September 15, 2004

PayPal to start fining their customers

If you buy a Playboy with your paypal debit card - PayPal might steal $500 from you.

PayPal to Levy Fines for Gambling, Porn

By Lisa Baertlein

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - PayPal, the online payments arm of eBay Inc. on Friday said it will soon fine people up to $500 for uses related to gambling, adult content or services, and buying or selling prescription drugs from noncertified sellers.

The new policy, which takes effect Sept. 24 and applies to both buyers and sellers, marks the first time PayPal has imposed fines for violations of its use policy, spokeswoman Amanda Pires said.

In addition to fines that could be applied to each violation, PayPal may take legal action to recover losses in excess of the fines, Pires said in an interview.

Posted by marc at 03:56 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

PayPal refuses to close my PayPal Account

In my continuing battle with PayPal I have sent them several emails demanding that they close my account and terminate the user agreement I have with them. They refuse to do so.

They have placed my account in a "Limited Status" which does not close the account. It gives them the ability to share my information according to their user agreement and to take money out of my account should they choose to do so.

Since they admit that they don't want to do business with me then they should close the account - but they worn't do that. They want to keep me under their user agreement and they want to maintain access to my checking account even after it's clear they won't do business with me.

After several emails from them I called them on the phone at their service center in Nebraska and talked to Dave and I recorded the phone call (1mb 9 minutes) so that everyone out there who has access to the Internet can listen to PayPal and experience what doing business is like in their own words.

After the phone call at the above link I got a call back from another person named Michele at PayPal - and - I recorded that phone call as well (3mb 25 minutes). This person is some higher up. In this phone call she admits that PayPal can still access my checking account. She admits that PayPal will retain access to my checking account forever - and she admits that PayPal still have access to all checking accounts that they have ever opened whether they were closed, linited, or locked.


This alll started on June 13th 2004 when Paypal limited my account and told me they were seizing my money for 180 days and that there was no appeal and that there was nothing I could do about it. However - they underestimated me and I had my money out in less that 2 weeks. Since then I've decided it's my mission to expose what scumbags PayPal is and to warn consumers about using them. I also intend to bring whatever heat I can on them to stop their unethical business practices.

For those of you who have questions about if it's legal to record this phone call, I will point out several things that make it legal.

First - They are in Nebraska - I am in California - so federal jurisdiction applies. That makes it one party consent.

Second - on the first phone call - the automated voice states clearly "This phone call may be recorded".

Third - I was talking to PayPal - not to individual persons at paypal. All the conversation is in the context of business.

Fourth - on the second conversation - they were recording me without giving me any type of verbal warning or otherwise that the call was being recorded. When I asked THEM if they were recording the call - they admitted that it might be. So on the basis that they record calls that they initiate without warning people they call that the call may be recorded they are consenting through their conduct and waiving any rights to notification themselves.

Fifth - They already know I record phone calls with them because I have already done it in the past and they have notes about this sort of thing in their computers on me.

Sixth - even if it were illegal - it's wrong for them to commit fraud - it's right for me to expose it - and if it turned out I were legally wrong I would appeal to a jury to override the law and find me innocent anyhow. They call it jury nullification - I call it jury empowerment. Besides - such a charge would give this issue the attention it needs to stop paypal from ripping people off.

Posted by marc at 03:01 PM | Comments (45) | TrackBack

Bush Family invests in India

Carlyle group [One of the Bush Family Businesses] set to invest $125 mn in India

The Carlyle Group plans to invest $125 million in India over the next 3-5 years. The venerable private equity investor has floated a $300-million Asia-focused fund, of which around 40% will be invested in India-driven companies.

Carlyle has till date invested around $25 million in India in various ventures like Usha Communications, SSKI, which owns the portal Sharekhan, and Educom.
The $125 million investment will exclusively be in IT and IT-enabled services. Said a Carlyle official, "It's not that we are not interested in other sectors, but the mandate of our fund has a clear focus on technology."

The official also added that the fund would also be cautious about investing in the telecom sector, though it didn't rule out that option.

"Though fewer deals were signed this year, they were big in size," said one VC.
VCs also argued that while most venture capital investment was coming in areas like IT and IT-enabled services, the potential of sectors like retail and media entertainment for attracting VC funding was quite high too. Said Reliance Entertainment's Amit Khanna, "Around $200 million worth of private equity have already been invested in the media and entertainment sector, and $100 million of such funding is expected over the next couple of years." This year's hit movie Saathiya was produced by a VC-funded company called Kaleidoscope Entertainment.

Venture capitalists also felt that given the current economic scenario, it was deemed safer to invest in mature companies in expansion stage, rather than startups. While the rate of return on startups was often 10 times of investment, that of expansion stage companies were around 5 times of investment. However, mature companies obviously had a lower risk profile.

As far as Carlyle is concerned, the group had last year done the final closure of a $600 million venture capital fund, Carlyle Venture Partners II LP in the US. The fund was the largest venture capital fund raised in 2002, according to VentureWire, an industry tracker. Earlier in the US, Prism Venture Partners raised a fund of $421 million and Centennial Ventures of Denver closed a $341 million fund. Carlyle group first raised $210 million in 1997.

Posted by marc at 06:41 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack