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...
> >
> >