News - PayPal cuts off Usenet providers, freezing their accounts

[HEXUS]

Many large Usenet providers can no longer accept PayPal payments.

Read more.

[KrisWragg]

The whole ebay/paypal counterfeit thing is mental, my mum bought something that said it was shipped from UK and legit. It was actually fake and shipped from China.

Paypal would only refund if she sent it tracked back to the sender, in China, which was about £50 so almost the price of the item she bought, although somehow they shipped it from China to UK non tracked for about £5.

Paypal are really starting to suck, as too are Ebay!

[ScoTTisH-GingeR]

So they have been happy taking a cut from the profits of these bad evil Usenet providers for years but now its in the public eye that they are up in arms about it roll on bit coins then cause thats what most websites deemed as bad seem to use now.

[Harkin]

On a related note, I’ve known friends and family who accidentally bought pirated/counterfeit goods on eBay, they then have to go through a long dispute process just to get money back, minus return postage fees. I don’t know of any further outcome from these problems other than the buyer eventually getting money back. It seems like neither the counterfeit seller nor eBay get punished.

Just proves what a joke the whole piracy thing is. You catch a supplier of pirated goods red handed on a major site and it's you that has to suffer, what happens to the pirate?? Oh he's probably chilling in a mansion somewhere laughing his bum off.

[1stRaven]

Seems like this is just more pressure from various organisations in order to try and shut down the service.

[Unique]

this is weird, as most companies are there to make a profit, and that type of piracy has little to no impact on their main or subsiduary businesses, they aren't forced to do this by law, so why restrict profits by doing this?

then when you consider the number 1 place in the entire world to buy somethink fake or pirate is ebay it makes even less sense. then when you hear of the lack of action ebay take to address fake and pirate stuff being sold it makes even less sense

i know people who have issues with a few ebay pirates and one known one in particular, but ebay haven't stopped them from selling pirate stuff repeatedly and consistently even though their sales are reported. so perhaps they should start by fixing their own piracy policies before getting involved with anyone elses

btw, i thought sending fake goods was illegal, thus if you were sent fakes you got a refund and was told to destroy the fake as it wouldn't be lawful to send it back. i thought that was ebays policy

[the54thvoid]

...ebay haven't stopped them from selling pirate stuff repeatedly and consistently even though their sales are reported. so perhaps they should start by fixing their own piracy policies before getting involved with anyone elses

btw, i thought sending fake goods was illegal, thus if you were sent fakes you got a refund and was told to destroy the fake as it wouldn't be lawful to send it back. i thought that was ebays policy

Ebay doesn't care about piracy at all. Not one sausage. Not even a cocktail weenie. It only cares about money and 'appearing' legit. It's just one monstrous consumerism trap with idi0ts buying merchandise far over actual retail cost because they think ebay is an auction house. Ebay is a reseller hub that generally uses auctions to hike prices above retail.

I stopped using it a while ago and use forums to buy/trade or sell. Most forums have far higher ethics than ebay about piracy.

General ebay rule - don't buy from Asia and if it seems like it's too good to be true - it 99% is.

And let's all remember ebay bought Paypal years back to make an absolute killing. You sell anything now and it's generally a straight 13.4% fee.

Bah - let it rot.

[bridges009]

Paypal have been unscrupulous from the start and I've never heard of a business that became more honest with success.

[shaithis]

So paypal are hoping to kill usenet? One of the very first parts of the internet that has been in use since 1980!

[Unique]

Ebay doesn't care about piracy at all. Not one sausage. Not even a cocktail weenie. It only cares about money and 'appearing' legit. It's just one monstrous consumerism trap with idi0ts buying merchandise far over actual retail cost because they think ebay is an auction house. Ebay is a reseller hub that generally uses auctions to hike prices above retail.

I stopped using it a while ago and use forums to buy/trade or sell. Most forums have far higher ethics than ebay about piracy.

General ebay rule - don't buy from Asia and if it seems like it's too good to be true - it 99% is.

And let's all remember ebay bought Paypal years back to make an absolute killing. You sell anything now and it's generally a straight 13.4% fee.

Bah - let it rot.

i'm not trying to disagree with you but if ebay own paypal and they don't care about piracy then why this? they don't need to do this to appear legit

[aidanjt]

So paypal are hoping to kill usenet? One of the very first parts of the internet that has been in use since 1980!

Usenet wont care, they'll work around it, probably use bitcoins or something. It'd be far better for customer and provider alike if they do anyway, both in depriving paypal of transaction revenue and their own security.

[mercyground]

paypal need regulating like a real bank. there is far too much "haha we have your money **** you" on their side. I never keep money in my paypal anymore after being stung by them. There system is designed around basically punishing you for trusting anyone. Ebay are a joke too if there is issues. Good luck getting money back if its fraudulant/fake.

[3dcandy]

I always go and pick up items now from ebay, and pay cash as I can see what it's like etc.
My lovely ex-wife, may she rot in hell sold a load of my gear on ebay and they weren't interested and neither were the police as it's a civil matter. Anyway, I digress, Paypal has been a nasty company for as long as I can remember

[OilSheikh]

Nice increase in revenue for Paypal then from these seized assets ?

[hesham1516]

Security firms want paypal to be a 'copyright cop' but 'dirty cop' seems to describe them more accurately. Freezing accounts for business that has legitemate business practices because a minority are abusing the service is unacceptable, and they are gladly making interest over the frozen funds.

They are using the pretense of acting against piracy to glaze over how corrupt their own business really is, when you consider all of the stolen or fake items on ebay and all of the scams paypal is used for, but I guess earning that kind of reputation is the ideal thing to cover them up.

I don't use usenet or services like it, so I do not know the details, but I just don't see someone who goes through the hastle of pirating software rather then waiting for it to go on sale if they can't afford it to pay for it; to pay monthly for a service like Usenet unless they require it for something else.

[mikerr]

So paypal are hoping to kill usenet? One of the very first parts of the internet that has been in use since 1980!

Usenet may have been the original discussion forum long before forums as we know them existed,
but it has long since degenerated into a source of piracy.

And far from "hosting links" in the way torrent sites do, usenet providers do actually store the pirated content on their servers.