PayPal Changes

[BgMstr4u]

I ran across this article on new restrictions on what PayPal will accept. I have not used it, but have found references to it in various escort websites.

 

http://www.internetnews.com/ec-news/article.php/3412371

[Guest zipperzone]

>I ran across this article on new restrictions on what PayPal

>will accept. I have not used it, but have found references to

>it in various escort websites.

>

>http://www.internetnews.com/ec-news/article.php/3412371

 

Scary. I read the article - sounds like PayPal is run by a bunch of religious right wing Bushites.

[buckguy]

This has taken many different directions. They stopped service to the liberal weblog, http://www.talkleft.com because it had a link to the beheading of Americans in Iraq. This is a political news blog that deals with legal issues, including human rights. It was a totally appropriate link with a disclaimer about the gruesome content. Not only was the weblog cutoff, but the weblog owner could not collect payments in her account. They also cutoff a right wing blog (talkleft discusses this) for less apparent reasons. I'm surprised that PayPal competitors like ccBill haven't been expanding faster. PayPal clearly wants truly vanilla connections. Of course, I wonder what will happen to the inevitable fradualent merchants, pyramid schemes, etc. thet use them. Will they get the same treatment?

[nate_sf]

Yeah, paypal has been on my shitlist for the last few months, ever since my partner sold a laptop computer to some guy in Russia, and it turned out later that the credit card used to set up the buyer's paypal account was stolen. Paypal demanded that the full payment price be reimbursed, even though it was paypal who initially approved the credit card, but they don't want to take responsibility once anything goes wrong. Certainly a retail business would not be able to conduct themselves this way... it is the retailer's responsibility to ensure the credit card is legit, but paypal wants to be special.

 

I've since learned not to accept paypal on any major purchases and I don't ship anything out of the country, but it's too bad since it's generally been a very convenient and timely way to do these transactions.

 

What's really annoying is ebay has a section on its website giving an overview of different payment options (cash, Western Union, check, etc) and goes over the benefits and risks of each payment option. Paypal is listed as 100% safe and reliable, with no mention that even though a seller has no way of verifying the creditworthiness of a paypal buyer, he or she could still get screwed in the end if it turns out the paypal account is fraudulent.

 

If anyone has a better alternative to paypal, chime in!