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PAYPAL IS THE MOST PARASITIC CREATURE ON THE INTERNET
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pianotm
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CloseTalk about some bullshit.
So, your team starts a kickstarter to develop its indie game, and when you meet your goal, Paypal tells you they won't release the funds donated to you until the game is ready for distribution.
So, your team starts a kickstarter to develop its indie game, and when you meet your goal, Paypal tells you they won't release the funds donated to you until the game is ready for distribution.
AkumuGames
1474
What?! Is that a joke? But you can spend them in commissions for your project, right?
I already knew PayPal sucks but it goes from worse to worse...
I already knew PayPal sucks but it goes from worse to worse...
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
A) That's from 2013
B) Paypal reversed their decision the next day and released the funds immediately, after realizing they were idiots
C) That bullshit never happened again, fortunately, as far as I am aware.
They did a similar thing to Skullgirls about six months before that, though they released those funds a few days later also. (They actually held onto about 5% of it for about a month as "collateral" in case "a large number of backers decided not to actually pledge" because I guess there's a period of time during which you can actually cancel your kickstarter payment?)
B) Paypal reversed their decision the next day and released the funds immediately, after realizing they were idiots
C) That bullshit never happened again, fortunately, as far as I am aware.
They did a similar thing to Skullgirls about six months before that, though they released those funds a few days later also. (They actually held onto about 5% of it for about a month as "collateral" in case "a large number of backers decided not to actually pledge" because I guess there's a period of time during which you can actually cancel your kickstarter payment?)
author=LockeZ
A) That's from 2013
B) Paypal reversed their decision the next day and released the funds immediately, after realizing they were idiots
D'OH!
C) That bullshit never happened again, fortunately, as far as I am aware.
Doubtful, especially after the experience my wife had trying to start a non-profit organization.
Oh well...
TheNecromancer
3160
Even if that policy was still in effect, it hardly qualifies them as the most parasitic anything of anything. You have to admit that the reason for that policy is sound. To avoid people skipping town with a bunch of ppl's money. Which has happened.
It's obviously better to not have that policy.
It's obviously better to not have that policy.
meustrus
30
Paypal is notorious for freezing peoples' money for idiotic reasons or no given reasons at all. Obviously it can't happen ALL the time or else there'd be no reason to use Paypal. And in this case, they relented because it was the "stupid reasons" version combined with public outcry. But it's not a good place to have a lot of money.
Can't say i'm surprised,
Lots of kickstarter failure damaged its reputation, not to mention game critics are not very friendly on their review.
Paypal does the right thing, but i'd rather if they release the money periodically.
But then again, i never started any kickstarter game.
Lots of kickstarter failure damaged its reputation, not to mention game critics are not very friendly on their review.
Paypal does the right thing, but i'd rather if they release the money periodically.
But then again, i never started any kickstarter game.
Dyhalto
7536
author=sinnelius
Paypal does the right thing, but i'd rather if they release the money periodically.
Paypal's job is to facilitate transactions, just like debit and money orders. They have no business withholding funds based on arbitrary grounds like "ready for distribution". You might as well justify banks withholding paycheque deposits because they don't feel you deserve it yet.
Even if the original post's problem isn't a thing, the thread title still stands : Paypal is the most parasitic creature on the internet.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Well part of the issue is: Paypal is not actually just a money transfer service, it is a bank. And these small independent two-person companies often use their personal accounts.
Imagine that you have a personal bank account, which consists of a checking account with $137. And, tomorrow, suddenly, that account has a total of three quarters of a million dollars transferred into it, and that money comes from over a hundred thousand different different other accounts, mostly in transfers of about five to fifty dollars. Damn fuckin' right they're gonna freeze your money until they figure out what the hell is going on.
Another part of the issue, according to Paypal, is that the idea of crowdfunding is rather new and there are a lot of strange legal ramifications that are different in different countries. And many of these large projects have donations coming from almost every country in the world.
In other words, at least back in mid 2013, they didn't really know what the hell they were doing as far as crowdfunding goes, and weren't expecting six- and seven-digit risks. It doesn't seem to be "Hey I bet we can get away with keeping this money for a while since these guys don't seem to have a lawyer or any business experience, mwahahaha" so much as "Oh God this was never supposed to happen, what do we do, we need a few days to figure out if this is even legal, come up with some excuse to freeze everything, help I need an adult"
None of these explanations excuse their statement, at the time, that the money would be released at the completion of the project. That shit is none of Paypal's damn business. I hope that the person who issued that statement was fired.
The good news is that Kickstarter uses Amazon Payments, which seems to have their shit together.
Also, I found a third instance of Paypal doing the same thing less than a week before the one that pianotm linked. Here's the story. That's where that quote comes from.
Imagine that you have a personal bank account, which consists of a checking account with $137. And, tomorrow, suddenly, that account has a total of three quarters of a million dollars transferred into it, and that money comes from over a hundred thousand different different other accounts, mostly in transfers of about five to fifty dollars. Damn fuckin' right they're gonna freeze your money until they figure out what the hell is going on.
Another part of the issue, according to Paypal, is that the idea of crowdfunding is rather new and there are a lot of strange legal ramifications that are different in different countries. And many of these large projects have donations coming from almost every country in the world.
“The idea of crowdfunding is relatively new, and…Paypal has to manage the risk model and also the regulatory and compliance issues in every market in which we operate,” Anuj Nayar, Paypal’s Senior Director of Global Initiatives, told Ars.
“We’re working very diligently with some of these crowdfunding organizers to work out the system,” he added. “Right now, I’d love to be able to say that tomorrow we’re going to be issuing new guidelines, but it’s more complicated than that—it really is dependent on where people are located. We have to remain in compliance around the rules depending on which market both the crowdfunding organizer is, and also their customers. If it was an easy problem we would have fixed it already!”
In other words, at least back in mid 2013, they didn't really know what the hell they were doing as far as crowdfunding goes, and weren't expecting six- and seven-digit risks. It doesn't seem to be "Hey I bet we can get away with keeping this money for a while since these guys don't seem to have a lawyer or any business experience, mwahahaha" so much as "Oh God this was never supposed to happen, what do we do, we need a few days to figure out if this is even legal, come up with some excuse to freeze everything, help I need an adult"
None of these explanations excuse their statement, at the time, that the money would be released at the completion of the project. That shit is none of Paypal's damn business. I hope that the person who issued that statement was fired.
The good news is that Kickstarter uses Amazon Payments, which seems to have their shit together.
Also, I found a third instance of Paypal doing the same thing less than a week before the one that pianotm linked. Here's the story. That's where that quote comes from.
author=Dyhalto
You might as well justify banks withholding paycheque deposits because they don't feel you deserve it yet.
Even if the original post's problem isn't a thing, the thread title still stands : Paypal is the most parasitic creature on the internet.
it's the one of the only creatures that provides legitimate and trusted online transaction.
And no, it's not a paycheque because the product is not yet delivered.
I'm not pro law strict guide rule especially since i'm from Indonesia where everything is lenient to the point that even law have flexible price.
But, just like LockeZ said, even if it's just a few thousand dollars of project,
if you are considered to be a professional, your product has to be delivered and so is your service.
And paypal's service is that of guarantee, it's normal for them to maintain those trust between you and your client.
But then again, with all these news, i began to wonder if failed kickstarters project thesedays like yogcast minecraft game, that one political strip comic, and several others because paypal deemed the seller to be unfit and decided not to release the money required?
That's surely beyond their responsibility.
As i said again, maybe it's all about good deals, or maybe that's within kickstarter's realm of judgment.
author=Lockez
"Oh God this was never supposed to happen, what do we do, we need a few days to figure out if this is even legal, come up with some excuse to freeze everything, help I need an adult"
tell that about that potato salad kickstarter.
Well, look at it on a smaller scale. What happens when you open a seller account on Ebay and make a 100 dollar sale? I'll tell you what happens; Paypal asks you to re-confirm your banking information. When you do, Paypal then informs you that your banking information is already confirmed. Then you receive an email saying that the bank refused the transaction. When you contact the bank, they tell you that no transaction was made and if it had, they would not refuse. Then Paypal informs you that you have to have Paypal credit card at a 3.5 percent fee, buy a smartphone for 500 dollars (from Paypal) and run all future Ebay/Paypal transactions through that smartphone at a fee of 3.5 percent, on top of credit card fee and on top of Ebay's selling fee (This is the actual conversation I had with Paypal this morning). When you inform them that your bank account has always been verified, they inform you that you changed banks (They know better than you, right). When you tell them you haven't changed banks, they tell you the reason you haven't received your money yet is because they can hold it for up to 21 days. Then when you hang up on them and contact your bank and tell them the situation, they threaten Paypal and they put the deposit through. All from the first sale I made on Paypal on March 17th (That's how I found the article in the OP; looking for info on how to deal with Paypal).
That doesn't top what they did to my wife. My wife was a paranormal investigator. We incorporated as a non-profit and she upgraded her Paypal account so she could start taking donations. They confiscated the money she had made from her articles that she wrote over the years. When she argued with them, they informed her that they could not confirm that the money she had before upgrading her account was not received illegally, and therefore were appropriating it and if she wanted to continue using her account, she would have to provide them with her state ID. She filed a report with the FTC and the Attorney General's office. She never did get her money back.
That doesn't top what they did to my wife. My wife was a paranormal investigator. We incorporated as a non-profit and she upgraded her Paypal account so she could start taking donations. They confiscated the money she had made from her articles that she wrote over the years. When she argued with them, they informed her that they could not confirm that the money she had before upgrading her account was not received illegally, and therefore were appropriating it and if she wanted to continue using her account, she would have to provide them with her state ID. She filed a report with the FTC and the Attorney General's office. She never did get her money back.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
sinnelius what are you talking about
Paypal has nothing to do with the projects. They are a bank that also functions as a credit card service. They don't guarantee that products are reliable, any more than Bank of America guarantees that your groceries are good when you pay for them with your credit card.
Paypal has nothing to do with the projects. They are a bank that also functions as a credit card service. They don't guarantee that products are reliable, any more than Bank of America guarantees that your groceries are good when you pay for them with your credit card.
I've been done with paypal for some time now. Ever since I was a fantastic seller never had a negative feedback or was never late on any fees or anything!
Then out of the blue they want my information verified...through fax(i love that, fax) I just never did it. Luckily I had cleared all but like $3 from the account previous to this so it wasn't a loss.
But whatever, I hated being forced to go through them anyways. Yes, it's 99% reliable that you won't get fucked by someone else but 100% certain that paypal will do the fucking. Soooo ehhh
Then out of the blue they want my information verified...through fax(i love that, fax) I just never did it. Luckily I had cleared all but like $3 from the account previous to this so it wasn't a loss.
But whatever, I hated being forced to go through them anyways. Yes, it's 99% reliable that you won't get fucked by someone else but 100% certain that paypal will do the fucking. Soooo ehhh
Dyhalto
7536
author=LockeZ
Well part of the issue is: Paypal is not actually just a money transfer service, it is a bank.
No, it's not. It can function like a bank for convenience's sake, but it's not covered by the FDIC (or equivalents), and it doesn't pay interest.
author=LockeZ
"Hey I bet we can get away with keeping this money for a while since these guys don't seem to have a lawyer or any business experience, mwahahaha"
Actually, that probably is what happened.
Paypal's jumping headfirst into the kickstarter world without a clearly defined plan is their fault, not anyone else's. Freezing a fund transfer and trying to arbitrate it on subjective grounds is a bullshit bandaid attempt on their foulup, but they tried it, and tried it knowing these guys don't seem to have a lawyer or any business experience. A classic case of Big Evil Corporation screwing the little guy.
Odds are, the only reason they dropped the idea is because sentiment might turn against them and push them out of the kickstarter market.
author=sinnelius
even if it's just a few thousand dollars of project,
if you are considered to be a professional, your product has to be delivered and so is your service.
And paypal's service is that of guarantee, it's normal for them to maintain those trust between you and your client.
Neither of these are valid reasons why Paypal has the responsibility to be kickstarter's new arbiter. If I donate $1000 to LockeZ's game and it goes vaporware then that's my tough luck. Paypal had as much skin in the game as ten $100 bills sent by mail did.
To me, this whole debacle (described in the first post) was a trial balloon launched by Paypal to gauge community response to the practice of placing kickstarter funds under lock and key for an undisclosed amount of time, to be released on undefined and arbitrary reasons, so they could generate interest on it while the donors and recipients sat on their hands. It's a guarantee that if people said "Okay, that's fair", they'd still be doing it.
First of all, Paypal is not a bank, it's not a credit union; it is a money management and transfer service. They're like Western Union. Paypal is not associated with any banking laws. Paypal implements it's policies based off of basic consumer law; in other words, if you give them money, it's legally their money. It's like when your neighbor borrows something and doesn't give it back. If you report them for theft, the police can usually come and just get it back, but if your neighbor understands the law, the police can't do anything because you gave the object to the neighbor. It's legally his. Paypal is your neighbor with a corporate legal team helping them. If they decide to legally keep your money, they can and you have no recourse. Why? Because Paypal is not a bank.
In other news, my Paypal transfer was supposed to go through today. Paypal cancelled it and then told me my bank wasn't linked. I talked to my bank and they told me that they had approved the transfer when Paypal cancelled from their end. The Paypal representative's response? The bank is lying and the automatic Paypal email telling me they had cancelled my transfer was from a scammer.
In other news, my Paypal transfer was supposed to go through today. Paypal cancelled it and then told me my bank wasn't linked. I talked to my bank and they told me that they had approved the transfer when Paypal cancelled from their end. The Paypal representative's response? The bank is lying and the automatic Paypal email telling me they had cancelled my transfer was from a scammer.
meustrus
30
So when you give money to Western Union for a money order it's legally theirs and they could keep it instead of sending it to the person to whom you are sending it? Bullshit. And in order to have monetary balances that you can send to yourself or anybody else that isn't Paypal, Paypal is subject to banking laws. Period. That's why all the games that have in-game currency never let you exchange it back for your own money: they'd be subject to the extremely complicated banking regulations and they don't want to have to have lawyers on staff to manage it. That's a good thing, by the way. Buying and selling unregulated in-game currencies is a great way to launder money and scam people. And by the way, do you think the feds have no right to ensure Paypal can't be used to launder money? Hell no! Paypal has to keep detailed transaction histories available for investigation.
The defining feature of a bank isn't complicated. A bank is an entity which keeps money for you and lets you get it back out. The details of what they do with that money, what incentives you have to store it there at all, or how easy they make it to send your money to other people don't change whether it is or is not a bank.
As for what happened on your end, it sounds like there's probably something really weird happening. The bank is just telling you what they saw happen. Paypal is speculating why it isn't their fault. They're lying arrogant assholes and they're lazy and incompetent too. But that still doesn't explain why the transfer won't go through.
The defining feature of a bank isn't complicated. A bank is an entity which keeps money for you and lets you get it back out. The details of what they do with that money, what incentives you have to store it there at all, or how easy they make it to send your money to other people don't change whether it is or is not a bank.
As for what happened on your end, it sounds like there's probably something really weird happening. The bank is just telling you what they saw happen. Paypal is speculating why it isn't their fault. They're lying arrogant assholes and they're lazy and incompetent too. But that still doesn't explain why the transfer won't go through.
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