PayPal, and the slow descent into the choas of order that is the internet.
So I assume we've all heard of PayPal. It was a little ideaspark in someone's mind many years ago, wherein they devised a simpler system of handling the exchange of currency over the internet. I first ran into it when I was probably a preteen, as my parents started using it for purchases on eBay.
It used to work brilliantly. You could stick money in it to utilize, or tie it to your bank account to draw money from there. It tagged on a small percentage tax to cover its fees, and all was well.
Then somewhere along the line, they came up with the idea of "verifying" your PayPal. Associating it directly to YOU, your identity, your bank account, etc. "Verified" accounts were held in higher esteem than normal accounts, as via being tied to your identity, it was harder to achieve a number of scams that afflicted PayPal early on. Most people jumped through the hoops to get verified accounts, many places refused to utilize PayPal unless your account was verified, and time went on.
Lately, I've been noticing a trend of online sites and stores who formerly supported PayPal removing that support. Apparently, PayPal has been raising its taxes and fees on both buyers and sellers. I can't imagine that the system needs any more income to "run properly", when it has always worked just fine and in fact turned a sizable profit. Capitalism at work, I suppose.
Then Robyn, who has made ample use of PayPal for both her Dolly Market needs (buying and selling, as well as organizing and running group orders) and the magazine that she runs, received a message from PayPal. Her account is now being watched, and any money she receives will not be released for her to utilize for what amounts to a full month after she gets it. This is probably because, although her account was once verified, she no longer has a bank account and therefore the verification lapsed. Why that should make any difference when the money she needs and uses is sitting RIGHT THERE IN HER PAYPAL is beyond me. In addition, she recently had a bit of a fight with an Arkansas-based store; they ordered some copies of the magazine to sell, she shipped them, and they didn't arrive in a "timely" fashion. The store wanted a refund, which she couldn't give because the money from sales and ads goes straight to getting the magazine printed. As in, it was already spent for the purposes of getting them the magazines in the first place. She turns no profit.
In any case, after many discussions with the post office and waiting, they errant package was eventually discovered somewhere in Pennsylvania and sent on its merry way to the store in Arkansas. The store has not contacted her since, and it seems they very much feel that they were spurned by Robyn in some way, form, or fashion when it was the fault of the USPS all along (and they knew that from the get-go, as there was tracking on the package).
We figure they put in a PayPal claim, but PayPal couldn't do anything as Robyn didn't have any money in her account anyway, and the item was already shipped as specified in the first place. That claim could've flagged her account for review, leading to this noise.
In any case, people aren't going to wait around for a month AFTER the last order comes in for a group order before the order can even go out (in addition, sales tend to end...). Beyond that, people ordering the magazine and ordering ads in the magazine are not going to want to wait an additional month before the magazine can even go out to print (as I previously mentioned, the revenue from sales and ad sales goes directly into making the thing happen). So, it simply boils down to the fact that PayPal has now made it literally impossible for Robyn to utilize it for her means, which means that they will now lose her business, and lose their bit of revenue from her transactions.
How does this make any logical sense?
It seems to be part of a trend I've been noticing over the last few years on the internet. The ever-present fear of being scammed in some way, form, or fashion has managed to make services nearly completely useless. Another recent instance that I can bring to the table was that recently I attempted to create a side blog dedicated to the paranormal. I created it on Blogger, as I could associate an AdSense account to it and possibly earn some small bit of income from it. Except not, as within two weeks of it being up, my AdSense account was disabled for literally no reason. Google's basic response to my pleas of "wtf, mate?" was that they have the ability to disable any accounts at any point of time, without any notice, on a mere whim. Also, they sent out checks... monthly, if I recall correctly... and any money you had earned that hadn't yet been sent out gets returned to them. Total bullshit.
I think the reason that my account got disabled was because I was on the same network as Nick, who was following instructions gained via 4chan to maximize AdSense profits with random nonsense blogs and a bunch of people basically participating in a grand clicking scheme that was completely with AdSense's ToS while still feeling... slightly immoral. AdSense eventually got enough complaints from advertisers about these kind of actions that it went around and started disabling accounts, and I think mine was caught in the crossfire due to mere proximity.
It's part of a trend, and it needs to stop, or the internet simply won't have services any longer. Or, services will being to cost ACTUAL MONEY, which will limit the use of the internet to those who can afford it. Which is probably exactly what the big companies that have been pushing into the realms of cyberspace want. Box it up and resell it for profit. Regulate it heavily, so that only they can utilize it and profit from it.
I kinda feel that we should keep concepts of money off of the internet. Leads to far too many problems. In addition to destroying the concept of free information, and the ability for anybody to freely exist.
It used to work brilliantly. You could stick money in it to utilize, or tie it to your bank account to draw money from there. It tagged on a small percentage tax to cover its fees, and all was well.
Then somewhere along the line, they came up with the idea of "verifying" your PayPal. Associating it directly to YOU, your identity, your bank account, etc. "Verified" accounts were held in higher esteem than normal accounts, as via being tied to your identity, it was harder to achieve a number of scams that afflicted PayPal early on. Most people jumped through the hoops to get verified accounts, many places refused to utilize PayPal unless your account was verified, and time went on.
Lately, I've been noticing a trend of online sites and stores who formerly supported PayPal removing that support. Apparently, PayPal has been raising its taxes and fees on both buyers and sellers. I can't imagine that the system needs any more income to "run properly", when it has always worked just fine and in fact turned a sizable profit. Capitalism at work, I suppose.
Then Robyn, who has made ample use of PayPal for both her Dolly Market needs (buying and selling, as well as organizing and running group orders) and the magazine that she runs, received a message from PayPal. Her account is now being watched, and any money she receives will not be released for her to utilize for what amounts to a full month after she gets it. This is probably because, although her account was once verified, she no longer has a bank account and therefore the verification lapsed. Why that should make any difference when the money she needs and uses is sitting RIGHT THERE IN HER PAYPAL is beyond me. In addition, she recently had a bit of a fight with an Arkansas-based store; they ordered some copies of the magazine to sell, she shipped them, and they didn't arrive in a "timely" fashion. The store wanted a refund, which she couldn't give because the money from sales and ads goes straight to getting the magazine printed. As in, it was already spent for the purposes of getting them the magazines in the first place. She turns no profit.
In any case, after many discussions with the post office and waiting, they errant package was eventually discovered somewhere in Pennsylvania and sent on its merry way to the store in Arkansas. The store has not contacted her since, and it seems they very much feel that they were spurned by Robyn in some way, form, or fashion when it was the fault of the USPS all along (and they knew that from the get-go, as there was tracking on the package).
We figure they put in a PayPal claim, but PayPal couldn't do anything as Robyn didn't have any money in her account anyway, and the item was already shipped as specified in the first place. That claim could've flagged her account for review, leading to this noise.
In any case, people aren't going to wait around for a month AFTER the last order comes in for a group order before the order can even go out (in addition, sales tend to end...). Beyond that, people ordering the magazine and ordering ads in the magazine are not going to want to wait an additional month before the magazine can even go out to print (as I previously mentioned, the revenue from sales and ad sales goes directly into making the thing happen). So, it simply boils down to the fact that PayPal has now made it literally impossible for Robyn to utilize it for her means, which means that they will now lose her business, and lose their bit of revenue from her transactions.
How does this make any logical sense?
It seems to be part of a trend I've been noticing over the last few years on the internet. The ever-present fear of being scammed in some way, form, or fashion has managed to make services nearly completely useless. Another recent instance that I can bring to the table was that recently I attempted to create a side blog dedicated to the paranormal. I created it on Blogger, as I could associate an AdSense account to it and possibly earn some small bit of income from it. Except not, as within two weeks of it being up, my AdSense account was disabled for literally no reason. Google's basic response to my pleas of "wtf, mate?" was that they have the ability to disable any accounts at any point of time, without any notice, on a mere whim. Also, they sent out checks... monthly, if I recall correctly... and any money you had earned that hadn't yet been sent out gets returned to them. Total bullshit.
I think the reason that my account got disabled was because I was on the same network as Nick, who was following instructions gained via 4chan to maximize AdSense profits with random nonsense blogs and a bunch of people basically participating in a grand clicking scheme that was completely with AdSense's ToS while still feeling... slightly immoral. AdSense eventually got enough complaints from advertisers about these kind of actions that it went around and started disabling accounts, and I think mine was caught in the crossfire due to mere proximity.
It's part of a trend, and it needs to stop, or the internet simply won't have services any longer. Or, services will being to cost ACTUAL MONEY, which will limit the use of the internet to those who can afford it. Which is probably exactly what the big companies that have been pushing into the realms of cyberspace want. Box it up and resell it for profit. Regulate it heavily, so that only they can utilize it and profit from it.
I kinda feel that we should keep concepts of money off of the internet. Leads to far too many problems. In addition to destroying the concept of free information, and the ability for anybody to freely exist.