deleted

[chuckdee]

Of course, it's not going to help in this particular situation, but Venmo is a good alternative for future transactions.

I can only speak from experience...Venmo assumes that you are NOT a business and you are transferring money with someone you know and trust. So, for example, if you give your "friend" $2500 to pay him back for whatever Venmo works out well (in my experience.) If you want buyer/seller protection then you need to use PayPal which is designed more for business transactions.

Paypal isn't necessarily designed for business transactions, and doesn't assume that you're a business.  It has business and personal, just like Venmo.  And I wasn't talking about this instance, but about terms of service.  If you don't like one company, you don't use another that's a subsidiary, in general.  As far as experience, I've not had any bad experiences with Paypal.  But it just seemed... strange... to suggest a Paypal service as a replacement for someone that is currently having problems with paypal.

And if you're using venmo to transfer large amounts, you might want to read that time article.  Paypal clearly differentiates between echecks and instant transfers.  Venmo doesn't, which can be a problem.

[berserkfan]

Time had a pretty good article also on how Venmo transactions are not instantaneous like they seem, and can result in you being scammed.

http://time.com/money/4036511/venmo-more-check-than-cash/

Venmo seems to me to be lipstick on a pig.  And if you're willing to use Venmo, then you might as well be using paypal.

Yes, I read that article last year! I'd noticed Missalaire was accepting Venmo and I wondered what the hell that was.

sending people fake notifications that they had been paid, is itself a scam.

my bank doesn't do that. Bank statements from my bank are real and transfers to my bank cannot be reversed without a court order. Paypal is not subject to the jurisdictions of the courts in the course of ordinary commercial disputes.

[berserkfan]

Of course, it's not going to help in this particular situation, but Venmo is a good alternative for future transactions.

I can only speak from experience...Venmo assumes that you are NOT a business and you are transferring money with someone you know and trust. So, for example, if you give your "friend" $2500 to pay him back for whatever Venmo works out well (in my experience.) If you want buyer/seller protection then you need to use PayPal which is designed more for business transactions.

BTW, doesn't this mean that apart from the cancelling of transactions via buyer fraud, VENMO is a great way to cheat people via seller fraud? How is that any better for the buyer than moneygram?

[GL1TCH3D]

Isn't paypal going through a lawsuit over these random limiting of accounts? I know some people who had their accounts limited for over a year with 10k but this was back when they were doing this more often.


Doing forget paypal can make interest off the cash balances left in paypal which is probably a big reason for them limiting higher balances.


Is your paypal verified / set as personal and not business?

[cryptokey]

I really think you should look into bitcoin.  It's by no means "sleazy" as there is complete transparency to every transaction on the public blockchain. You could go with a major online wallet such a coinbase, or just use bitcoin core on your own computer and hold your own wallet locally.  Try reading up on it or check out /r/bitcoin.  They are happy to help if you have any questions. 

[ideus]

I really think you should look into bitcoin.  It's by no means "sleazy" as there is complete transparency to every transaction on the public blockchain. You could go with a major online wallet such a coinbase, or just use bitcoin core on your own computer and hold your own wallet locally.  Try reading up on it or check out /r/bitcoin.  They are happy to help if you have any questions.

Interesting suggestion, what are the main advantages and differences of bitcoin and pp?

[cryptokey]

I really think you should look into bitcoin.  It's by no means "sleazy" as there is complete transparency to every transaction on the public blockchain. You could go with a major online wallet such a coinbase, or just use bitcoin core on your own computer and hold your own wallet locally.  Try reading up on it or check out /r/bitcoin.  They are happy to help if you have any questions.

Interesting suggestion, what are the main advantages and differences of bitcoin and pp?

I'm by no means an expert, so your best bet would be asking those on reddit or irc.  From my own use of it with small purchases where I can online, I see the benefits from it being cryptographically secure, open source, decentralized (impossible for someone to freeze your funds), and no transaction fees / fast transactions since there's no middle man as their is with a banking system.  To receive a payment, I just give the other person my public receiving address and if I want to send, I just send from my address to the other person's receiving address.  Imo the main advantage that paypal has is that you can deal in your currency where with bitcoin if you wanted USD for example, then you would have to convert it.  However, you would save on the transaction fees.  It looks like there's a few videos on the bitcoin subreddit that may help people to understand it.  I'll check them out now to see if they're worth it.  https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4b8ne0/rbitcoin_faq_newcomers_please_read/  Ugh I feel preachy 

[chuckdee]

I love bitcoin, and the idea of it.  However, I'd personally not enter a GB unless I really knew the person or had good experiences if the only way to pay was bitcoin.  The advantages of it are also the disadvantages of entering an agreement with someone that you don't know.

[iLLucionist]

Still it is weird that PayPal does this. How are you supposed to find out that you have to inform them beforehand before doing large values / gb?

Its an anti-scam measure. If someone who rarely collects money, suddenly receives several large payments, it makes sense to me why they would lock it. After your account has history of larger transcations, there are fewer issues (think vendors who have run several large buys)

Ah ok... so it might even be an algorithm that automatically locks your account down.

Still if you call them when it happens you should be able to get back going again quickly. At least that's how it works with my credit card.

[LiquidEvilGaming]

Venmo...no problems with larger amounts.

Venmo is a mobile payment service that is now a part of PayPal. It allows users to transfer money between one another using a mobile phone app or web interface. In the third quarter of 2014, Venmo processed $700 million of payments between people.[1] Venmo strictly prohibits the use of their service to purchase merchandise.[2]


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venmo

Not sure how much more i would trust Venmo now that they are part of PP,

[iLLucionist]

I love bitcoin, and the idea of it.  However, I'd personally not enter a GB unless I really knew the person or had good experiences if the only way to pay was bitcoin.  The advantages of it are also the disadvantages of entering an agreement with someone that you don't know.

I don't trust bitcoin.

[chuckdee]

I love bitcoin, and the idea of it.  However, I'd personally not enter a GB unless I really knew the person or had good experiences if the only way to pay was bitcoin.  The advantages of it are also the disadvantages of entering an agreement with someone that you don't know.

I don't trust bitcoin.

Why?

[iLLucionist]

I love bitcoin, and the idea of it.  However, I'd personally not enter a GB unless I really knew the person or had good experiences if the only way to pay was bitcoin.  The advantages of it are also the disadvantages of entering an agreement with someone that you don't know.

I don't trust bitcoin.

Why?

With the recent scandals and not knowing EXACTLY how it works (or me being too stupid to grasp the concept), I have no idea how "bitcoin" equals "money". I would be afraid that somehow my bitcoins are stolen or hacked or whatever.

[LiquidEvilGaming]

I love bitcoin, and the idea of it.  However, I'd personally not enter a GB unless I really knew the person or had good experiences if the only way to pay was bitcoin.  The advantages of it are also the disadvantages of entering an agreement with someone that you don't know.

I don't trust bitcoin.

Why?

With the recent scandals and not knowing EXACTLY how it works (or me being too stupid to grasp the concept), I have no idea how "bitcoin" equals "money". I would be afraid that somehow my bitcoins are stolen or hacked or whatever.

Myself being quite ignorant to the entire system itself is also why i have yet to get into Bitcoin (And i have serious doubts about it's staying power in the market, plus with the varying fluctuation more so than a traditional currency it's almost like accepting high risk stocks as payment unless you unload it almost immediately)  Now i could be mistaken as i mentioned to begin with i am quite ignorant as to the intricate details of how the entire system works, but i do recall reading several articles on the fluctuating value of the bitcoin.

[chuckdee]

I love bitcoin, and the idea of it.  However, I'd personally not enter a GB unless I really knew the person or had good experiences if the only way to pay was bitcoin.  The advantages of it are also the disadvantages of entering an agreement with someone that you don't know.

I don't trust bitcoin.

Why?

With the recent scandals and not knowing EXACTLY how it works (or me being too stupid to grasp the concept), I have no idea how "bitcoin" equals "money". I would be afraid that somehow my bitcoins are stolen or hacked or whatever.

First, you're looking at it wrong.  Bitcoin is a currency.  Like euros, dollars, etc.  And just like those, it's only worth something in a different currency form when exchanged for it.  You can exchange 1 BTC for a little over $400 currently.  But just like if you had Euros and you were trying to use it where they only use Dollars, you have to go through an exchange first.

Secondly, when it's been stolen/hacked, it's not bitcoin.  It's either individuals, or an exchange.

Here's a good example of how secure it is even with a 6 character password.


Someone has issued a challenge worth 1 BTC: Simply crack/bruteforce his 6-character wallet password to claim the bitcoin within.

Details here: No one cracked 0.5BTC PaperWallet with easy password in a year.

One year ago i tried a little experiment with BIP38 paper wallets. [...]

I am quite surprised that "6 character" wallet is still loaded with bitcoin. Looks like encrypted paper wallets give you quite high level of security even with very modest passwords. Lets not forget that hacker has to first get his hands on physical BIP38 wallet before he can even start cracking...

I decided to keep this experiment going for another year. I've also added extra 0.5BTC - so happy cracking!


Details:

pub: 1J5cjne6YVkgRTMTjqnaJVk1CWEEr3CcdX
b38: 6PfRB98F9vZLhSpqY5URas5vYUU3qYQrpkJFTLuCg1FvDni6LwT3qAirkp
pwd: 6 characters (only upper and lower case US alphabet letters)

Here is a small hint for you: If you divide the number of UPPERCASE letters by the number of lowercase letters you get an integer.

According to my calculations, this means the password has either 3, 4, or 5 uppercase letters (I'm ruling out the possibility of 0 uppercase letters since it says it has upper AND lower case letters). I'm a bit rusty in the discrete mathematics department, but I think that means there are (52*52*52*52*52*52) - (52*52*52*52) possible combinations. Which totals 19,763,298,048 combinations.

I'm running a brute-force script in a linux VM which takes ~7 seconds to try 25 passwords. Unless I really messed up my math somewhere, it will take over 175 years for me to try them all at this rate.


In summary, there are good reasons not to use it.  That's just not one. I personally don't use it when I'm unsure of the transaction.  There are escrow services- but you have to be sure of those also.  And I haven't seen where you can escrow long-term services like a GB.

But the big takeaway is to have backups of your wallet in secure locations, and not to leave money in an exchange. 

[Belfong]

I really think you should look into bitcoin.  It's by no means "sleazy" as there is complete transparency to every transaction on the public blockchain. You could go with a major online wallet such a coinbase, or just use bitcoin core on your own computer and hold your own wallet locally.  Try reading up on it or check out /r/bitcoin.  They are happy to help if you have any questions.

And Coinbase can turn Singapore dollar to Bitcoin and vice versa.

[iLLucionist]

I love bitcoin, and the idea of it.  However, I'd personally not enter a GB unless I really knew the person or had good experiences if the only way to pay was bitcoin.  The advantages of it are also the disadvantages of entering an agreement with someone that you don't know.

I don't trust bitcoin.

Why?

With the recent scandals and not knowing EXACTLY how it works (or me being too stupid to grasp the concept), I have no idea how "bitcoin" equals "money". I would be afraid that somehow my bitcoins are stolen or hacked or whatever.

First, you're looking at it wrong.  Bitcoin is a currency.  Like euros, dollars, etc.  And just like those, it's only worth something in a different currency form when exchanged for it.  You can exchange 1 BTC for a little over $400 currently.  But just like if you had Euros and you were trying to use it where they only use Dollars, you have to go through an exchange first.

Secondly, when it's been stolen/hacked, it's not bitcoin.  It's either individuals, or an exchange.

Here's a good example of how secure it is even with a 6 character password.


Someone has issued a challenge worth 1 BTC: Simply crack/bruteforce his 6-character wallet password to claim the bitcoin within.

Details here: No one cracked 0.5BTC PaperWallet with easy password in a year.

One year ago i tried a little experiment with BIP38 paper wallets. [...]

I am quite surprised that "6 character" wallet is still loaded with bitcoin. Looks like encrypted paper wallets give you quite high level of security even with very modest passwords. Lets not forget that hacker has to first get his hands on physical BIP38 wallet before he can even start cracking...

I decided to keep this experiment going for another year. I've also added extra 0.5BTC - so happy cracking!


Details:

pub: 1J5cjne6YVkgRTMTjqnaJVk1CWEEr3CcdX
b38: 6PfRB98F9vZLhSpqY5URas5vYUU3qYQrpkJFTLuCg1FvDni6LwT3qAirkp
pwd: 6 characters (only upper and lower case US alphabet letters)

Here is a small hint for you: If you divide the number of UPPERCASE letters by the number of lowercase letters you get an integer.

According to my calculations, this means the password has either 3, 4, or 5 uppercase letters (I'm ruling out the possibility of 0 uppercase letters since it says it has upper AND lower case letters). I'm a bit rusty in the discrete mathematics department, but I think that means there are (52*52*52*52*52*52) - (52*52*52*52) possible combinations. Which totals 19,763,298,048 combinations.

I'm running a brute-force script in a linux VM which takes ~7 seconds to try 25 passwords. Unless I really messed up my math somewhere, it will take over 175 years for me to try them all at this rate.


In summary, there are good reasons not to use it.  That's just not one. I personally don't use it when I'm unsure of the transaction.  There are escrow services- but you have to be sure of those also.  And I haven't seen where you can escrow long-term services like a GB.

But the big takeaway is to have backups of your wallet in secure locations, and not to leave money in an exchange.

Thanks for the explanation and example!

[GL1TCH3D]

Bitcoin in theory should not have any value because it's not backed nor does it have "physical inherent value."
This means that unlike a gold coin which if the government stops backing it, it would still be worth its weight in gold, bitcoin would be worth nothing. (To be fair, nobody issues rare metal coins any more).

However, the government backs its money and guarantees that it would be accepted within the country.

Nothing like that exists for bitcoin, nobody has to accept it.

At the beginning most of the people accepting it were people who wanted untraceable money and this is still something being done regularly. A way to hide money in an online wallet and transfer it without anybody being able to trace it. And this is still one of the main uses for it.

On the other hand, bitcoin holds a useful framework for transferring money in that you don't need to go through intermediaries such as bank transfers, money transfers, etc. However, no matter which way you go there are still fees anyway.



There's the price of bitcoin with respect to the USD over the last year.

And if you look at it like that it looks very much so like a stock.


Another issue with BTC is that it heavily favors the early adopters of bitcoin, similarly to stocks. Because instead of releasing more BTC in the market, diluting it and bringing it back to a rough baseline value, BTC works on being highly divisible. Meaning that instead of 1BTC being worth $20 like in the past, it is now worth $400. Meaning that .05 BTC is now $20.

But what of those that bought bitcoin when it was $20? Well they now have $400 worth of Bitcoin. Does this remind you of something? Like maybe buying google stock for $200 and now it's worth almost $800?

Another issue is that bitcoin is not the only crypto currency and without easy and fast exchange between them we'll just face an issue where we have dozens of crypto wallets. To be fair, the others are not as popular as bitcoin.

[chuckdee]

Bitcoin in theory should not have any value because it's not backed nor does it have "physical inherent value."
This means that unlike a gold coin which if the government stops backing it, it would still be worth its weight in gold, bitcoin would be worth nothing. (To be fair, nobody issues rare metal coins any more).

However, the government backs its money and guarantees that it would be accepted within the country.

Look up Fiat Currency, i.e. inconvertible paper money made legal tender by a government decree.  The government says its worth something now.  Think it can't happen?  Why can you buy confederate currency for cents on the dollar?  What about Continentals issued during the revolutionary war?  Or Colonials issued before that?   Fiat Money has a history of failure, so that old chestnut is less assured than arguments based on it against bitcoin make it seem.

And the US moved away from the Gold Standard quite a while ago (FDR - 1933).  Well, officially it was backed until 1971, but that was hand waving, i.e. it just made it illegal for U.S. citizens to hold gold or exchange dollars for gold.

[GL1TCH3D]

Bitcoin in theory should not have any value because it's not backed nor does it have "physical inherent value."
This means that unlike a gold coin which if the government stops backing it, it would still be worth its weight in gold, bitcoin would be worth nothing. (To be fair, nobody issues rare metal coins any more).

However, the government backs its money and guarantees that it would be accepted within the country.

Look up Fiat Currency, i.e. inconvertible paper money made legal tender by a government decree.  The government says its worth something now.  Think it can't happen?  Why can you buy confederate currency for cents on the dollar?  What about Continentals issued during the revolutionary war?  Or Colonials issued before that?   Fiat Money has a history of failure, so that old chestnut is less assured than arguments based on it against bitcoin make it seem.

And the US moved away from the Gold Standard quite a while ago (FDR - 1933).  Well, officially it was backed until 1971, but that was hand waving, i.e. it just made it illegal for U.S. citizens to hold gold or exchange dollars for gold.

Just because it's accepted it doesn't mean it will be worth something.

But at least it's accepted. You would have been better off mentioning that hyper inflation.

And generally the currencies are worth something based of the country's standing in the international economy (trade balance) while bitcoin does not have any ties to the production of goods (unless you want to argue that bitcoin is tied to the production and circulation of illegal goods which isn't exactly making a case for governments wanting to adopt it as an official currency).

[jonathanyu]

seeing that paypal ask you for 6 documents, I think the chance of get you account unlock and get back your money would be really small.
One of my paypal account was limited since last year, I have provided all the documents they asked, but they still limit my account. If I e-mail them, they just send my bunch of bull**** about negative balance or how to verify my account while my account was verified few years ago and have nearly $100 in it. If I call them, they just keep forward my case to another person and never actually answer my question at all.

[chuckdee]

Bitcoin in theory should not have any value because it's not backed nor does it have "physical inherent value."
This means that unlike a gold coin which if the government stops backing it, it would still be worth its weight in gold, bitcoin would be worth nothing. (To be fair, nobody issues rare metal coins any more).

However, the government backs its money and guarantees that it would be accepted within the country.

Look up Fiat Currency, i.e. inconvertible paper money made legal tender by a government decree.  The government says its worth something now.  Think it can't happen?  Why can you buy confederate currency for cents on the dollar?  What about Continentals issued during the revolutionary war?  Or Colonials issued before that?   Fiat Money has a history of failure, so that old chestnut is less assured than arguments based on it against bitcoin make it seem.

And the US moved away from the Gold Standard quite a while ago (FDR - 1933).  Well, officially it was backed until 1971, but that was hand waving, i.e. it just made it illegal for U.S. citizens to hold gold or exchange dollars for gold.

Just because it's accepted it doesn't mean it will be worth something.

But at least it's accepted. You would have been better off mentioning that hyper inflation.

And generally the currencies are worth something based of the country's standing in the international economy (trade balance) while bitcoin does not have any ties to the production of goods (unless you want to argue that bitcoin is tied to the production and circulation of illegal goods which isn't exactly making a case for governments wanting to adopt it as an official currency).

I'm really not getting where you're going with these last statements.  The structure of the arguments don't follow.  So, as it's getting pretty off-topic, I'm going to bow out, as it would take a bit to delve through the knot of different theories that you've tied up in your argument.

[GL1TCH3D]

seeing that paypal ask you for 6 documents, I think the chance of get you account unlock and get back your money would be really small.
One of my paypal account was limited since last year, I have provided all the documents they asked, but they still limit my account. If I e-mail them, they just send my bunch of bull**** about negative balance or how to verify my account while my account was verified few years ago and have nearly $100 in it. If I call them, they just keep forward my case to another person and never actually answer my question at all.

this is pretty much every big company unfortunately lol

[nuzzo]

Have you found a solution to this? I know this thread is around a month old, but I came across the same issue. Paypal is asking me nearly everything but the kitchen sink.

I have tons of buyers and need to accept payments quickly, but many people want to pay with PayPal which sucks!

Tried to find some alternatives and it looks like the idea of stealth came up based on this guide:slideshare.net/AuctionEssistance/ebay-incognitostealth

Would stealth be a good option? Does anyone have some experience with it?