I have been using PayPal off and on since 2012 for 2 main reasons.
1 - Convenience, I didn't have to enter a credit card every time I purchased from a site other than usual trusted sites where I store my payment information, like Amazon, and sending payments to friends/family was simple.
2 - Peace of mind.
I recently found that the assumption of (2) was wrong, so I fired PayPal. I don't want to get into the details. Beyond being therapeutic, it won't really make life better moving forward.
That brings me to the question, since I have fired PayPal, I am sure that someone will want to send me, or more likely, have me send them money. Before I go out and research the providers on my own, I thought I would come here. What do Soylentils suggest for peer to peer payments?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @05:56PM
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @06:20PM
People such as myself don't care for it and won't accept it as payment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @06:41PM
What an odd thing to say.
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Thursday December 01 2016, @07:50PM
No, just a matter of taste. Scnr
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 02 2016, @01:49PM
Try eating more pineapple.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @06:00PM
I've heard good things about dwolla. Had an account but never actually used it, so I can't confirm if what I heard was true, though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @07:20PM
This used to be the answer. But unfortunately, starting in a few weeks, you will no longer be able to send and receive money directly to other people with Dwolla because they are changing their business model and focus.
Dwolla is now directing people to a site called Current. https://current.com/ [current.com]
I haven't used it yet, but it does appear to be an option for sending and receiving money to friends/family.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @10:25PM
who can tell what Current.com is doing -- their website says next to nothing and the only way to learn more is to give them an email address. No thanks.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @06:00PM
If there is such a system, it's got to be the cash economy (or "barter").
Other than that, there is no such thing as a Person-to-Person payment system; even Bitcoin essentially requires the use of a third party to verify the validity of each "peer-to-peer" transaction. Heck, even with cash, you might require having your bills verified by some qualified third party.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Thursday December 01 2016, @06:44PM
even Bitcoin essentially requires the use of a third party to verify the validity of each "peer-to-peer" transaction.
Not really, your home computer can verify the whole blockchain from start to finish. You're relying on the fact that nobody possesses enough computing power to forge an equally long blockchain on their own, but so long as that assumption holds true you don't have to trust whatever peer(s) you're getting the record of past blocks from. The worst a malicious peer can do is lie, but you'll know they're lying so you'll reject their blocks. I could see arguing for the correctness of your statement if we're willing to call the entire blockchain a "third party," but that sort of misses of the point of a blockchain.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Pino P on Thursday December 01 2016, @07:22PM
Not really, your home computer can verify the whole blockchain from start to finish.
How is that practical when Bitcoin's blockchain is 110 GB (source [bitinfocharts.com])? On some Internet plans, that could take months to download. Some home ISPs such as Comcast offer 1000 GB/mo, but others don't (in particular satellite Internet). And good luck fitting that on the same 128 GB SSD as your operating system, applications, and documents.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @07:34PM
Or you use a light wallet that just check the headers of the chain (which is currently about 40MB if I'm correct).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JNCF on Thursday December 01 2016, @08:05PM
It can be ridiculously slow to start up, sure, but that's a different issue entirely than whether or not it requires the trust of a third party. I'm not arguing that point. I am betting that most first-world netizens have 110 GB of non-OS space on their home computers, and I don't think that the correctness of my "home computer" claim hinges upon whether they have to delete their pirated movies to make room for the blockchain (technically the truthiness is dependant on the specs of the rig owned by the specific AC I was replying to, and for all I know that AC might only have access to a 20 GB smartphone). With a reasonable computer and enough time (yes, potentially months over a connection with a low cap), you don't have to rely on a third party to verify the validity of transactions. I'm not contending that bitcoins are ready for mainstream use, or that they are the ideal answer to e_armadillo's original query; I'm only disagreeing with a specific claim made by AC.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by art guerrilla on Thursday December 01 2016, @08:41PM
having the advantage of blissful ignorance, it sounds like it is analogous to open-source s/w, where it is *possible* to audit the source code and *theoretically* catch any malfeasance going on, but *most* people don't, trusting the hive-mind will have a drone somewhere crunching the numbers and catching any eee-vil...
and the other thing -again, based on ignorance- is that if once you download this 110 Gb blockchain, do you have to periodically update it with new transactions added to the chain, AND presumably it is only those additional transactions to download/add, NOT download the whole 110+Gb blockchain, one presumes...
(Score: 3, Informative) by JNCF on Thursday December 01 2016, @10:28PM
having the advantage of blissful ignorance, it sounds like it is analogous to open-source s/w, where it is *possible* to audit the source code and *theoretically* catch any malfeasance going on, but *most* people don't, trusting the hive-mind will have a drone somewhere crunching the numbers and catching any eee-vil...
I like your analogy, but if going to stretch it to one of its natural breaking points (all analogies have them): many eyes can still miss cleverly disguised backdoors whereas a single computer can independently verify the blockchain given the data. To me this seems more comparable to checking the md5 sum so that you can make sure the code wasn't tampered with en route -- and yeah, those are outdated. Being fed false data is a serious worry, if you're not verifying the data yourself. Some folks don't feel the need to be paranoid. Other folks are sort of paranoid, and will bother to check that a transaction has been processed by multiple blockchain viewing websites, but aren't paranoid enough to actually download the blockchain. Even among those verifying the blockchain on their own computers, there is the question of how many blocks past a transaction you should verify before trusting that the transaction is recorded -- a competent attacker could forge a small number of blocks once in a while, but they shouldn't be able to outrace the entire bitcoin network for a decent number of blocks. An attacker making 10 fake blocks in a believable amount of time would be incredible, but there are miners that could pull off 2.
and the other thing -again, based on ignorance- is that if once you download this 110 Gb blockchain, do you have to periodically update it with new transactions added to the chain,
To make a new transaction based on the known funds of one of your addressees, no. To make sure that a new transaction is actually recorded in the blockchain or to check and see if anybody has sent a transaction to one of your addresses, yes.
AND presumably it is only those additional transactions to download/add, NOT download the whole 110+Gb blockchain, one presumes...
One presumes correctly.
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Thursday December 01 2016, @11:51PM
thank you, jncf
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Friday December 02 2016, @11:19AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Friday December 02 2016, @03:25PM
Sigh... it's not that you're wrong, it's that you're throwing away all of the precious and worthless data in the UXTO, and I resent that. I'm not disagreeing, though. The data can be pruned, you fucking barbarian. 😒 People like you make ASCII Bernanke cry tiny text-based tears.
(Score: 3, Informative) by butthurt on Thursday December 01 2016, @09:40PM
> How is that practical [...]
MicroSD cards with 128 GB, 200 GB, and 256 GB capacities are on the market. A 200 GB one can be had for US$70.
https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Ultra-200GB-Micro-SDSDQUAN-200G-G4A/dp/B00V62XBQQ [amazon.com]
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday December 02 2016, @10:22AM
Yes, but how do you buy the card?
(Score: 1) by butthurt on Friday December 02 2016, @10:58AM
No idea, I'm just saying they exist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4EdSpc6lVA [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by Max Hyre on Saturday December 03 2016, @03:30AM
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Wednesday December 07 2016, @02:50AM
I wasn't the first to think of that:
Romanian mobile payments provider Netopia mobilPay is now backing a proposal [...] for a system that allows microSD cards in mobile phones to generate, store, transmit and delete bitcoin private keys.
-- https://web.archive.org/web/20150703003704/http://www.coindesk.com/netopia-internet-free-bitcoin-transactions [archive.org]
This tutorial is to install Bitcoin Core v0.13.0 (or possibly higher) on a Raspberry Pi 2 or 3. Options are given to install the GUI and wallet or not. We'll store the blockchain on an external USB flash drive (or hard drive), as that is more modular and better than storing it on a large microSD card with the OS
-- http://raspnode.com/diyBitcoin.html [raspnode.com]
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Friday December 02 2016, @02:02AM
If I had more faith in Bitcoin as a sustainable currency, I'd consider making and selling a semiportable device that could validate bitcoins. Biggest hurdle I see is that it would probably cost as much as a cheap laptop.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @07:25PM
The blockchain is created by the Bitcoin Network.
Guess what? That Bitcoin Network is... wait for it... a THIRD PARTY!!!1111
(Score: 2) by RedGreen on Thursday December 01 2016, @08:02PM
"The blockchain is created by the Bitcoin Network.
Guess what? That Bitcoin Network is... wait for it... a THIRD PARTY!!!1111"
With fees up the wazoo to access it best part unlike Paypal once sent you are guaranteed to never get it back if scammed or mis-directed, at least them weasels at Paypal will sometimes make sure you get it back.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Thursday December 01 2016, @10:43PM
unlike Paypal once sent you are guaranteed to never get it back if scammed or mis-directed, at least them weasels at Paypal will sometimes make sure you get it back.
Unless the scammer is the one requesting a refund, in which case Paypal might make sure they get your money back.
(Score: 2) by RedGreen on Friday December 02 2016, @03:44AM
Must have missed the sometimes in it did you? At least you have chance, Bitcoin no hope in hell of getting it back.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Friday December 02 2016, @03:28PM
Nah, just pointing out that other times the ball lands differently and the blackjack table takes your money. I personally prefer the idea of knowing that my transactions can't be reversed by a third party, but I get that other people want to make different gambles and I respect that.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Thursday December 01 2016, @08:28PM
Okay Trollsy McGee, have fun ignoring the context that language is used in. I need a new word that means the same thing Satoshi Nakamoto meant when he used the term "trusted third party" in the Bitcoin Whitepaper (direct PDF link). [bitcoin.org] Any suggestions?
If you read my link, you'll grok what I'm saying. It's only nine pages, I believe in you!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 02 2016, @12:53PM
The Bitcoin Network (if it's actually working) just distributes the trust across independent actors. It's still a third party, and there is still the need to trust a third party, albeit that trust can be rendered very small. Why don't you understand this? Appealing to authority won't help you...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JNCF on Friday December 02 2016, @03:42PM
You are trusting that the entire network won't switch to a different protocol, which is the same sort of trust as trusting that people in aggregate will still value gold in the future. But given the rules of the protocol, you are not trusting a third party. If the entire bitcoin network conspired to spend a transaction that was sent to an address they didn't possess the private key to, they could not do that without changing the protocol. They could block you from being able to spend it, at a cost to each conspiring member.
We would not generally describe the storage of gold bars in a locked box under the floor-boards as relying on the trust of a third party, even though you technically are relying on the aggregate economy to value gold in the future. I still contend that you're not recognizing the context of this term.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @08:50PM
in the us, theres nothing stopping you from asking for a bank routing number and accout number from your intended recipient to do an EFT to from your online banking app.
Of course, this requires some legwork and trust... if recipient is paranoid, their bank should allow them to set up a new checking account just for this kind of thing...
Of course this is not an ad hoc spur of the moment one-timer solution...
(Score: 4, Informative) by tibman on Thursday December 01 2016, @06:01PM
Venmo works pretty well for me. You can send or receive money. Money received will pool until you cashout which seems pretty fast. Money paid will pull from your pool until it's empty and then pull from a linked bank account. I don't think it's even required to have a linked bank account if you want to just try it out. My friends and i do it for big dinners and stuff. One person pays the check and everyone else just venmo them back. Makes splitting the check so much easier.
Another way is a lot of banks offer similar services themselves now. My bank has a feature that let's you "quick pay" from one person to another. If the other person isn't a member then it'll have them create an account and link their external bank account (or something like that). It works but feels a lot clunkier than Venmo.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @07:33PM
Venmo is owned by paypal
(Score: 3, Informative) by tibman on Thursday December 01 2016, @09:10PM
Hah, it's turtles all the way down? Braintree bought Venmo then Paypal bought Braintree.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Burz on Friday December 02 2016, @02:02AM
I think you mean it's "oligarchs all the way down". That's what a society with hugely unequal wealth means, everything becomes a sham for some huge corporate interest and most people are too poor to educate and organize against them.
(Score: 2) by e_armadillo on Thursday December 01 2016, @08:47PM
I'll check it out, thanks.
"How are we gonna get out of here?" ... "We'll dig our way out!" ... "No, no, dig UP stupid!"
(Score: 2) by e_armadillo on Thursday December 01 2016, @09:41PM
Just read other thread about Venmo being owned by PayPal. Doh!
"How are we gonna get out of here?" ... "We'll dig our way out!" ... "No, no, dig UP stupid!"
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday December 01 2016, @06:20PM
Honestly, I can go to an app on my phone and send money and it's about as painless as it comes.
Most major American banks have a similar service.
(Though I really want to move to a smaller bank and give up the nice shiny tech for a less corporate bullshitty experience)
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Arik on Thursday December 01 2016, @06:35PM
I'm not installing an app on my phone and giving it permission to read anything it wants in order to get back the service they should provide through the web.
So I'm looking for a new bank. Can anyone recommend one that has online banking without requiring app downloads or enabling browser scripts?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Informative) by edIII on Thursday December 01 2016, @07:48PM
A native app isn't all that bad, and probably preferred to be honest. The issue you have is the permissions, and that is rightly fucked on both Android and iOS. You have to jailbreak/root the crap out of it before you can start taking away permissions from apps, and sometimes, that breaks the apps. The browser itself is a native app, and you would be better served by having a one browser app for secured activities, and another for regular banal activities. XSS attacks haven't been mitigated completely, and I inherently distrust my browser to keep everything sandboxed.
Forget about running NoScript with online banking. I don't know of practically any corporation that has a site with security credentials, and is not running javascript. Soylent is one of the very few exceptions. You're hunting for unicorns, and the likelihood of finding a web interface well constructed without javascript will be a journey to impress a Hobbit.
I do believe you can force the bank to at least present you the website, and not force you to an app on a tablet or smartphone. Just change the headers through a 3rd party app or settings to represent yourself as a PC running Firefox or something. It's been quite some time since I cared enough to do anything by smartphone (I gave up after Snowden), but I did find the ability to force a full website experience when I needed to do so, and a few of those times was online banking under extreme duress (otherwise I wouldn't have done it). Also, on a smartphone or tablet device I can never tell if a process has actually been terminated and not just moved to background. I always terminated the process directly with a tool before and after hitting a secured site.
Although at this point in our downward spiral society, I don't think online banking is worth it. Too risky, and you just end up giving power to people that would abuse you with it. That's the corporations doing it legally, and you still need to worry about malware kits targeting smartphones. That's my personal opinion though, and I understand if your addicted to the convenience.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Thursday December 01 2016, @09:02PM
Exactly. In theory it's the best way to go. In practice you're stuck with a POS OS that is literally impossible to secure, and I expect their app is of even lower quality. Which means that installing that app on the phone is essentially begging someone to rip you off.
"I do believe you can force the bank to at least present you the website"
You're misunderstanding me. A website is a crosslinked collection of hypertext documents, not of scripts. If their 'website' does not degrade gracefully when deprived of script support, then it is no website at all in my opinion. The essential qualities for which a website is desired, are absent. It's just an app targeted at insecure browsers rather than an underlying OS.
"Although at this point in our downward spiral society, I don't think online banking is worth it. Too risky, and you just end up giving power to people that would abuse you with it."
Just need to receive my electronic checks and be able to send money occasionally, otherwise I wouldn't bother.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Thursday December 01 2016, @09:22PM
I don't know of practically any corporation that has a site with security credentials, and is not running javascript. Soylent is one of the very few exceptions. You're hunting for unicorns, and the likelihood of finding a web interface well constructed without javascript will be a journey to impress a Hobbit.
A distinction must be made between sites that run JavaScript and sites that require JavaScript. If we make this distinction and include in our tally those sites which maintain most of their functionality with JavaScript disabled, your statement becomes retroactively hyperbolic -- though not as hyperbolic as I'd like it to be. Amazon is an excellent example of progressive enhancement, and there are plenty of others. I don't know about banking sites, but I don't use banking sites.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Thursday December 01 2016, @09:52PM
Newer versions of Android allow reasonably fine-grained app permission configurations.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Friday December 02 2016, @11:25AM
The issue you have is the permissions, and that is rightly fucked on both Android and iOS. You have to jailbreak/root the crap out of it before you can start taking away permissions from apps, and sometimes, that breaks the apps
That's never been true on iOS (apps ask for permissions as they require them and you can turn them off again in settings if you've granted them previously) and it isn't true for recent versions of Android anyway. I was quite interested to note that the Android version of my bank's app asks for such an egregious number of permissions (full call and browsing history, for example, in a recent update) that I uninstalled it, whereas the iOS app asks for very few.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @12:01AM
You've got that completely backwards. The reason it doesn't ask for so many permissions on iOS is because iOS doesn't require it to ask for permission in the first place, where Android generally does. Apple assumes every app should already have access to the internet, should already have access to your complete call history, should already have access to all this stuff...so it doesn't have to ask your permission.
Absolutely any app on that iOS device can already read your entire call history. It appears that Apple doesn't even attempt to restrict it, nor do they make any attempt to inform you if it is being accessed, nor do they allow you to explicitly deny that permission -- all of which Android does:
https://iosstuff.wordpress.com/2011/08/19/accessing-iphone-call-history/ [wordpress.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @07:51PM
Ever heard of PayPal?
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Saturday December 03 2016, @01:40PM
Arik, I'm with you on resisting scripts as much as possible, but we both know it is getting more and more difficult. So to defend against XSS I open my browser only for the bank's website, don't visit any other sites, and close when done banking. I also avoid saving cookies and anything else I can.
So although they have scripted websites, the following banks do not require me to download an app. Good thing, because I don't have or want any device to download them to.
Until a recent update Wells Fargo could be used with scripts off, though it was somewhat clunky. But as you know, the iron rule of websites is we must keep changing what works.
(Score: 2) by e_armadillo on Thursday December 01 2016, @09:13PM
Yeah, I have used my bank's bill pay for that in the past now that you mention it. That could work, but doesn't address the money coming back my way. But, like I said, more likely that I will be sending rather than receiving, so good option. Thanks for the reminder :-)
"How are we gonna get out of here?" ... "We'll dig our way out!" ... "No, no, dig UP stupid!"
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @06:21PM
You didn't provide any details.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @06:25PM
Yeah I think #2 is whatost people here will care about. What is PayPal doing that we should be aware of?
(Score: 5, Informative) by Pino P on Thursday December 01 2016, @06:36PM
Mostly freezing people's funds for months on end, and other glitches of which PayPal and its former owner eBay have attempted to remove all evidence [straightdope.com].
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday December 01 2016, @06:41PM
If you're *selling* via PayPal, sure. I haven't heard about any problems with using them to buy stuff as a CC frontend.
I'd guess using them to pay other people and lack of "Peace of mind" means OP thinks they're leaking his info?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @07:08PM
At this point it is almost crazy to NOT think businesses with large user databases are selling your info.
(Score: 2) by fishybell on Thursday December 01 2016, @06:57PM
Where to begin, [wikipedia.org] I'm sure.
PayPal can freeze your account, preventing you from withdrawing any money, without stating the reasons, and with little-to-no oversight. For this alone they are under constant litigation.
For me personally? They canceled my credit account (they removed a particular type of service) with them and signed me up for a new credit card without my consent. I really wanted to keep my credit clean of random credit checks and unused credit cards, but hey, whatcha gonna do? I'd still rather have them process my payments than give my credit card number to dozens of different online stores, and until everywhere accepts Google Payments, I'll continue to stick with them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @07:24PM
I'm pretty sure any U.S. financial institution can freeze your account, it just happens more often with PayPal because more suspicious (illegal) activity occurs with PayPal than the others. This is why medical weed outlets deal with cash only. Even though legal statewide it's still illegal by the feds. I guess the best answer is cash or perhaps bitcoin, but reading the news lately about bitcoin, even that looks shady now.
(Score: 1) by claywar on Thursday December 01 2016, @10:50PM
I'm pretty sure any U.S. financial institution can freeze your account
When did PayPal become a U.S. financial institution subject to banking regulations? I may have missed this, but this seems to be the root cause of many issues.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @11:01PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal#Regulation [wikipedia.org]
> In the United States, PayPal is licensed as a money transmitter, on a state-by-state basis.[87][88] But state laws vary, as do their definitions of banks, narrow banks, money services businesses and money transmitters. Although PayPal is not classified as a bank, the company is subject to some of the rules and regulations governing the financial industry including Regulation E consumer protections and the USA PATRIOT Act.
And it continues with many more details. Looks like the rules are different every where they operate, in one sense it's almost surprising that one company could actually comply with all these different rules.
Today the wiki page came with one of Jimmy's requests for donations. And one of the payment methods is...wait for it...PayPal!!
(Score: 2) by damnbunni on Friday December 02 2016, @12:43AM
If you mean the recent conversion of PayPal Buyer's Credit to a PayPal Mastercard, that was avoidable.
It didn't convert till you clicked the link to activate the card, so I just never clicked the link. I got a followup warning that if I didn't do so by a certain date I would lose the opportunity and the account would remain a PPBC instead of a Mastercard; that's what happened. I just cut up and chucked the card they sent me.
The PPBC does appear on my credit report just like a credit card anyway, it always has.
(Score: 1) by boxfetish on Friday December 02 2016, @08:56AM
Gotta agree. It's great to use PayPal (hell, even eBay and Amazon) to buy things. You are crazy to use any of them to sell things. I do almost all my selling on Craigslist with cash in person now. It takes longer, but just got tired of getting screwed by buyers or the venue itself. I occasionally use forums that have their own marketplace like Heat, Ars, or BGG. Once you build up enough of a rep, you can actually ask for money orders or even cash. My 2 cents.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Uncle_Al on Thursday December 01 2016, @06:29PM
Stop being such a fucking whore to advertisers who came up with the stupid term.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @07:03PM
Gotta do as the rich do in the hope of becoming rich. Mmmmmmmm, money.
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Thursday December 01 2016, @07:14PM
Let me sell you my 12 step process for getting rich! Here's a little demo of the product:
Like what you see? Order it now for 12 easy payments of $99.98!
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by lgw on Thursday December 01 2016, @11:15PM
Let me give you a 3-step process for getting rich.
Whether you just understand how wealth works, or follow a religion such as Rich Dad Poor Dad or Mr Mustache, you do indeed have a well-tested recipe to follow to become wealthy. Of course, most people decide that maybe being wealthy isn't so important to them after all, and won't make the needed sacrifices, they just like to complain as if it were important.
(Score: 2) by mr_mischief on Thursday December 01 2016, @11:49PM
Don't forget Financial Peace University. Dave Ramsay has his own little niche out there.
(Score: 4, Touché) by mhajicek on Friday December 02 2016, @02:45AM
So the first step toward getting rich is to have twice as much money as you need. Easy!
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by lgw on Friday December 16 2016, @08:16PM
You have confused "need" with "want". Most people do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 02 2016, @02:10PM
You seem to have a very different definition of "rich" than me (or a very different take-home pay).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @07:16PM
+1 *sigh*
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aclarke on Thursday December 01 2016, @07:32PM
On the other hand, they took the time to write up an article and submit it to SN. And here we are discussing it. So, win.
Back on subject, I use Interac e-transfers [interac.ca] for this. Insert snarky comment about Canadian superiority here. But seriously, what's up with the US banking system?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @07:54PM
But seriously, what's up with the US banking system?
Greed and lawlessness. So the same old same old.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 02 2016, @04:21AM
Submitter is a Trump fan.
It's easy to say fuck you, you suck, I'm outta here, never again. Of course, sometimes it's justified but I think people get lazy about holding others to a higher standard of consistency of performance and ethics (like, illegal file sharing doesn't hurt anybody?) than they think they themselves should be held to.
(Score: 3, Touché) by e_armadillo on Thursday December 01 2016, @08:35PM
OK, I have moved on and will be making do without their services. Happy?
"How are we gonna get out of here?" ... "We'll dig our way out!" ... "No, no, dig UP stupid!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @10:56PM
If he/she is American, nothing wrong with using a term his/her President-elect is famous for using.... just saying =)
(Score: 0, Troll) by Francis on Friday December 02 2016, @04:38AM
I dunno, perhaps he light their offices on fire and hasn't yet been arrested.
(Score: 2, Troll) by aristarchus on Friday December 02 2016, @07:19AM
I dunno,
We know, Francis, we know.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 03 2016, @05:05AM
I see you're posting under your own name for once. I get that you've got some sort of deep seated psychological problems, but perhaps rather than projecting your own issues onto me, you could actually get your ass into a library or school and learn a thing or two. Cherry picking partial phrases as a rhetorical style just makes you look like a giant ass.
Personally, I don't care what minds like yours care about mine. You're mediocre at best and probably suffering from some form of mental retardation.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday December 03 2016, @08:20AM
I see you're posting under your own name for once. I get that you've got some sort of deep seated psychological problems, but perhaps rather than projecting your own issues onto me,
Umm, Who ARE you? Are you Francis? Do you know who you are? What is your street address? Who won the World Series in 2016? Ok, that last is not really a fair question. So tell me, what are these psychological issues that you see me projecting on to you? Tell me about your mother. Does your mother accept Pay-Pal? That would at least make this relevant to the topic at hand. But, mental, funny you should bring that up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 03 2016, @09:24PM
I dunno, but you spend an awful lot of time posting bullshit and whining about other people posting bullshit.
Perhaps at some point you might actually contribute something to the site other than trolling.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @07:04PM
Everyone already knows the best way, no reason to mention it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jdavidb on Thursday December 01 2016, @07:13PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 3, Touché) by Pino P on Thursday December 01 2016, @11:56PM
Is this the same Coinbase that was recently ordered to turn over essentially its entire subscriber list [gizmodo.com] to the national tax agency of the largest of the Five Eyes?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JNCF on Thursday December 01 2016, @11:58PM
Out of curiosity, does Coinbase make a receiver of bitcoins via email go through an identification process before they can actually get the coins transferred to an arbitrary address? If not, sending somebody bitcoins through email has the unfortunate side-effect of making their email account a juicy target. If so, I'd think there would be obvious downsides (in terms of both ease-of-use and privacy), though I could see other things (ease-of-use when interacting with Coinbase merchants, mayhaps?) making it appealing as a first step. I think I've used Coinbase, but not too recently. My memory of them is foggy, and quite possibly incorrect.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by SuperCharlie on Thursday December 01 2016, @07:27PM
I have used Paypal since around 2006-7 or so. I use it personally and for my business. It would seem you would need to be able to send people money and to receive money from people..2 completely different issues. To send money, you will need the other person to interact with whatever solution you find. They will resist because no one knows of (insert nifty solution here). Pain. To take money is a lot easier. There are a jillion merchant accounts and services you can api and connect to and receive money, many with some simple forms or such. So the answer to sending people money is basically getting them to trust something besides paypal to create an account, hook it up to bank, yada. Gonna be a tough one to get a lot of people to swallow Im afraid..
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday December 01 2016, @08:02PM
I've been using Paypal for probably at least as long, probably more like 15 years. I keep hearing people complain about it, but all the cases I look into seem to involve people doing something a little shady. The main problems I've had with Paypal are just their site being terribly slow and also buggy at times.
(Score: 3, Informative) by HiThere on Thursday December 01 2016, @08:18PM
Not just shady things. They also freeze accounts for political reasons. And probably some for reasons that aren't made public. (The guy freezing the account just broke up the the holder of the account, e.g.)
How frequent this is I couldn't say, but it's frequent enough that I decided to never do business with them. OTOH, I also don't have any major bank account linked to my credit card. And I NEVER do e-banking.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @09:23PM
Why the fuck is it even legal for them to arbitrarily freeze accounts? I'm pretty sure even banks are subject to more regulations than that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @10:19PM
Because PayPal isn't a bank. Without regulations against it, you are pretty much stuck with whatever terms you agreed to in their TOS.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 02 2016, @01:56AM
Which demonstrates how screwed up the situation is, because it's not as if Paypal is some obscure service that almost no one uses; they are a dominant player. Regulators have had plenty of time to regulate PayPal's behavior.
(Score: 2) by SuperCharlie on Friday December 02 2016, @03:29PM
This has been my experience as well. Also, I dont see paypal as a bank. I dont think it is the correct solution for major money movement. If you need to give or get more than a few thousand a month then a serious bank solution is necessary. Paypal does have rules about holding money for sales and large transaction amounts and I think people are surprised when they hit them and havent really read the TOS..
(Score: 2, Interesting) by j-beda on Thursday December 01 2016, @07:58PM
For transfers between friends and family, e-Transfer is workable. Depending on your banking package, there is probably a per-transaction fee and there are limitations on how large of a transfer can be made.
http://interac.ca/en/interac-e-transfer-consumer.html [interac.ca]
There seem to be similar systems for many US banks.
Aleternatively, or additionally, most Canadian and American banks now allow you to use a smart phone to do photo-deposits of cheques, for free, so breaking out the old chequebook is not as bad as when the recipient needed to visit a bank or ATM to make a deposit. I did manage to have my sister across the continet email me the image of a cheque (front and back) made out to me which I then doctored with my signature and then used my phone to take a picture of the computer screen to make the deposit - this saved the cost of postage and the time it would take for the cheque to travel to me. Maybe not something to do all the time, but it did make a single transaction a lot easier than actually dealing with paper cheques the whole way.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @08:02PM
About six months ago I closed my Paypal account, but it didn't go well. A lot of online firms use Paypal to process their payments, so while you don't have an account you're still using Paypal quite often. However, the real problem comes if you want to sell something on ebay, where accepting Paypal is pretty much essential. It was then that I ended up having to re-open my Paypal account. It's unfortunate, but Paypal is in a sufficiently dominant position that it's hard to avoid their service.
On the upside, Kellogg's aren't as dominant so dumping them will be easy.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Thursday December 01 2016, @08:13PM
I was about to recommend Dwolla, I had heard good things about them and the price per transaction is only 0.30USD. However I reread their Wikipedia page and they were investigated for inadequate security practices.
Money orders?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @10:25PM
Dwolla pivoted. They only do the backend stuff now, probably because of the issues you mentioned. To do transfers between people, you need to use one of their white-label customers or sign up to one of their business accounts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @08:24PM
There is no good solution for online payments without companies like PayPal. The reasons are that there is no single digital standard for these transactions and therefore every payment processor creates their own system and guards it fiercely.* This in turn means that every merchant/service/business needs to choose which payment provider they will do business with and which payment system they will integrate with. This is a huge hassle both legally and technically.
Many merchants will only choose to accept those payment methods that are easy to integrate with their systems and those that are used by the largest segments of the population. This in turn also means that breaking into the payment provider market is really difficult, because you need a certain critical mass of users and merchants before the system actually becomes useful.**
I do not like PayPal's business practices, but I'm occasionally forced to use them. In our country we have a really nice system called IDeal, which works great. Except for the fact that it's pretty much only used in this country, so... not so great. It's useless when I want to buy something from an obscure hardware company in another country or something like, for example the Humble Bundle. Luckily Steam at least supports IDeal through GlobalCollect, but of course that means even more legalism and another intermediary taking their cut.
There are way too many middlemen in finance... Scratch that... There are way too many middlemen Everywhere!
*They have no desire for standards and will probably even oppose them since the existence of any usable standard would bring competition they do not want for obvious reasons)
**Bitcoin payments suffer the same problem. Merchants need to integrate with bitcoin exchanges to actually accept it and convert it to regular currency, which again is a lot of technical and legal hassle to serve a small segment of the population.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by captain normal on Thursday December 01 2016, @08:31PM
Way before Pay Pal...even before the internet, Western Union has been transferring money around the world.
https://www.westernunion.com/us/en/home.html [westernunion.com]
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 4, Informative) by GlennC on Thursday December 01 2016, @08:36PM
There are several methods that I, and your parents and grandparents, use to send money to other people. Perhaps the best method I can think of is to send checks through the mail. If it's more time-sensitive, FedEx or some other courier service can be used. Otherwise, Western Union is a time-tested service for sending money anywhere in the world. Many banks can also do the same thing...it's called a wire transfer, and it's nearly instantaneous.
If you're both in the same place at the same time, you could always use cash.
Why overthink things?
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 5, Touché) by MrGuy on Thursday December 01 2016, @08:52PM
You used PayPal. You decided to stop using them because they didn't give you "Peace of Mind." You explicitly decline to specify what you mean by "Peace of Mind" or what aspect of PayPal violates it.
Then you want strangers on the internet to recommend something that doesn't have the problem you won't describe.
Maybe it's reliability. Maybe it's speed. Maybe it's selling your personal information. Maybe it's security. Maybe it's that you don't care for the font on their logo.
You know what? Screw you. If you can't be bothered to describe what's bothering you, and you want me to spend my time guessing what maybe you don't like, and find you solutions? That might not be better for your problem because my definition of "Peace of Mind" is different than yours? That's a straight up waste of my time, and I'm offended that you asked that way.
If you want solutions, describe your problem.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by e_armadillo on Thursday December 01 2016, @09:37PM
Wow angry much? For not giving a shit about my question, you wasted plenty of time telling me off.
Not sure why the venom, I clearly described the problem I wanted to address -- ways to send/receive money to/from other people without PayPal. There have been some really good suggestions, too.
"How are we gonna get out of here?" ... "We'll dig our way out!" ... "No, no, dig UP stupid!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @09:52PM
Yeah, but what was the issue with PayPal? What if other suggestions have the same issue? It's not like you need to surrender personal details to vaguely describe the problem.
(Score: 2) by e_armadillo on Thursday December 01 2016, @10:09PM
OK, since you asked nicely. I made a purchase, in the process of the purchase extra charges I didn't intend to authorize were pushed through. I contacted the vendor, they agreed that a refund was in order, but they work with a 3rd party payment processor that interacts with PayPal. The 3rd party never processed the refund. I escalated with the 3rd party producing the vendor's email as proof that I should get a refund. The vendor and 3rd party stopped responding. So, I escalated to PayPal, producing the email from the vendor that promised me a refund, and the other emails trying to get the refund processed through the 3rd party.
Long story short, PayPal ruled against me without an explanation. When I tried to find out, I got further non-explanations. It wasn't so much that they ruled against me, as it was the black hole I fell into when trying to find out what their rationale was when the original vendor agreed to invalidate the extra transaction and produce a refund.
"How are we gonna get out of here?" ... "We'll dig our way out!" ... "No, no, dig UP stupid!"
(Score: 1) by RS3 on Thursday December 01 2016, @11:54PM
I realize I'm sometimes the last to become aware of some new thing. Case in point: fees. A few years ago a good friend talked me into going to a concert with him. I hadn't been to a major concert in a few years, so the ticket price was a bit of sticker shock, but then there was an additional $10 or so of added fees which were NOT disclosed on the webpage with the ticket price. I was not happy, and my friend tried to contact them to no avail.
I do most of my own auto work, but I've noticed on repair shop receipts a list of fees. Airlines, banks, hotels, pretty much everyone is tacking on fees and there seems to be some society-wide and legal-system-wide acceptance of this practice. I'm saddened and amazed at the general acceptance of these fees, and I wish everyone would fight it.
I'm with you- if I ever get hit with any hidden fees, I'm closing my paypal account. (shuffles off to check paypal account statement...)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PocketSizeSUn on Friday December 02 2016, @09:41AM
Given the situation you describe I have no idea why you think that using a different processor will fix it.
You are still at the mercy of the vendor and the 3rd party. It remains the vendor that needs to escalate with the 3rd party to process the refund.
Paying with PayPal as an intermediary is fine and all but you *really* need to initiate the paypal transactions from a CC to have any legal standing if PayPal's rather weak purchase protections falls down.
If you *have* used a CC to fund the above PayPal intermediary purchase you can use you CC company to negotiate for those charges, typically within 90 days. After 90 days you are SOL.
In my past experience PayPay will not help at all with services purchases and will help a little with package purchases where as you CC company can unilaterally reverse charges if you can convince them that the charges are in error or otherwise fraudulent.
Later on you say that you are just looking for a person-to-person replacement for friends-and-family for which paypal remains reasonably suited for transfers of small amounts. For larger amounts many banks offer lower cost wire transfers, certainly much lower cost fees that you would occur with services like paypal.
(Score: 2) by e_armadillo on Thursday December 01 2016, @10:17PM
OK, maybe I wasnt crystal clear. Someone else that grokked my question put it better, and i updated using their terms:
Not sure why the venom, I clearly described the problem I wanted to address -- ways to send/receive money to/from friends/family without PayPal. There have been some really good suggestions, too.
"How are we gonna get out of here?" ... "We'll dig our way out!" ... "No, no, dig UP stupid!"
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @09:56PM
Lighten up, admiral aspergers.
(Score: 1) by RS3 on Thursday December 01 2016, @09:02PM
Before getting paypal I used Money Orders, usually bought at USPS. They were the cheapest ($0.90 IIRC), but you can also get them at convenience stores, banks, etc. It's not perfect- one got "lost" - I have no idea if it did, or if the recipient cashed it and lied. IIRC it's a pain to trace - forms and fees. Photograph/copy it before sending.
So then I opened a bank account, with an attached Visa debit card, specifically for paypal. I keep very little $ in it until I need to pay for something. So far so good but I've read the horror stories where people attach paypal to one of their main accounts.
Are good old traveler's checks still around?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @11:02PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @11:08PM
Western Union?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 02 2016, @12:28AM
It's not reasonable to expect Paypal to micromanage complex disputes well. A service that did such would have to charge a fee to cover such labor.
Is it better to have occasional big hiccups, or pay a fee on every transaction? Sure, it's annoying when a given payment fails entirely and you lose money, but you'd also lose money if every transaction had a fee to cover the cost of better service. The long-term average is about the same.
My rule of thumb is only use Paypal for transactions under $50. For bigger transactions, use some other means unless you are in a mood to gamble.
(Score: 2) by e_armadillo on Friday December 02 2016, @01:45AM
Hmmm, that doesn't jive with the PayPal marketing material:
https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/paypal-safety-and-security [paypal.com]
"Dispute resolution -- If there’s a problem with a transaction, we’ll put a hold on the funds until the issue is resolved. We investigate and stay involved every step of the way."
"How are we gonna get out of here?" ... "We'll dig our way out!" ... "No, no, dig UP stupid!"
(Score: 4, Funny) by JNCF on Friday December 02 2016, @02:24AM
It's not reasonable to expect Paypal to micromanage complex marketing truthfully. A service that did such would have to charge a fee to cover lost customers. Is it better to have occasional big lies, or pay a fee on every transaction?
(Score: 2) by e_armadillo on Friday December 02 2016, @05:17AM
Thanks, that made me laugh JNCF :-)
"How are we gonna get out of here?" ... "We'll dig our way out!" ... "No, no, dig UP stupid!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 02 2016, @07:17AM
Trump U will sue you for plagiarizing their brochure.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Wootery on Friday December 02 2016, @09:09AM
Yes it will, because we're now all left to guess as to what serious problem with PayPal you've discovered.
Don't pretend the details aren't important. They very clearly are, or you wouldn't have based your decision on them.
Beyond that, how is anyone meant to give you advice if they don't know what your issue with PayPal is? Are you just seeking an exact PayPal clone? No? Then we need specifics.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Friday December 02 2016, @05:44PM
Update: here's the answer. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Friday December 02 2016, @09:29AM
Probably quite a bit outside the poster's unspecified region but it might be interesting for some of you to know the common way to do petson-to-person in sweden.
In sweden smartphones are _very_ common and so are electronic id - the banks got wise to this and created a thing they call Swish (and all major banks here are connected to it).
Quick outline:
-Setup-
* Download e-id for smartphone, download swish-app
* Log in to your bank's internet-services
* Activate swish by selecting which bank-account you want to use it on
* Select which phonenumber you want to activate with swish
* verify in swish-app (with e-id)
-Usage-
--Send money-
* Start app, enter receivers phonenumber, enter amount, entrr pin, send. Arrives in a few seconds
* Withdrawn from set-up account
--Receive money (person)-
* Give out your (set-up) phonenumber, wait for the other party to claim they have "swished it", check history in swish-app.
* deposited into set-up account
--Receive money (company)-
* Use the merchant version, just another digital payment method (we have five-six common so far)
Free of charge for persons (excepting the small fee (24sek ~ 2.5usd per year) for internet banking, which most people have anyways if they have a smartphone or computer).
And yes, this has gone to the point where cash has become rare between persons and even street performers has started to specify where to swish.
(Just to drive home how how uncommon cash are around here:
* I've only handled paper-money six times in the last 12 months (three times due to drinking at a club with cash-only covercharge [had to cover a friend two of the times, she didn't bring cash, but being swedes she instead covered a few of my rounds to the same amount], two times dealing with grandparents and the last time buying a soft drink)
* People have started to specify if they accept cash
* They put up big signs if it is cash-only
* Clubs with cash-only cover-chargers tend to specify "no, not even swish" and post maps to nearest ATM.
* You don't even react to "we don't accept cash"/"electronic payment only" signs at stores
* You can't use cash to pay for bus-fare in most (all?) major cities)
(Score: 1) by purple_cobra on Friday December 02 2016, @10:09PM
If you're not based in the UK this suggestion will be bloody useless, but we have the option to use a service called Paym. Full disclosure: I haven't used it yet, so it may well be awkward and/or useless.