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This is somewhat a flawed argument on Paypal's part. If a user chooses to obscure their connection via a VPN for security purposes but has supplied the appropri

This is somewhat a flawed argument on Paypal's part. If a user chooses to obscure their connection via a VPN for security purposes but has supplied the appropriate identification needs to Paypal, what is the problem here? Paypal like any other big corporation has lost touch with its customer base. Its been that way for a long time now, someone needs to come in and beat Paypal in its own territory. Payment providers like Square are still the small time, they're not in countries like Australia or New Zealand or any other first world country that needs some Paypal competition.

MichaelGG 14y ago
I'd imagine it's yet another level of fraud prevention. IP information can be quite useful. If a customer does something that limit's PayPal's ability to limit fraud, then PayPal cuts them. I agree this is hostile and not friendly. But nor is dealing with fraud. I dislike PayPal and avoid them as much as possible, but it's hardly an easy task and I'm not sure other people would do vastly better if they had to operate with the same parameters.
- DigitalSea 14y ago
  It's kind of a steep move terminating his account. My Facebook account was almost hacked once because someone from an overseas IP tried logging in to my account. Facebook waited for me to login via my Australian IP address and alerted me to he fact and asked if it was me, I said no and I assume they blocked that IP. If security is such an issue, why couldn't Paypal ask the account owner if it was himself behind a VPN and to provide some identification documents? I remember a little while ago having to supply some identifications documents to Paypal (scan of my passport, scan of my assigned credit card with most of the numbers blacked out, etc). If an account owner is willing to provide that information and is say from a country like the United States, Australia or the UK, then Paypal should lower their suspicions. I can see where Paypal is coming from here. IP scanning is one of many criteria that determines if a user is potentially fraudulent (I've used Maxmind fraud protection before and it operates with similar criteria).
coldtea 14y ago
>This is somewhat a flawed argument on Paypal's part. If a user chooses to obscure their connection via a VPN for security purposes but has supplied the appropriate identification needs to Paypal, what is the problem here? Well, they don't want people to use VPNs/tunneling and such because they are being used time and again to mask the country of origin, IP etc. They can even block your account for logging in from another country that you're visiting (they've done that to me and ask for photo ids and such). It's not about "security" or lack thereof, it's about stopping certain kinds of fraud and keeping certain tabs. (Sure, a VPN may protect from other kinds of fraud, e.g MITM attacks and identity theft. But then again, most actual PayPal customers don't use VPNs, whereas lots of identity theft and fraud guys do).
arunabha 14y ago
>they're not in countries like Australia or New Zealand or any other first world country that needs some Paypal competition I guess that's reason why Paypal seems to endure beyond reason in spite of repeatedly showing the middle finger to customers. We in the US are relatively well off in terms of Paypal alternatives, but this is simply not true for a lot of other places. Plus Paypal has entered the status of being the 'default' for a vast majority of the non tech populace. The good thing is, hackers are often the canary in the coal mine in terms of signaling future preferences of the masses, so we can hope Paypal will either reform itself, or die.

MichaelGG 14y ago

I'd imagine it's yet another level of fraud prevention. IP information can be quite useful. If a customer does something that limit's PayPal's ability to limit fraud, then PayPal cuts them. I agree this is hostile and not friendly. But nor is dealing with fraud. I dislike PayPal and avoid them as much as possible, but it's hardly an easy task and I'm not sure other people would do vastly better if they had to operate with the same parameters.

DigitalSea 14y ago
It's kind of a steep move terminating his account. My Facebook account was almost hacked once because someone from an overseas IP tried logging in to my account. Facebook waited for me to login via my Australian IP address and alerted me to he fact and asked if it was me, I said no and I assume they blocked that IP. If security is such an issue, why couldn't Paypal ask the account owner if it was himself behind a VPN and to provide some identification documents? I remember a little while ago having to supply some identifications documents to Paypal (scan of my passport, scan of my assigned credit card with most of the numbers blacked out, etc). If an account owner is willing to provide that information and is say from a country like the United States, Australia or the UK, then Paypal should lower their suspicions. I can see where Paypal is coming from here. IP scanning is one of many criteria that determines if a user is potentially fraudulent (I've used Maxmind fraud protection before and it operates with similar criteria).

coldtea 14y ago

>This is somewhat a flawed argument on Paypal's part. If a user chooses to obscure their connection via a VPN for security purposes but has supplied the appropriate identification needs to Paypal, what is the problem here? Well, they don't want people to use VPNs/tunneling and such because they are being used time and again to mask the country of origin, IP etc. They can even block your account for logging in from another country that you're visiting (they've done that to me and ask for photo ids and such). It's not about "security" or lack thereof, it's about stopping certain kinds of fraud and keeping certain tabs. (Sure, a VPN may protect from other kinds of fraud, e.g MITM attacks and identity theft. But then again, most actual PayPal customers don't use VPNs, whereas lots of identity theft and fraud guys do).

arunabha 14y ago

>they're not in countries like Australia or New Zealand or any other first world country that needs some Paypal competition I guess that's reason why Paypal seems to endure beyond reason in spite of repeatedly showing the middle finger to customers. We in the US are relatively well off in terms of Paypal alternatives, but this is simply not true for a lot of other places. Plus Paypal has entered the status of being the 'default' for a vast majority of the non tech populace. The good thing is, hackers are often the canary in the coal mine in terms of signaling future preferences of the masses, so we can hope Paypal will either reform itself, or die.