IP: A positive view on Whose Pal Is PayPal?

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> From: "Mark Palatucci" <toochie () coopcomp com>
> To: <farber () cis upenn edu>
> Subject: RE: more on  Whose Pal Is PayPal?
> Dave,
>
> I have now seen two posts on IP regarding the negative aspects of the PayPal
> service - I feel compeled to offer some positive comments.
>
> Paypal has been an incredibly useful service for me and my business. Pretty
> much everyone I know in the valley uses it and it makes person to person
> transactions extremely easy. For my business, PayPal offers direct payment
> from within a site, making micropayments extremely easy. It offers a
> significantly lower merchant charge than that of pretty much every credit
> card company. Personally, I'd prefer to have only one company (PayPal) with
> my credit info, rather than every site I'd like to purchase something from
> know.
>
> In response to the previous post, I expect that the 2.4 million accounts are
> not dormant, but rather actively used. PayPal verified my address through
> the mail and I received $5 for adding a credit card to my account.
> Regardless of the purpose and/or "guise" of adding credit info, this is more
> secure than just instantly mailing a check to someone who has received
> money. In addition, the policy will discourage people from just using it as
> a check mailing service - which is in their best business interest.
>
> PayPal is what it is - and it is something I have found to be extremely
> useful.
>
> Also, one of the people behind X.com is Elan Musk who went to Penn in the
> early 90s. Perhaps you had him as a student?
>
> -=|mark
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-ip-sub-1 () admin listbox com
> > [mailto:owner-ip-sub-1 () admin listbox com]On Behalf Of Dave Farber
> > Sent: Sunday, July 30, 2000 5:03 AM
> > To: ip-sub-1 () majordomo pobox com
> > Subject: IP: more on Whose Pal Is PayPal? [note comment re single letter
> > domaine at end]
> >
> >
> >
> > > Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 10:37:52 -0700
> > > To: farber () cis upenn edu
> > > From: Simon Higgs <simon () higgs com>
> > >
> > > At 07:00 AM 7/26/00 -0400, Dave Farber wrote:
> > >
> > > I've had a run-in with Pay Pal courtesy of Commission Junction, the
> > > affiliate advertising company. Commission Junction provides
> > advertisements
> > > which you can put on your web pages, which pay either commission
> > on sales
> > > or click-thru's (or both). Commission Junction were sending a
> > check to us
> > > every month. The checks didn't bounce and life was happy. Then, for some
> > > unexplainable reason, Commission Junction informed us that, instead of
> > > sending us a check, they had deposited the amount they were
> > going to send
> > > us into Pay Pal and that we needed to create an account on Pay Pal to
> > > receive the money.
> > >
> > > So, unhappy, but thinking this could maybe work (e-commerce <groan>), we
> > > logged into Pay Pal - only to discover that Pay Pal would not
> > release the
> > > money to us until we had given them a credit card number. So now Pay Pal
> > > owe us the money from Commission junction, and they want a credit card
> > > number before they will send us the money. No thanks. They Pay
> > Pal claimed
> > > that they were using the credit card information to validate the mailing
> > > address to send the check under the guise of a fraud prevention act.
> > > Highly dubious. I know of no-one else who wants a credit card
> > number just
> > > to mail me a check.
> > >
> > > In the end, since Commission Junction had violated their own terms and
> > > conditions by doing this, they still continue to mail us the check
> > > themselves every month.
> > >
> > > And since we were *FORCED* to create the Pay Pal account by Commission
> > > Junction, I expect most of the 2.4 million accounts to be long since
> > > abandoned. I have no use for it.
> > >
> > > Two other things to note:
> > >
> > > 1. A fake web site (www.paypai.com) was set up to steal Pay Pal
> > names and
> > > passwords:
> > > http://www.msnbc.com/news/435937.asp
> > >
> > > 2. www.paypal.com, redirects you to X.COM. A single letter domain name
> > > taken from the RESERVED single letter domain name pool at IANA. No one
> > > wants to explain, or be accountable for, how they got the domain
> > name. And
> > > no-one at ICANN wants to make the situation equitable to all by
> > releasing
> > > the other single letter domains. But that's a whole other can of worms...