5 ms·
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...
by 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 agoI 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 agoBut 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 agoTo 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...
- kmfrk 13y agoI remember when their president responded to another controversial payment freeze: http://brown-moses.blogspot.dk/2013/05/paypal-effectively-destroys-my.html http://brown-moses.blogspot.dk/2013/05/paypal-effectively-de.... Definitely interesting to see the higher-ups insert themselves like this, but I honestly don't think the temperature between users and PayPal is going to remain at subzero.
- devx 13y agoYet so far there haven't been any major changes in how they treat businesses or people. The only major changes have been the designs of the websites and apps.
- jessaustin 13y agoI get into these situations and find myself fighting the situation alone... Do you care to elaborate on this? Have you had problems specifically with PayPal, or with other unaccountable corporate bureaucracies?
- foobarbazqux 13y agoYeah, the real solution is not vigilante activism, but tougher financial regulation with actual penalties under the law for screwing people around (and over). It's much much harder for a bank to freeze assets.
- dangrossman 13y ago> It's much much harder for a bank to freeze assets. Not really. Banks establish reserve holds (i.e. you keep processing credit cards but the money is not reaching your bank account) all the time. They also freeze accounts and keep that held money for 180 days, all the time. None of it requires any exceptional circumstance nor is there any way for you to dispute the decision to establish a reserve or to close your account and hold the funds. Don't confuse savings accounts with merchant accounts; they are not treated the same even at banks. I speak from first-hand experience. I had to continue providing service to customers while their payments for that service were held for 6 months by the largest private bank in the country (FNBO, $17 bn in assets). That was an interesting time cashflow-wise when bootstrapping one of my earlier businesses. It was all triggered by a single incident of fraud where someone made 6 separate purchases through my website, which were all charged back at the same time. As a relatively low-volume merchant at the time, that made me look like a huge risk the bank wasn't willing to work with anymore. I've considered fraud screening from the start of everything I've worked on since.
- foobarbazqux 13y agoYou're right, I was confusing savings accounts with merchant accounts. So given your experience, why do you think people make so much noise about PayPal if this kind of behavior is par for the course with banks?
- milesskorpen 13y agoProbably because the people dealing with PayPal aren't used to dealing with merchant accounts, and are used to dealing with savings accounts.
- 13y ago
- mcv 13y agoThe main thing you can do is to not use PayPal. Unfortunately there's not really a good international online payment system. Netherland has the excellent iDeal system, and I wish the rest of the world would start using that or something indistinguishable from it. PayPal and credit cards are just too unreliable.
- ojilles 13y agoFrom a business perspective, maybe. But from a consumers perspective? Every time I have the option iDeal vs. PayPal I go PayPal, much easier and faster (just password and go!) -- and better uptime to boot.