We need alternatives to Paypal

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Veritas McMaster
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Re: We need alternatives to Paypal

Post by Veritas McMaster »

I used Paypal for my online businesses and hope they get this sorted. I agree with Ilan that it would be a very bad business decision. It would likely result in mass exodus and collapse of a very viable business. Paypal affords me double protection, along with credit card, should I have a problem. I've been using them 17 years and have had no problems. I have had them hold funds and issue refunds I had not approved but that was within TOS.

We really need a global monetary system in OS so for me, this is bad timing, having to back up to something that was sorted detracting from moving forward with the former.

I cannot use Paypal in world because it reveals my RL ID. I have an account in this name that is backed with my real info (fully transparent to PP) but I've not found out how to fully utilize it yet.
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Re: We need alternatives to Paypal

Post by Veritas McMaster »

I asked Mike if there were viable PP alternatives and he sent this good reference. I have used Square but changing business systems is no mean feat. I even have a credit card reader for RL sales that works with my PP account.

https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/12005 ... tives.html Thanks Mike!
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Re: We need alternatives to Paypal

Post by Mike Lorrey »

Ilan Tochner wrote:
Tue Oct 11, 2022 2:26 am
Hi Mike,

It's one thing for a company such as PayPal to prevent you from using their services if you don't comply with their TOS, or even freezing your funds that are stored by them already (which PayPal has been known to do in numerous cases). It's quite different for such a company to charge your credit card or bank account an extra "fine" for breaking a provision of an updated Standard Form contract they forced you to accept after you've already been operating your own business based on the previous agreement they offered you.

I am not a lawyer but to my understanding, the former is legal (to an extent in some jurisdictions) but the latter is knowingly initiating an unauthorized transaction from your connected payment sources based on "contractual consent" that you were forced to give after a form of bait and switch at a point in time when you were no longer able to transition to a different service provider without prohibitive costs (such as the ability to continue billing your existing subscriptions). This goes far beyond a company changing its pricing or prohibiting activities it previously allowed and I highly doubt their legal department would authorize them to actually do that.

While I don't doubt PayPal can, and will, suspend accounts and freeze PayPal balances of people who break their TOS, I highly doubt they would risk trying to charge people money that is not already held by PayPal for breaking said TOS. The liabilities and potential losses from doing that would far outweigh any possible financial benefits they could get from taking such action. Again, I'd love to see a counter example of a company bypassing the legal system and trying to fine their customers directly for TOS violation by charging their external accounts.
It gets even worse. Regarding the PayPal "woke fine" issue, the legal situation for the EU and Germany in particular is different.
For the EU the data protection laws clearly state that no service may obtain or store data not necessary for the execution of the service, so PayPal may not actually see what it is processing the payment for.
In Germany, contract law knows the "surprising clause" nullification, which means uncommon clauses are at best subject to judicial review, or in this case, nul and void because both the fact and the amount are nothing a reasonable consumer would expect in a contract. Additionally there's the "contro bonos mores" test, which means that an unconscionable contract is void.
Last but not least recent decisions by the highest court make it impossible to make consumer contract changes that go into effect by continuing the use of a service, all such changes and fees have to be agreed to by the other party in writing. All previous such changes are also void and only the last change/initial contract the user signed up to is valid.

This is good for europeans (I am guessing Israel is part of the eurozone now?) but could leave Kitely suddenly cut off by paypal if it feels it must cease all service in Europe.
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Re: We need alternatives to Paypal

Post by Ilan Tochner »

As an Israeli company our international billing options are a lot more limited than those of US-based companies. There are some alternatives to PayPal but the direct and indirect costs associated with switching to them would be prohibitive. There is one option we hope will eventually become viable (Stripe) but despite years of waiting (and some promising signs from their press releases) they've yet to allow Israeli companies into their service. As that is the case, we're left to trust that PayPal won't decide to commit corporate suicide by trying to actually use a "fining" clause, even if they were to reintroduce it into their Standard Form contract.

As stated previously, I very much doubt PayPal would ever try to do that, as that would kill their business and open them to many legal complications. No body would be willing to use their service if it meant risking huge extra-judicial "penalties" and no court would allow corporations to decide they can enforce their own discretion in penalizing their customers beyond freezing existing held funds (and even that only within the limits of the law).
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Re: We need alternatives to Paypal

Post by Christine Nyn »

Ilan Tochner wrote:
Mon Oct 10, 2022 11:49 pm
Hi Christine,

Please point me to the relevant part of the updated section of the agreement on the PayPal site itself (www.paypal.com). I have no idea what PayPal services are referred to by the pdf you linked to or whether paypalobjects.com represents PayPal or some other entity.
My apologies. It seems Paypal withdrew the document. It also contained the reference to the $2500 "fine" that caused such an immediate backlash from folks. However the whole affair is shining an inadvertent light on what direction the thinking of Paypal management is currently taking.

Alternative payment systems, should anyone wish to rethink their financials to not include Paypal, that might be considered are:
Square, Stripe, Wise, or I'm told Amazon and Google may be able to handle electronic payments. Zelle has been suggested for internal US payments.
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Re: We need alternatives to Paypal

Post by Mike Lorrey »

Ilan Tochner wrote:
Tue Oct 11, 2022 1:28 pm
As an Israeli company our international billing options are a lot more limited than those of US-based companies. There are some alternatives to PayPal but the direct and indirect costs associated with switching to them would be prohibitive. There is one option we hope will eventually become viable (Stripe) but despite years of waiting (and some promising signs from their press releases) they've yet to allow Israeli companies into their service. As that is the case, we're left to trust that PayPal won't decide to commit corporate suicide by trying to actually use a "fining" clause, even if they were to reintroduce it into their Standard Form contract.

As stated previously, I very much doubt PayPal would ever try to do that, as that would kill their business and open them to many legal complications. No body would be willing to use their service if it meant risking huge extra-judicial "penalties" and no court would allow corporations to decide they can enforce their own discretion in penalizing their customers beyond freezing existing held funds (and even that only within the limits of the law).
|

At risk of sounding like a broken record, cryptocurrency solves this problem for you easily. Check out bitpay.com, which is for individuals and merchants, they have POS apps and people can pick which cryptcurrencies they want to accept or pay with. Prices in crypto float with exchange prices and merchants can immediately convert payments to fiat or hold it if they think the market is going up. There are other crypto payment methods out there as well, but bitpay has been around the longest and has the best rep.

There is also Circle.com, which works with both fiat and crypto payments. The founder is a friend of mine and I can connect you to him if the merchant solutions need tweaking.
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Re: We need alternatives to Paypal

Post by Mike Lorrey »

Ok it looks like Paypal has NOT backed down completely on this. They won't fine you for "misinformation" now, but they WILL fine you for "intolerance" which could be as minor as not using someones pronouns (whether or not you know what they are) or "deadnaming" a transperson you've known since before they transitioned, or just being accused of some other ist-o-phobic offense by someone triggered by your lack of tolerance for their stupidity. It looks like we really do need to 'transition" away from Paypal, especially for an Israeli company, given a liberal company like Paypal could easily determine that Israeli companies are "intolerant" of palestinians or islam or some other foolishness. Time to get out is now.

https://reason.com/2022/10/10/paypal-mi ... UKhQHeb7t0
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Re: We need alternatives to Paypal

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Re: We need alternatives to Paypal

Post by Ilan Tochner »

Kitely Ltd. (and Oren and I) all reside within the 1948 UN-mandated Israeli borders so nothing about our company is in any disputed region of Israel. PayPal has offices in Israel, has acquired multiple Israeli companies in the past (that continue to develop systems that are part of PayPal) and is accepted by many thousands (tens of thousands?) of Israeli companies. Furthermore, PayPal is not going to take any action that will make them look like they support the BDS movement given the backlash that Ben and Jerry's got when they tried to block the selling of their products in areas outside the Israeli 1967 borders.

I would recommend you wait for PayPal to actually try to "fine" anyone for TOS violations. As stated previously, there is a HUGE difference between adding something questionable to their TOS and actually trying to enforce it. I think the current backlash would pale in comparison to what would happen if they did that and PayPal's executive team and stakeholders know that.
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Re: We need alternatives to Paypal

Post by Graham Mills »

With the usual proviso that I am not a lawyer, it seems to me that the penalty only applies if you use the PayPal service in support of such actions. Not a point I'd personally care to argue in court, of course.

https://www.paypal.com/us/legalhub/acceptableuse-full

Incidentally, the sanction doesn't seem to apply to the UK unless covered elsewhere.

https://www.paypal.com/uk/legalhub/acceptableuse-full
Mike Lorrey wrote:
Tue Oct 11, 2022 4:16 pm
Ok it looks like Paypal has NOT backed down completely on this. They won't fine you for "misinformation" now, but they WILL fine you for "intolerance" which could be as minor as not using someones pronouns (whether or not you know what they are) or "deadnaming" a transperson you've known since before they transitioned, or just being accused of some other ist-o-phobic offense by someone triggered by your lack of tolerance for their stupidity. It looks like we really do need to 'transition" away from Paypal, especially for an Israeli company, given a liberal company like Paypal could easily determine that Israeli companies are "intolerant" of palestinians or islam or some other foolishness. Time to get out is now.

https://reason.com/2022/10/10/paypal-mi ... UKhQHeb7t0
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