.
      - themoonisachees 4y ago
        As a seller, you are going against paypal TOS if you charge a fee to use it, the same way a credit card carries the risk of chargebacks but you aren't alowed to charge a credit card fee. I agree that this would be an effective risk-management tactic (less the fact that the fee you charge to mitigate the risk still gets processed by the risk factor) but it would also worsen your chances of getting banned.
        kibwen 4y ago
        Gas stations get around this by advertising the credit card price as the full price, and then offering you a discounted price for paying with cash.

tsukikage 4y ago

> we swept our Paypal account daily to mitigate this risk ...so, is there a list of forbidden character combinations one should scan for somewhere? That sounds like a super useful thing to have.

personjerry 4y ago
"Swept" in this case means withdrawing all the cash from the Paypal account

maxgashkov 4y ago

This is not an option for the majority of businesses now as PayPal requires mandatory funds hold which may routinely be on the order of 90 days. So even if you sweep it daily, you still have 1-3 months of your MRR sitting in flight and at risk indefinitely.

rodgerd 4y ago
I'm pretty sure that seizing customer funds is part of their profit model. They've been doing it for a very long time, and well beyond anything that could reasonably be explained via regulatory or card scheme requirements.
PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
I do all my business via PayPal, and have done so for 20 years. No mandatory funds hold. My account is cleared monthly, but I could have chosen daily (that screws with my own personally accounting). $200k/year transaction volume. Too many people generalize specific stories or their own PP experience to all of PP.
eric-hu 4y ago
This is such a terrible business risk, why are their customers not fleeing them like clients fled SVB?
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  PayPal is an enormous percent of total sales at my company. We accept all sorts of other payments types. So we drop PayPal and then what exactly? Suffer the loss of customers?
  - kibwen 4y ago
    If using Paypal imposes additional operational risk, it's entirely reasonable to charge users extra for using Paypal. Offer them lower prices for using a payment method that isn't 100% shite.
    - mcv 4y ago
      This is indeed what I would do if I'd absolutely have to use PayPal. Customers can use it if they really want to, but they're the ones paying for the risk.
    - themoonisachees 4y ago
      As a seller, you are going against paypal TOS if you charge a fee to use it, the same way a credit card carries the risk of chargebacks but you aren't alowed to charge a credit card fee. I agree that this would be an effective risk-management tactic (less the fact that the fee you charge to mitigate the risk still gets processed by the risk factor) but it would also worsen your chances of getting banned.
      - kibwen 4y ago
        Gas stations get around this by advertising the credit card price as the full price, and then offering you a discounted price for paying with cash.