Pony: alternate payment methods

August 23, 2005 2:06 PM

Can we get another way to pay for accounts then paypal? I'd rather pay $20 for an account through another service then use them. There are several, relatively cheap credit card transaction services out there.
posted by delmoi to feature requests at 2:06 PM (48 comments total)

It also sucks that you can't see the paypal requirement until after you've gotten through the rest of the registration.
posted by delmoi at 2:07 PM on August 23, 2005

I have recently embarked on a one-man "Death to Paypal" crusade, and so would support this move.

Because I know *my* endorsement is the crucial one here.
posted by Dr. Wu at 2:30 PM on August 23, 2005

Send me the $20 and I'll sign up an account on your behalf.
posted by riffola at 2:31 PM on August 23, 2005

Send me the $20 and I'll sign up an account on your behalf.

well, that would defeat the purpose of the protest, no? I do have an active paypal account, but I really would rather not use it.
posted by delmoi at 2:40 PM on August 23, 2005

Paypal is quite evil.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 2:41 PM on August 23, 2005 [1 favorite]

Because I know *my* endorsement is the crucial one here.

I happen to think that it is.

Did you here that, delmoi? Dr. Wu is with you. But he's really just a shadow of the man that you once knew.
posted by gramschmidt at 2:42 PM on August 23, 2005

Are you crazy? Are you high??
posted by tristeza at 2:42 PM on August 23, 2005

You don't have to have a Paypal account to register. It accepts credit cards just fine.

Or is this just an ideological battle?
posted by sbutler at 2:44 PM on August 23, 2005

Or is this just an ideological battle?

Well, that might be a little better. But still.
posted by delmoi at 2:47 PM on August 23, 2005

"I'd rather pay $20 for an account through another service then use them."
Luckily, you already have an account.
posted by klangklangston at 2:50 PM on August 23, 2005

Sock puppet or paypal, which shall it be?
posted by caddis at 3:00 PM on August 23, 2005

I love PayPal.
posted by fixedgear at 3:04 PM on August 23, 2005

I'm just an ordinary guy.
posted by languagehat at 3:09 PM on August 23, 2005

"a one-man 'Death to Paypal' crusade"

Luddite! tsk tsk
posted by mischief at 3:35 PM on August 23, 2005

What's everyone's big beef with Paypal? I recall a few isolated complaints about Paypal locking a few people's accounts for various reasons, and not giving them immediate access to their funds, that's only been a handful of times in years and years. I've used Paypal for years, both for sending and receiving funds. In fact, I switched over to using them to process what few credit card payments I have for my small business. I've had no troubles whatsoever, as opposed to more traditional credit card processing companies, which, in my experience, are the epitome of sleazy business practitioners... who ding business owners not only on every transaction, but with assorted monthly fees.

So aside from the nebulous "Paypal is evil" statements, can anyone provide more concrete evidence why Matt (or anyone else) should stop using them?
posted by crunchland at 3:40 PM on August 23, 2005

(ok. I saw the paypalsucks site in the original message only after I pressed post. I'm still not convinced.)
posted by crunchland at 3:44 PM on August 23, 2005

Paypal enforces morality on your purchases. They will not allow you to use it for pornography sales or DMCA-violating tools (even in countries where such things are legal). And there's a whole whack of other stuff too, I'm sure.

Does that make them suck enough for you, crunchland? Imagine if your bank said they were closing your account and keeping your money because you debited the $0.99 porno theatre ticket...
posted by shepd at 3:46 PM on August 23, 2005

Yep what shepd said. The company is just evil. They even refused to keep servicing JenniCam for crying out loud.
posted by Mitheral at 4:20 PM on August 23, 2005

Shepd, it's an interesting view you have -- I'm not saying that everything's roses with Paypal, but it's certainly not morality that they're looking to enforce. Paypal is a US company, so when it comes to the DMCA, it doesn't matter what countries the sender and recipient of money are in, the money passes through the US and makes Paypal responsible; they'd be fools to not at least pay some attention to their vulnerability on that account. And as for porn, while I understand that Paypal's decisions about what is porn are sometimes a bit inexplicable, it likewise is trying to prevent itself from losing money through chargebacks and scams, a huge chunk of which come from the online porn industry. (For example, the only reason that many credit card companies continue to allow porn purchases is that there are strict, backed-by-law requirements on the part of the porn companies that make them put up bonds, provide excruciating details about their financial backings, etc. in order to even be allowed to process credit card purchases. Those laws don't protect companies like Paypal, though, so they need to decide whether to take the financial risks associated with allowing porn purchasing, or place restrictions on use.)

Again, I'm no Paypal apologist, and have had my share of issues with the company. But those two examples don't affect my opinion of Paypal at all.
posted by delfuego at 4:25 PM on August 23, 2005

Matt does have an Amazon Honor System page, that wouldn't use paypal. Maybe you could email him and work something out through there.

Unless you're boycotting them too.
posted by smackfu at 4:26 PM on August 23, 2005

Every time I hear those lyrics, I mentally substitute "Doctor Who" for "Doctor Wu", which, I believe, gives the song even more geeky charm. But maybe I'm just committing esquivalience.
posted by wendell at 4:34 PM on August 23, 2005

I've not had the need to buy porno or pirating software using Paypal, so I guess I haven't run into that dark side of their policies. And as delfuego points out, unlike Walmart (with their evil corporate decisions on what sort of birth control medications they will sell, and to whom), I don't believe Paypal is making any moral judgements about the activities. It's strictly a business decision ... what's legal and what isn't; what's a risky venture and what's not.

But if you want to boycott them, that's your right. Just like I boycott Walmart.

And just like I miss out on the tremendous savings of their massive, world-dominating buying power, you have to miss out on the things you can only get through Paypal.

Standing up for what you believe in isn't always easy.
posted by crunchland at 5:35 PM on August 23, 2005

Sorry for the delay. I've been at Biscayne Bay, watching the Cuban gentlemen sleep all day.
posted by Dr. Wu at 6:48 PM on August 23, 2005

Paypal is in cahoots with Ebay. If Paypal finds out you are using it's services for something that is against Ebay policies (firearms), they close your account.
They are evil. It's kinda like play money. It works some places, but not others.
posted by Balisong at 7:18 PM on August 23, 2005

Ummmm -- Paypal is eBay, Balisong.
posted by delfuego at 7:21 PM on August 23, 2005

Oh, and if you use Paypal to pay for firearms, they don't close your account because you violated eBay's policies, they close your account because you violated Paypal's policies. And I quote:

"You may not use PayPal in the purchase or sale of any firearm. This includes all rifles, shotguns, and handguns, whether for use in sporting, as collectibles, or curio and relic (C&R) firearms, and regardless of their present working order. Furthermore, PayPal defines “firearm” consistent with the U.S. Code and, as such, prohibits frames, receivers, or any other serialized firearm components."

If you use Paypal, you should read the Acceptable Use Policy in its entirety before accusing Paypal of random decisions somehow related to other policies. As others have said here, Paypal is pretty up-front about what they will and won't let you do, and if you choose to use it and violate those rules, then you need to be prepared for what Paypal chooses to do about it.
posted by delfuego at 7:25 PM on August 23, 2005

See!! They're EVIL!
posted by Balisong at 8:03 PM on August 23, 2005

Paypal enforces morality on your purchases. They will not allow you to use it for pornography sales

Pff. That's certainly not enough for me. They can extend their service to whoever they want. The fact that people interpret this as "enforcing morality on their purchases" just goes to show that they do what they do so well that they're the overwhelming leader in their space. Anytime an indispensable and ubiquitous utility limits its own use, people cry foul, like their human rights have been violated. It just goes to show how much people want to use it.

I'm sure there are some legit complaints against Paypal, but, like crunchland, have used it for years and years and like it. "Their customer service is horrible!" isn't going to change my mind. There's some dickweed on the internet with a beef about the customer service of any company you could choose.

I sure as hell am not as comfortable with "several, relatively cheap credit card transaction services out there."

Oh yeah! Maaaaatt! Can you ransition MeFi to CCbill? Riiight.
posted by scarabic at 9:25 PM on August 23, 2005

Paypal is owned by eBay but operated as a separate company. They even do business with eBay's competitors. Gosh! How evil!
posted by scarabic at 9:28 PM on August 23, 2005

I have never once had a trouble-free PayPal transaction. Never. For some reason, it took me about 15 or so troublesome transactions to finally just cancel my account. I don't know why I put up with it for so long.

PayPal would routinely delay payments, fail to alert sellers of the fact that I had paid, send me multiple and conflicting emails regarding the details of a single purchase, among other things. Plus, I find their website interface to be unpleasant and misleading.

Never used it for porn, but their morality policy sounds like another good reason to drop 'em like a hot rock.
posted by Dr. Wu at 9:31 PM on August 23, 2005

Huh. Well, okay. But in all these months we haven't had a single MeTa thread posted by someone trying to get an account who'd been thwarted by PayPal.
posted by scarabic at 9:33 PM on August 23, 2005

Yup, something non-paypal would be very useful. Should I ever need a sock puppet account to add to my legion of sock puppets, I wouldn't want to have to go through paypal for it.
posted by fvw at 10:27 PM on August 23, 2005

It's kinda like the DMV.
It's not like you want or really need a drivers licence.
It's just that so many other places need to see it for some reason.

I have a paypall acct. balance $0.00

I don't trust them with whatever interest they can scrape off any supposed money I might, or might not as they see fit, money in the acct.

I have never bought firearms off the internet. I have just learned of the crappy practices of Paypal, and Ebay, through reading bladeforums.com.

They are in it for themselves first. As are UPS, Fed Express, and even the USPS. But that's another rant...

I wired my paypall acct. $5 to join here, and I'm damn proud! You and all your 'I joined when it was free' talkin' ways will never change us!
posted by Balisong at 10:31 PM on August 23, 2005

scarabic, if they were thwarted by PayPal, it goes to reason that they would be incapable of posting a complaint to MeTa.
posted by mystyk at 10:38 PM on August 23, 2005

Ok, the Paypal and Porn thing - they froze my account because apparantly, this advert is porn. Of course, they couldn't just tell me that ad was their problem, so that I could remove it or anything. Noo. Not when asked, not via email, not via phone, not via fax. The ad they don't like is being sold as posters on Ebay and on other websites with PP as the only payment option, without a problem (note it's not sold on my site, just reported on). Meanwhile, they didn't care about this ad at all. Makes no sense to me at all. And to take several weeks to respond while my account is closed? Effed up.
posted by dabitch at 10:46 PM on August 23, 2005

scarabic, if they were thwarted by PayPal, it goes to reason that they would be incapable of posting a complaint to MeTa.

Congratulations! You got the joke! Your dinghus award is in the mail ;)
posted by scarabic at 11:28 PM on August 23, 2005

"Your dinghus award is in the mail"

Couldn't you have just paypalled it?
posted by mischief at 11:47 PM on August 23, 2005

I have a paypall acct. balance $0.00.

Me too. Why do people even have balances to get frozen?
posted by smackfu at 6:52 AM on August 24, 2005

Ok, aside from my snark above, I do sympathize for a couple of reasons. First is that I had to have a pal with PayPal open this account, because PayPal won't accept my Credit Union as being legit. Which blows. Second off, my father got ripped off through PayPal on a laptop sale and PayPal was not just unhelpful, but openly obstructionist in his pursuit of both his money back and legal prosecution. Luckily, the credit card company ended up backing him and giving PayPal the screw. But they are a bastard company run by retards.
Almost like every other "industry standard" company I can think of...
posted by klangklangston at 8:09 AM on August 24, 2005

Huh. Well, okay. But in all these months we haven't had a single MeTa thread posted by someone trying to get an account who'd been thwarted by PayPal.

Lets think about that for a moment.
posted by delmoi at 8:09 AM on August 24, 2005

let's read a few comments up for a moment.
posted by scarabic at 8:49 AM on August 24, 2005

Now might be a good time for Matt to chime in about any issues he's heard of from people desiring a metafilter account but who were thwarted by Paypal... the ones who maybe wrote him an email, or maybe even pelted his house with rocks and garbage.
posted by crunchland at 9:02 AM on August 24, 2005

I used to be in the pro-Paypal account. Roughly a month ago I couldn't find my paypal debit card to withdraw some money from my account so I initiated a balance transfer to the bank account I had linked to the account for five years.

They let it go through and then limited my account access. Now I can't use paypal until I receive a letter from them. A letter supposedly sent a month ago.

Ebay becomes much harder to use once you don't have access to paypal. The incident has soured me to both.

I really want one of these, but can't find a non-ebay source.
posted by drezdn at 9:03 AM on August 24, 2005

Ah, yes. I hate it when the 'humor detection' part of my brain falls asleep before the 'post comment' section. The result is almost always a comment pelting from someone like scarabic.
posted by mystyk at 9:25 AM on August 24, 2005

drezdn, they punished you for withdrawing money to your bank account instead of using the paypal debit card? Huh? Did they explain anything about that? I don't get it.
posted by davy at 12:43 PM on August 24, 2005

I'd tell my paypal-related tale of extended annoyance, but nobody ever listens until it happens to them.

It's like telling somebody that they should wear their seat belt.

I sincerely hope you never have to waste days of your life fighting that stupid, stupid company.
posted by mosch at 2:29 PM on August 24, 2005

freaking seconded.
posted by dreamsign at 9:34 PM on August 24, 2005

drezdn, they punished you for withdrawing money to your bank account instead of using the paypal debit card?

My theory (since they didn't give a real explanation) is that since usually I withdraw the money with the debit card instead of doing the balance transfer that when I did the balance transfer it set of a small alarm at paypal headquarters. So, despite the fact that I was transfering money to a bank account that has been linked to that paypal account since 2000, they thought it was "suspicious."

I really wish there was a service as integrated into everything as paypal is. And not bidpay, because bidpay is the lame.
posted by drezdn at 10:25 PM on August 24, 2005