5 ms·
Pretty amazing how nonchalant you’re talking about theft. I guess the approved strategy for legal theft is as follows. 1. Create a payments company that accept
by foooorsyth 3y ago
Pretty amazing how nonchalant you’re talking about theft. I guess the approved strategy for legal theft is as follows.
1. Create a payments company that accepts deposits and holds balances (a bank — but don’t call it that)
2. Create a broken AML algorithm that flags X% of deposits as fraud
3. Force the falsely accused to take you to court to get their money back
4. Keep the rest. Most people won’t contest
What a great “business” model.
- G3rn0ti 3y agoI think they are required by law to do so. At least in the US.
- denton-scratch 3y agoWhat law?
- G3rn0ti 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_Secrecy_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_Secrecy_Act "A financial institution is not allowed to inform a business or consumer that a SAR [suspicious activity report] is being filed." Laws like this exist in many countries (including my own) that turn banks into agents spying their customers on behalf of the government. Calling it even a "bank secrecy act" is downright cynical. I understand that law enforcement agencies need to be able to go after criminals but I think the balance between freedom and security has been way off for a long time already. That's exactly the reason why Switzerland used to have the strictest bank secrecy laws world wide. It was not to become a safe haven for criminals but to maintain the financial freedom of its citizens.
- milesskorpen 3y ago(1) would not be legal without an enormous amount of work.
- ascar 3y agoYour comment is ironic considering PayPal does exactly that and is in fact not a bank. They are licensed as a money transmitter.
- milesskorpen 3y agoSure. I didn't say it was impossible or that they needed to be a bank. Getting licensed as a money transmitter is really challenging.
- londons_explore 3y agoYou don't get to keep the money yourself. It sits on your balance sheet as a liability for 7 years, and eventually gets classed as a dormant account and gets paid to the state treasury.
- bhelkey 3y agoThis isn't my wheelhouse but couldn't one put the money in a money market account and keep the interest?
- ascar 3y agoYou assume malice. It's not. They're just covering their asses. They earn magnitudes more on the transaction fees of legitimate purchases than they could ever get from stealing money through that scheme. Not even considering that the frozen money isn't even theirs to use but a liability in their accounting.
- foooorsyth 3y agoAmazing how my bank never had this issue. I’ve sent ACH, wires, checks, and Zelles left and right with my major bank for years and years. No issues. Yet my PayPal account that I used twice and had a $6 balance got closed permanently. Along with millions of others. >You assume malice. It’s not. Yes it is. Like many tech companies, they’ve “algorithm’d” something that used to take human investigation work. And their algorithm sucks. Their support sucks. This is all intentional so they can save money on labor. So they’re not stealing my money directly. So what? They’re freezing my funds and forcing me to take them to court so they can operate with lower labor costs. That’s theft — it doesn’t matter if they don’t use my money. If I rob you of some cash and then burn it, is it not still robbery?