Paypal Withholds Game Dev's Indiegogo Funding

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Anyone with a PayPal account knows that you are at the mercy of the company any time they decide to withhold your funds. Not a big deal when it is $20. A pretty big deal when it is over $800,000 in Indiegogo funds. :eek:

PayPal froze the account over concerns that those who didn't get the characters they wanted would ask for a "chargeback", leaving the online payment system on the hook for up to $700,000. "Whee! Paypal's freeze on our account is making it so that I can't pay people today," Lab Zero CEO Peter Bartholow wrote.
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sounds like someone needs to indiegogo/kickstarter an alternative to PayPal.
 
I never understood the Paypal hate train. While not perfect, I've been on both side of the dispute system and Paypal was fair. Too many scammers out there and thank goodness there is a way to get your money back.
 
fdiaz78 said:
I never understood the Paypal hate train. While not perfect, I've been on both side of the dispute system and Paypal was fair. Too many scammers out there and thank goodness there is a way to get your money back.
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Wait until they whithhold thousands of dollars from you for 180 days before they give it back, you'll think differently. :(

There is absolutely no recourse for the end user to do anything except wait the 180 days unless you are willing to spend $5k on an attorney to recover your money. Most of the time the funds in dispute are less than what you would spend on an attorney so you are stuck waiting the six months to get your money back.

If you really don't understand the PayPal "hate train," just Google "PayPal frozen account" there are only a few million stories out there ;)
 
celeron300 said:
Bitcoins are safer to trade and will never be held up by Paypal or any govt entitiy :D
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And Bitcoins have the added bonus of sometimes disappearing due to hackers/thieves untraceably, with no chance of ever getting you money back.
 
celeron300 said:
Bitcoins are safer to trade and will never be held up by Paypal or any govt entitiy :D
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NEVER? Just wait until the US govt. calls Bitcoins money laundering and pulls in the RICO law and threatens to throw you in pound-you-in-the-ass jail for using them. The only people that can run a fake currency are governments. Us lowly proletariat shouldn't go playing with fiat currencies in case we actually discover a better way of doing things...
 
The lesson to this is do not use Paypal to run your business, sign up with Visa/Mastercard, or perhaps other alternatives that are similiar to the Square.

I can see them wanting to protect the end users. But there's got to be a balance so that a small business could get some cash flow, while still providing some protection for the customers. But witholding almost the ENTIRE amount raised, and not being able to pay the programmers, means that Paypals actions could potentially CAUSE the project to fail, leading to the scenario they are worried about.

End users making donations to something crowd-sourced, probably know there's some rick to begin with. It's not like we are talking about someone's life savings being at risk. They pledged $20 or whatever to get this going.

Witholding 85% of the funds is ridiculous.
 
fdiaz78 said:
I never understood the Paypal hate train. While not perfect, I've been on both side of the dispute system and Paypal was fair. Too many scammers out there and thank goodness there is a way to get your money back.
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Yeah, paypal was the greatest thing ever till they sided with a buyer(scammer) when I was selling on ebay so I got screwed out of money and the product, then locking my account, demanding I pay more money, etc.

Paypal is absolutely terrible if you're anyone but the person who made the payment.
 
fdiaz78 said:
I never understood the Paypal hate train. While not perfect, I've been on both side of the dispute system and Paypal was fair. Too many scammers out there and thank goodness there is a way to get your money back.
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That's fine until Paypal believes the scammer, then you really have no recourse.

I sometimes sell stuff on eBay, which almost requires that you accept Paypal. I always assume there is a slight chance I'll be screwed out of the money by either eBay or Paypal, so I'd really hate to depend on either one to earn a living.
 
celeron300 said:
Bitcoins are safer to trade and will never be held up by Paypal or any govt entitiy :D
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Ha ha ha... Btc is full of scammers... If Btc was ever used in the scope of PayPal...
he same thing would probably happen. Not defending pp just noting Btc has the same problems just as a buyer rather then seller.
 
jmilcher said:
So why was it withheld?
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The game in question was being funded for new characters to be added to the roster (its a fighting game).

3 were picked by the development team. 2 would be voted on by the donators.

A small number of the donators are pissed because a character they are rooting for aren't popular enough to win through the voting process.

So in retaliation they are attempting to file chargebacks and claiming they aren't getting what they originally donated for. Credit card/bank reps aren't going to scour the internet to find out that their customers knew fully well what they were getting into so they will punt the issue to paypal. Paypal's concerns are understandable but the way they are handling this hasn't been respectable and stern, but assholish.
 
fdiaz78 said:
I never understood the Paypal hate train. While not perfect, I've been on both side of the dispute system and Paypal was fair. Too many scammers out there and thank goodness there is a way to get your money back.
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Paypal does whatever the fuck paypal wants. It operates like a bank yet does not have to follow laws or regulations banks do. There's literally nobody watching paypal and what they do. You get screwed by paypal there's literally no recourse. You can do a chargeback but they will take your ass to collections and you cant do shit about it.

I have seen quite a few people say the same and they almost all ended up burned by amazon at one time or another eventually.
 
Bah amazon = paypal in the last sentence. Multitasking when sick = fail.
 
I'd rather have the mafia manage my money than PayPal. I only use PayPal when someone needs to pay me and I can withdraw the funds immediately. I haven't been screwed yet, but I've had employers get screwed.
 
man I can't help but feel bad for those guys. Skullgirls has been an ordeal from the get-go, from the much delayed pc release, to poor timing to market, to losing publisher even after establishing itself and doing well for a niche product. These guys can't catch a break...

what is especially frustrating is that the game is excellent, probably one of the best 2d fighters to come out in a long time, especially a new IP
 
Or, and here's an idea, Paypal could tell them no, you bought into something with well documented outlines and deny them the chargeback.

...
lol
 
Disposed said:
Paypal does whatever the fuck paypal wants. It operates like a bank yet does not have to follow laws or regulations banks do. There's literally nobody watching paypal and what they do. You get screwed by paypal there's literally no recourse. You can do a chargeback but they will take your ass to collections and you cant do shit about it.

I have seen quite a few people say the same and they almost all ended up burned by amazon at one time or another eventually.
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Regulations worked so well for the big banks that when their house of cards came tumbling down, they got to steal people's money to bail themselves out and the banksters got to give themselves golden parachutes.

The problem isn't regulations. The problem is that no one is held responsible for their actions because of state-imposed limited liability and a state monopoly on dispute resolution which ensures that only the rich can afford "justice".
 
celeron300 said:
Bitcoins are safer to trade and will never be held up by Paypal or any govt entitiy :D
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Bitcoin is the IDEAL model for a currency. The government can fully track 100% of all sales and accumulations of wealth. It's hard to not pay "your fair share" when the government knows exactly how much money you made...as how much money you have total.

It is very likely that real currency, like cash, will infact be outlawed and the users will be labeled as terrorists and deviants. Isn't that the ONLY reason you wouldn't want the government to know what your buying?
 
I bailed off of the paypal train as soon as a credit card was not good enough for them. They demanded access to a bank account. Sure, i could have set up ANOTHER account just for paypal, but you know what? Fuck them and their stupid baseless demands.

At this point i don't feel sad for anybody burned by paypal, it is no secret that they don't fucking care and will screw over whomever they want, whenever they want, and however they want.

In short i have 3 words to describe paypal: Shady as fuck. :mad:
 
mutantmagnet said:
The game in question was being funded for new characters to be added to the roster (its a fighting game).

3 were picked by the development team. 2 would be voted on by the donators.

A small number of the donators are pissed because a character they are rooting for aren't popular enough to win through the voting process.

So in retaliation they are attempting to file chargebacks and claiming they aren't getting what they originally donated for. Credit card/bank reps aren't going to scour the internet to find out that their customers knew fully well what they were getting into so they will punt the issue to paypal. Paypal's concerns are understandable but the way they are handling this hasn't been respectable and stern, but assholish.
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Wow, the retardation.
 
wonderfield said:
There are alternatives to PayPal. Kickstarter uses Amazon Payments.
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In terms of reaching out to as many fans as possible around the world, Paypal is still much easier than Amazon Payment. There is a reason why many Kickstarter projects still have a Paypal option, and we often see fans asking for it too because not everyone can use Amazon Payment.

Paypal works worldwide, and they deal with different payment methods locally, even allowing user to make payment without credit or debit cards.

These days video games dev are reaching out worldwide, not just a few countries in NA and EU. Therefore as horrible as Paypal may be, they are still the more viable choice at the moment.
 
Steve said:
Wait until they whithhold thousands of dollars from you for 180 days before they give it back, you'll think differently. :(

There is absolutely no recourse for the end user to do anything except wait the 180 days unless you are willing to spend $5k on an attorney to recover your money. Most of the time the funds in dispute are less than what you would spend on an attorney so you are stuck waiting the six months to get your money back.

If you really don't understand the PayPal "hate train," just Google "PayPal frozen account" there are only a few million stories out there ;)
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Thank you Steve. Paypal is a ticking time bomb -- people that havent had a problem are ignorant to what awaits when they do -- its a labyrinth to try to resolve a problem. I had one of those 6 months freezes a few years back thanks to some convoluted false-positive and took forever to clear up. It was a nightmare and totally screwed up my ebay sales and cashflow.

Ever since then I keep the PP account empty, withdraw the funds to a secondary bank account thats linked to one of my primary accounts, and keep the secondary account empty so if some fraudster on ebay tries to play games with a chargeback or b.s. dispute and my PP balance turns negative, they wont be able to siphon the money from my linked account without permission (which they will do in many circumstances).

I always recommend to people to open a secondary account with your bank (usually free) to keep a firewall between PP and your actual accounts.
 
I never understood why businesses would use someone like PayPal for all of their income, a real merchant account is NOT hard to get, you factor fraud and chargebacks in to your margins and shit like this would never happen. On that note, fuck PayPal, I avoid doing business with them at all costs.
 
Oh and fuck eBay for no longer allowing sellers to use their own checkout flow, raising listing fees beyond the moon, haven't sold on or used them for anything in years. I refuse to do business with them. I've been selling things on gunbroker lately and its such a breath of fresh air. Everything eBay could be and more.
 
Steve said:
Wait until they whithhold thousands of dollars from you for 180 days before they give it back, you'll think differently. :(
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So don't put thousands of dollars in a paypal account. Paypal protects its users. Like any good bank would.
 
Dion said:
So don't put thousands of dollars in a paypal account. Paypal protects its users. Like any good bank would.
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Like hell they do. Paypal protects PayPal and they are not a bank.
 
Paypal is good when you're dealing with shittier services/companys (Live, useless sellers), but not good for you to be using to sell anything.
 
Paypal can be the worst of the worst, the problem is they feel they are above all laws and can do whatever they want for no reason. They can flat out lie and slander you for no good reason just because they feel like it & couldn't care less about it.

What would teach them a good lesson is to finally get under the thumb of proper government bank regulators to show them what it's like to deal with obtuse people.

My advice is simply DON'T make paypal a part of your business that you depend on & DON'T leave money in your paypal account or in a bank account that paypal has access to.
 
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