Talk:PayPal/Archive 1

message: There's a huge backlash against PayPal that should be mentioned in presenting a fair picture of this phenomenon.  The backlash comes both from PayPal buyers and sellers who have been burned by not only PayPal's system, but their notoriously apathetic representatives.  Some allege that they have lost thousands of dollars because of PayPal.  Sites include www.nopaypal.com and literally dozens of others.
I think this should be included in "Criticism"-- discussing PayPal's commissions(business fees for credit card transactions) in combination with eBay's fees (initial value, listing fee, final price commission). PayPal has become disgustingly adept at ripping off its customers, and something needs to be given mention-- about the ridiculousness of their fees... ~nz
Some editors see this as POV and attacks so once it's made to look like it's not, they will leave it in.  The three main anti-paypal sites are: www.nopaypal.com , www.paypalsucks.org , and www.paypalwarning.com .  nopaypal.com actually redirects to paypalsucks.com (a different site than the .org one) and a name without sucks tends to make editors feel it is not an attack site (at least compared to sucks in the name).  The sites do have good evidence--and paypalsucks.org quotes things right from paypal's website.  DyslexicEditor 18:08, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  paypal backlash 

message: PayPal is now owned by Ebay.  These facts, as well as the facts that Ebay is a monopoly in online auctions, and PayPal has a growing monopoly as a payment processor for Ebay auctions.  This monopoly was in place before Ebay purchase PayPal, and has only been reinforced since Ebay acquired PayPal.  It is much more complicated for both buyer and seller to use any other form of payment besides PayPal.
:I pay most items I buy on eBay using normal national and international bank transfers to the seller's bank account.  To me this is less complicated than using PayPal, and in most cases also means less total fees, both for the sender and for the recepient.  However, some sellers (mainly American) only offer weird and highly expensive kinds of payment options, such as cheques, or payment options unavailable in Europe, such as money orders, so when buying from an American seller I usually have to use PayPal. (Stefan2 15:28, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  paypal ownership, and monopoly control  

message: How long has PayPal been down? It should probably be mentioned if they were closed or something like that. I have been unable to send money from any computer for several months, but can find no evidence that the shutdown ever occurred.
:It's working fine - I just logged on now. -- Arwel 00:55, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  site outages 

message: Shouldn't we add something about the rather high fees that pp charges?
have we been over this one already?
:PayPal's fee structure is actually pretty good, especially considering the lower volume levels for the majority of its audience. check a comparison calculator for merchant account rates if you'd like to see what the market charges. full disclosure: i worked for PayPal from 2001 to 2004; but on this issue i'm not concerned about any bias i may have... really, the rates aren't high.  in fact, they're best in class for a lot of low volume scenarios).dave 05:27, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  pp feez 

message: I created a section titled Legal issues and moved the paragraph on bank regulation into it. I also wrote up a second paragraph in the section, regarding the class action lawsuit against PayPal. I encourage people to take a look at the section with an eye towards (a) coming up with a better section heading (if necessary); (b) providing more background/detail on the lawsuit; and (c) possibly providing some cohesiveness between the two paragraphs in the section, I assume the issues are related. - Walkiped 20:07, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Legal issues

message: I know there has been speculation on Google setting up a rival system to PayPal, but I didn't see solid evidence to this effect.  Anyone know anything about this?  Gchriss 18:17, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Google vs. PayPal 

message: Nothing in the article touches upon that most basic of points. I have no clue myself. Credit check? Do two people need an account? Etc. Mithridates 18:06, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I checked out this article because their site doesn't state how it works. Which is ludicrous. There's lots of stuff about how brilliant they are but hardly anything on how it actually works. This makes me very suspicious. It feels like a scam. But the thing is Paypal is the only way to pay for certain things. Which makes me even more suspicious. Monopolies in private hands don't make the most reliable businesses, especially when the monopoly is worldwide. A potential new Microsoft, except these guys deal with money directly. Sounds very scary. DirkvdM 06:53, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I've tried to make a payment through them in several ways, but failed. So I contacted them and got a very lengthy standardised reply that didn't answer my question (which was pretty straightforward and very essential). Their customer support does indeed seem to be non-existent. DirkvdM 17:52, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Er...so how does it work? 

message: http://www.paypalwarning.com/
http://www.paypalsucks.com/
These sites have a few thousand horror stories about paypal.  I'm going to put them as links, but we need to incorporate their content into the article.  DyslexicEditor 16:54, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article is incomplete 

message: I removed this text:
:Ebay has previously stated that it is just a venue. After acquiring paypal it has become more than a venue by listing in auctions whether the buyer accepts paypal (no other payment options listed) and allowing buyers to sort by paypal. Next, Paypal accounts that are frozen without it being the seller's fault (sometimes frozen without reason) have resulted in ebay accounts being banned [7]. In August 2005, it required that sellers who take paypal not refuse credit card payments, which result in fees and may result in chargebacks due to credit card and other buyer fraud. Beginning in January 2006, ebay now prohibits any online payment system except Paypal, as stated here. Ebay deceptively gives bidpay.com as an alternative, but bidpay has already gone out of business. This singularly requires that online payments through ebay must use ebay's system. Issues of illegality and antitrust have been raised over this decision. [8] Ebay specifically prohibits E-gold, a legitimate competitor to Paypal.
Please feel free to reinsert it after rewording it to sound less like an anti-eBay rant and more like a proper encyclopedia entry.  Thanks.
kmccoy (talk) 01:33, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I did some work.  Will you please help with editing it.  I know you love to delete everything, but it's better if you helped edit things.  DyslexicEditor 02:07, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed text 

message: The article currently says "E-gold, a PayPal competitor with high fraud history"??  I'm halfway through the book the paypal wars and paypal has a high fraud history.  In the egold article it has a small amount of fraud, mostly money laundering denied by the company's owner.  So is the statement of high fraud history true about egold?  How about a source?  DyslexicEditor 11:59, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "E-gold, a PayPal competitor with high fraud history"?? 

message: I see this a lot on eBay in feedback complaints and forum complaints.  I've read a couple news articles about people being arrested for it (I lost them now).  We need some mention of how paypal's buyer protection allows buyers to get a full refund (including shipping charges) for returned a tracked empty box.  DyslexicEditor 01:12, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Paypal refunds to buyers for returning empty boxes 

message: Does PP have a referral scheme? 203.218.37.8 03:21, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: referral?

message: Paypal issues credit cards through Washington Mutual Bank (formerly by Providian National Bank, acquired by WMB). This is not mentioned and should be added. CompIsMyRx 06:50, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Credit Cards 

message: "...one of the leading fraud prevention systems in the industry, ... dedicated to customer service ... a safe, global, real-time payment solution...". This is the kind of language you hear in a commercial. Not very encyclopedic. Better would be to say how many people they employ and then maybe specify how many in each department, although that doesn't seem necessary. But certainly not a phrase like "dedicated to customer service". This is not supposed to be a commercial. So I removed some bits. Stating "leading fraud prevention" once is quite enough. And the employee-bit needs to be more encyclopedic. There are also way too many links to the company's website. I count a total of 31! That;s a bit over the top isn't it? Especially if many are double. So I deleted some of those too. But some more pruning would be in place. DirkvdM 07:43, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is this a commercial? 

message: They keep spamming my email with some shit about a supposed account and I never even signed up for PayPal!—Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.161.209.41 (talk • contribs) 02:34, 19 June 2006
:Most likely, any mail you get that claims to be from PayPal (if you don't actually have an account with them) is actually a "phishing" scam from somebody else, hoping to get people to follow a link to their site and provide their PayPal username/password, or bank account or credit card info, that they can use for identity theft. *Dan T.* 02:54, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fucking PayPal! 

message: The "Criticism" section is unruly on a lot of levels. It is disjointed, first listing common general  complaints, to lawsuits (not exactly criticism), to loopholes and scam opportunities implied as unjust (POV). I don't like PayPal either but I think it's appropriate to cut it down severely or at least sort it out. Bordello 13:48, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've removed all the criticism that does not have direct citation. Way too many weasel words and too much opinion and speculation. If someone wants a specific piece of criticism included they can provide a credible citation for it.--Crossmr 01:27, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Those citations do not support what is written in their respective section. The first one citing pcworld references "heavily" criticised. I see no usage of the word heavily in the article. The weasel words need cleaned up. The second citation is pretty vague a 23 page pdf file. Cite some page numbers for those who want to verify and don't have time to wade through 23 pages looking for that specific bit of information. The last one isn't criticism its a lawsuit, same with the second one. Don't say criticism when we have a law suit. Perhaps a separate section to address any lawsuits filed against the company is in order. Actually there is a legal section. These should be moved there and written and referenced appropriately.--Crossmr 05:45, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I restored things verbatim from earlier revisions, 'weasel words' and all. Thanks for weeding those out. As for the lawsuits, I'll try to move them to the legal section. -Bordello 22:58, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Ax to Criticism

message: ...such as near monopoly status, de facto competition (merchant accounts), major spam/scam victim/bait, phishing, PayPal's security tips...!
The article incorrectly claims Most of PayPal’s major competitors have phased out, when in fact there is the viable and at least for vendors apparently much better alternative of a merchant account. Someone with more insight should explain that this exists and what it is. 
Also, does anyone know something about www.free-merchant.com and whether it should be added here and in merchant account?
Why was www.paypalwarning.com removed? It was called informative (due to the case stories) in other informed comments above. At the very least, it should be mentioned and commented on in the article, especially if it is itself not trustworthy.
--Espoo 06:05, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  many major issues missing 

message: Paypal accounts can earn interest and the debit card they issue gets 1% cash back on all transactions processed as a credit card. I don't think competing companies have rewards like these and this sort of thing should be added to such articles. Hackwrench 08:15, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rewards 

message: Seems to me that whole section is unencyclopedic, and could be replaced by one sentence, but I'm not quite sure where it should go. The sentence could simply say, "PayPal has been frequently used in phishing schemes". --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 04:15, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Phishing" section