loz wrote:

No, the banks can't trace anything at all. Only PayPal know how the
payments move about. This is the problem: banks are heavily regulated
and are serious organisations. PayPal is neither.

The bank knows it got a transfer from PayPal
The bank knows who's account it is transfered into

Yes, but your bank doesn't know what happens after your money gets to
PayPal and only PayPal knows where it goes then. In a direct transfer
your bank knows the full route taken by your money.


If the police want to trace some fraudelent activity via paypal I cant see the
problem
Unless paypal are deliberately uncooperative and destroy their records

They certainly are uncooperative.

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Nigel Barker wrote:

I heard that writing a cheque which bounches in America is against the law.
And that is how it should be.

In France if you write bad cheques you get blacklisted by the Banque de France &
cannot hold a bank account until your debts are cleared.

Never mind. You can always run for President.

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Ant wrote:

No, but it is PayPal's responsibility to ensure that payments can be
traced and can be refunded. This is what they don't do, and also
PayPal neatly makes vendors anonymous and address-less to the buyer,
the tax man, the VAT-man and the police.

Have you ever actually used PayPal?

I very nearly did once but was put off by the sign-up procedure and
the small print of the so-called "guarantee". In fact the vendor that
I was intending to pay with PayPal (a "PayPal only" auction) promptly
did a flit owing many people a lot of money. So I was lucky.

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loz wrote:

Money laundering regulations supposedly require that addresses and
identities are confirmed by bodies that transfer funds. For some
reason this doesn't seem to apply to PayPal to any great extent. I
don't know to what extent other laws prevent PayPal from releasing
information but the point is not why they are slow to do it but that
they are slow to do it. This bothers me.

PayPal UK is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority as an
Electronic Money Institution.
Quote from FSA
"E-money issuers must have sound and prudent systems and adequate internal
control mechanisms and must comply with the FSA's money laundering
requirements."

And yet they do not verify identities directly as banks do.

BCCI was an authorised and regulated UK deposit taker too and look
what happened to that.

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"Jomtien" wrote in message
...
Have you ever actually used PayPal?

I very nearly did once but was put off by the sign-up procedure and
the small print of the so-called "guarantee". In fact the vendor that
I was intending to pay with PayPal (a "PayPal only" auction) promptly
did a flit owing many people a lot of money. So I was lucky.

As you didn't pay this seller via PayPal, how exactly did you confirm that
he "did a flit owing many people a lot of money"?

Also as this is PayPal only auction, presumably the buyers would have been
covered by the Ebay Buyer's protection scheme even if they could did not
successfully initial a charge back via their credit cards?

On Sat, 14 Feb 2004 07:01:52 GMT, Jomtien wrote:

Nigel Barker wrote:

I heard that writing a cheque which bounches in America is against the law.
And that is how it should be.

In France if you write bad cheques you get blacklisted by the Banque de France &
cannot hold a bank account until your debts are cleared.

Never mind. You can always run for President.

I can't as I'm not a citizen. I'm not even allowed to vote except in local
elections.

--
Nigel Barker
Live from the sunny Cote d'Azur

On Sat, 14 Feb 2004 07:01:58 GMT, Jomtien wrote:

I very nearly did once but was put off by the sign-up procedure and
the small print of the so-called "guarantee". In fact the vendor that
I was intending to pay with PayPal (a "PayPal only" auction) promptly
did a flit owing many people a lot of money. So I was lucky.

A good reason to be very wary of auctions in general, certainly.

You might want to re-examine Paypal's terms and conditions, though -
they're now becoming registered in various territories (including the
UK) as proper 'money institutions' so there may be more guarantees
than in previous times.

On Sat, 14 Feb 2004 08:32:04 -0000, "Gordon Brown" . wrote:

Also as this is PayPal only auction, presumably the buyers would have been
covered by the Ebay Buyer's protection scheme

That is almost useless - the last time I looked it only refunded you a
max of £110 on any transaction. You shouldered the first £15 of the
loss yourself, as well as anything over £125 if the transaction was
higher than that.

Nigel Barker wrote:

In France if you write bad cheques you get blacklisted by the Banque de France &
cannot hold a bank account until your debts are cleared.

Never mind. You can always run for President.

I can't as I'm not a citizen. I'm not even allowed to vote except in local
elections.

I meant "you" as in "one".

About the only option open to French crooks is to go into politics
where they would seem to be amongst friends.

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Ant wrote:

Also as this is PayPal only auction, presumably the buyers would have been
covered by the Ebay Buyer's protection scheme

That is almost useless - the last time I looked it only refunded you a
max of £110 on any transaction. You shouldered the first £15 of the
loss yourself, as well as anything over £125 if the transaction was
higher than that.

Quite. It also takes forever and requires much argument and
form-filling. And even after all that Ebay have the final say as to
whether they pay out or not and there is no appeal.

--
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