6 ms·

PayPal releases Mailpile’s $45,000 (updated)

159 points by _pius 13y ago

epochwolf 13y ago
> If past freezes are any indication, the best way forward is almost certainly to abandon attempts at redress through customer service and simply make as much noise as possible in the press to get PayPal's upper management to take notice. As just proven by PayPal releasing the funds after Ars ran a story.
nick2021 13y ago
To be blunt F*ck PayPal. I dropped them and started using Amazon payments. Amazon in my opinion is a much better company than Paypal.
t0 13y ago
Why does Indiegogo even continue using Paypal to disburse payments?
- rexreed 13y ago
  Because it's easy for them and they don't directly suffer the consequences. They get their money either way. But if Paypal makes their business suffer by compelling folks to go elsewhere, it will be their problem. But they probably won't see it that way. They'll simply continue to offer Paypal as one choice for payments, and the problems their customers face are their customer's problems. I'd still use IndieGogo, just not Paypal. The only alternative, however, is to use IndieGogo's own credit card processor, which charges 3%, but it might be worth it because funds are automatically ACH'd and you don't have to deal with Paypal... and the customer feedback is more direct. But the big downside of this is that you don't get ANY of your money until the campaign is over (and up to 15 days after that), while with Paypal, you get your funds immediately (minus a 9% IndieGogo fee) if you elected for Flexible Funding. See http://support.indiegogo.com/entries/20578596 http://support.indiegogo.com/entries/20578596 for more. Given they only have two options: Credit Card from Indiegogo, which means no Paypal (yay), but also no money until the end (maybe boo) or Paypal (boo), but money right away (yay), it forces many folks to Paypal. They need to look at Stripe or Balanced or Braintree or something else.
  - brokenparser 13y ago
    Bitcoins
  - rgbrenner 13y ago
    "They need to look at Stripe or Balanced or Braintree or something else." That changes nothing. Indigogo has that policy to protect themselves from fraud. Any money they can't recover from a fraudulent project (or fraudulent charges because someone funded it using a stolen credit card, for example), comes straight out of Indiegogo's pocket. That's true whether they use a bank, Stripe, Braintree or anyone else. This is exactly what PayPal was trying to control, and they got criticized for it. At the end of the day, no payment processor wants to be on the hook for 100k+ that they get less than 1% of in profits, that goes to fund a project with no clear timetable, no guarantee of delivery to the customer, no budget, etc, etc, etc.
    - dublinben 13y ago
      How could anyone demand a refund from a project they funded with no clear timetable, no guarantee of delivery, and no budget? Projects don't have to be successful, so I see no way that Indiegogo could be held responsible.
      - dangrossman 13y ago
        The timetable, guarantees, etc. hold no relevance outside of a courtroom. Banks do not hold a trial before honoring a request to reverse a charge; they take the cardholder's word. Unless the merchant can provide a signature and proof of delivery of some item, they're not going to be able to dispute the chargeback either; the bank is leaving it up to the court system to resolve payment disputes outside of a few narrow circumstances. Nobody's going to take every funder that charges back a payment to court to prove they are not owed that refund, so in practice, everyone involved in crowdfunding has to deal with the fact that some of the money is going to disappear no matter what is written.
      - modoc 13y ago
        Credit Card Chargebacks. It's easier for a card company to agree with their customer who says "I paid for this thing on the internet and the company never delivered", than to dig into the details of a random crowd funded project, and read through any promises or lack thereof of deliverables, etc...
da_n 13y ago
This is good news for Mailpile, and an interesting project I have donated. Anyone looking to raise funds needs to take note however that the decision was only reversed by PayPal because of the bad publicity, they wouldn't give a shit otherwise and they aren't going to change. Just don't consider PayPal as an option, they have proven time and time again to be complete scum merchants. how they have managed to dodge any serious regulation is a complete mystery to me.
rexreed 13y ago
It's good that Paypal does the right thing here, so a big kudos to MailPile, not just for fighting the fight, but for getting others to care about it. But... am I the only one that wishes I had the megaphone that is Hacker News and Ars Technica to right wrongs? I get into these situations and find myself fighting the situation alone because my business is not that much interest to a mass audience, and therefore, those in the media who can shine a light on it don't have interest in relaying my plight. So, while a few folks can get the limelight and get THEIR problems solved, the rest of us fight in vain against the machine knowing full well that the odds are stacked against us and we can't get the world's attention in the same way. TL;DR - Yay for MailPile, that's good, but I still feel kicked and not able to get the same sort of help. And in the end, it's Paypal solving a PR problem and not something that might be more systemic.
- jared314 13y ago
  I use to hold stories like these as an example of a broken internal process, because someone outside your company had to tell the world about their problems with you, instead of just fixing it by telling you. Now, it just feels normal. Perhaps, it has always been like this and I just didn't notice.
  - kamjam 13y ago
    But it's the same reason big companies hire management consultants, because sometimes something is broken and internally it is impossible to see. You need that fresh pair of eyes without all the baggage to get a fresh perspective. Not saying this is the case here, but I can see how it happens.
- wpietri 13y ago
  To be fair to Paypal, their CEO claims he is trying to fix the systemic issues. In their response to this, they write: "We understand that the way in which we are complying to these rules can be frustrating in some cases and we've made significant changes in North America to adapt to the unique needs of crowd funding campaigns. We are currently working to roll these improvements out around the world." The reason I think this might not be the typical corporate waffle is that they actually have been admitting that their market dominance made them soft and lazy, but that since Square, et al, are now kicking their ass, they have woken up to the problem: http://pandodaily.com/2013/08/12/if-its-not-broke-break-it-how-david-marcus-is-dismantling-paypal-to-save-it/ http://pandodaily.com/2013/08/12/if-its-not-broke-break-it-h...
thezilch 13y ago
Congrats to Mailpile, I guess; who knows; they chose to agree on terms and do business with Paypal; Paypal played by the book. Until next time... when we "all" play arm-chair CO and "DDoS" a business we really have no idea on what it's like to operate. If you haven't already, read patio11's comment that will stick at the top of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6333203 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6333203
6ren 13y ago
Whew, nothing to worry about! All you need is massive publicity for paypal to do the right thing. Missteps create opportunity - e.g. does stripe facilitate crowd-source payments?
ck2 13y ago
So all we have to is publicly shame PayPal every single time they do this nonsense. What about the smaller groups that cannot get this attention. PayPal needs some serious government scrutiny, the kind corporations fear.
swamp40 13y ago
WHY on God's Green Earth does Paypal keep repeating this seize and release? If you're going to make the decision to SEIZE $45,000 of a vocal entrepreneur's hard earned cash - you are much better off keeping it and justifying your actions, then not acting so aggressively next time. The word for this is INEPT.
NicoJuicy 13y ago
PayPal should know that, answering mostly to Ars Technica works once. Next time something like this happens and PayPal is trying to get ok with the media, it's not gonna work. So i sure damn hope they are truelly changing some things for the better for countries outside the USA...
marincounty 13y ago
Ever notice how you only receive one email about deposited funds? I wonder how many people forget they have funds in Paypal? And how much interest they make off the deposited funds? Plus, why doesn't Paypal give you the interest if they "need"to put a hold on your funds. The last time I used Paypal, I had to wait--21 days in order to withdraw? (I vaguely remember they claim to hold the money in a non-interest account, but my point is I'm still out 21 days interest(interest will matter again), and use of the money. Simple answer; Don't use Paypal, and stop complaining. Answer--I try not too, along with Ebay. (While I'm on the box--I've noticed too many people paying close to retail on Ebay--especially on laptops.)
yaix 13y ago
I still use Paypal, but I also transfer any money to my bank account immediately. Never have more money in your pp account than you are willing to lose.

159 points by _pius 13y ago

> If past freezes are any indication, the best way forward is almost certainly to abandon attempts at redress through customer service and simply make as much noise as possible in the press to get PayPal's upper management to take notice. As just proven by PayPal releasing the funds after Ars ran a story.

nick2021 13y ago

To be blunt F*ck PayPal. I dropped them and started using Amazon payments. Amazon in my opinion is a much better company than Paypal.

t0 13y ago

Why does Indiegogo even continue using Paypal to disburse payments?

rexreed 13y ago
Because it's easy for them and they don't directly suffer the consequences. They get their money either way. But if Paypal makes their business suffer by compelling folks to go elsewhere, it will be their problem. But they probably won't see it that way. They'll simply continue to offer Paypal as one choice for payments, and the problems their customers face are their customer's problems. I'd still use IndieGogo, just not Paypal. The only alternative, however, is to use IndieGogo's own credit card processor, which charges 3%, but it might be worth it because funds are automatically ACH'd and you don't have to deal with Paypal... and the customer feedback is more direct. But the big downside of this is that you don't get ANY of your money until the campaign is over (and up to 15 days after that), while with Paypal, you get your funds immediately (minus a 9% IndieGogo fee) if you elected for Flexible Funding. See http://support.indiegogo.com/entries/20578596 http://support.indiegogo.com/entries/20578596 for more. Given they only have two options: Credit Card from Indiegogo, which means no Paypal (yay), but also no money until the end (maybe boo) or Paypal (boo), but money right away (yay), it forces many folks to Paypal. They need to look at Stripe or Balanced or Braintree or something else.
- brokenparser 13y ago
  Bitcoins
- rgbrenner 13y ago
  "They need to look at Stripe or Balanced or Braintree or something else." That changes nothing. Indigogo has that policy to protect themselves from fraud. Any money they can't recover from a fraudulent project (or fraudulent charges because someone funded it using a stolen credit card, for example), comes straight out of Indiegogo's pocket. That's true whether they use a bank, Stripe, Braintree or anyone else. This is exactly what PayPal was trying to control, and they got criticized for it. At the end of the day, no payment processor wants to be on the hook for 100k+ that they get less than 1% of in profits, that goes to fund a project with no clear timetable, no guarantee of delivery to the customer, no budget, etc, etc, etc.
  - dublinben 13y ago
    How could anyone demand a refund from a project they funded with no clear timetable, no guarantee of delivery, and no budget? Projects don't have to be successful, so I see no way that Indiegogo could be held responsible.
    - dangrossman 13y ago
      The timetable, guarantees, etc. hold no relevance outside of a courtroom. Banks do not hold a trial before honoring a request to reverse a charge; they take the cardholder's word. Unless the merchant can provide a signature and proof of delivery of some item, they're not going to be able to dispute the chargeback either; the bank is leaving it up to the court system to resolve payment disputes outside of a few narrow circumstances. Nobody's going to take every funder that charges back a payment to court to prove they are not owed that refund, so in practice, everyone involved in crowdfunding has to deal with the fact that some of the money is going to disappear no matter what is written.
    - modoc 13y ago
      Credit Card Chargebacks. It's easier for a card company to agree with their customer who says "I paid for this thing on the internet and the company never delivered", than to dig into the details of a random crowd funded project, and read through any promises or lack thereof of deliverables, etc...

da_n 13y ago

This is good news for Mailpile, and an interesting project I have donated. Anyone looking to raise funds needs to take note however that the decision was only reversed by PayPal because of the bad publicity, they wouldn't give a shit otherwise and they aren't going to change. Just don't consider PayPal as an option, they have proven time and time again to be complete scum merchants. how they have managed to dodge any serious regulation is a complete mystery to me.

rexreed 13y ago

It's good that Paypal does the right thing here, so a big kudos to MailPile, not just for fighting the fight, but for getting others to care about it. But... am I the only one that wishes I had the megaphone that is Hacker News and Ars Technica to right wrongs? I get into these situations and find myself fighting the situation alone because my business is not that much interest to a mass audience, and therefore, those in the media who can shine a light on it don't have interest in relaying my plight. So, while a few folks can get the limelight and get THEIR problems solved, the rest of us fight in vain against the machine knowing full well that the odds are stacked against us and we can't get the world's attention in the same way. TL;DR - Yay for MailPile, that's good, but I still feel kicked and not able to get the same sort of help. And in the end, it's Paypal solving a PR problem and not something that might be more systemic.

jared314 13y ago
I use to hold stories like these as an example of a broken internal process, because someone outside your company had to tell the world about their problems with you, instead of just fixing it by telling you. Now, it just feels normal. Perhaps, it has always been like this and I just didn't notice.
- kamjam 13y ago
  But it's the same reason big companies hire management consultants, because sometimes something is broken and internally it is impossible to see. You need that fresh pair of eyes without all the baggage to get a fresh perspective. Not saying this is the case here, but I can see how it happens.
wpietri 13y ago
To be fair to Paypal, their CEO claims he is trying to fix the systemic issues. In their response to this, they write: "We understand that the way in which we are complying to these rules can be frustrating in some cases and we've made significant changes in North America to adapt to the unique needs of crowd funding campaigns. We are currently working to roll these improvements out around the world." The reason I think this might not be the typical corporate waffle is that they actually have been admitting that their market dominance made them soft and lazy, but that since Square, et al, are now kicking their ass, they have woken up to the problem: http://pandodaily.com/2013/08/12/if-its-not-broke-break-it-how-david-marcus-is-dismantling-paypal-to-save-it/ http://pandodaily.com/2013/08/12/if-its-not-broke-break-it-h...

thezilch 13y ago

Congrats to Mailpile, I guess; who knows; they chose to agree on terms and do business with Paypal; Paypal played by the book. Until next time... when we "all" play arm-chair CO and "DDoS" a business we really have no idea on what it's like to operate. If you haven't already, read patio11's comment that will stick at the top of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6333203 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6333203

6ren 13y ago

Whew, nothing to worry about! All you need is massive publicity for paypal to do the right thing. Missteps create opportunity - e.g. does stripe facilitate crowd-source payments?

ck2 13y ago

So all we have to is publicly shame PayPal every single time they do this nonsense. What about the smaller groups that cannot get this attention. PayPal needs some serious government scrutiny, the kind corporations fear.

swamp40 13y ago

WHY on God's Green Earth does Paypal keep repeating this seize and release? If you're going to make the decision to SEIZE $45,000 of a vocal entrepreneur's hard earned cash - you are much better off keeping it and justifying your actions, then not acting so aggressively next time. The word for this is INEPT.

NicoJuicy 13y ago

PayPal should know that, answering mostly to Ars Technica works once. Next time something like this happens and PayPal is trying to get ok with the media, it's not gonna work. So i sure damn hope they are truelly changing some things for the better for countries outside the USA...

marincounty 13y ago

Ever notice how you only receive one email about deposited funds? I wonder how many people forget they have funds in Paypal? And how much interest they make off the deposited funds? Plus, why doesn't Paypal give you the interest if they "need"to put a hold on your funds. The last time I used Paypal, I had to wait--21 days in order to withdraw? (I vaguely remember they claim to hold the money in a non-interest account, but my point is I'm still out 21 days interest(interest will matter again), and use of the money. Simple answer; Don't use Paypal, and stop complaining. Answer--I try not too, along with Ebay. (While I'm on the box--I've noticed too many people paying close to retail on Ebay--especially on laptops.)

yaix 13y ago

I still use Paypal, but I also transfer any money to my bank account immediately. Never have more money in your pp account than you are willing to lose.