Why no PayPal?

I remember when Paypal started (what almost 20 years ago??). A friend tried to get me to sign up because they were still trying to spread the word, so they had a referral incentive.

At the time, with the name "Paypal," I thought it was just a way to pay your friends back for lunch or gas money, lol. It sounded cool because my friend could accept my credit card for payment. But to use it to perpetually conduct business seems very expensive.
 
I use PayPal and have no problem with it.....UNTIL I got a 1099 from them this year???!!
If you have a certain amount of $ sent to you via PayPal (in Mass it's over$600), they send you a 1099.
F*CK!!!!!!!!!!
I know it's the government and not PayPal, but it has prompted me to look for an alternative.
 
BBN said:
I use PayPal and have no problem with it.....UNTIL I got a 1099 from them this year???!!
If you have a certain amount of $ sent to you via PayPal (in Mass it's over$600), they send you a 1099.
F*CK!!!!!!!!!!
I know it's the government and not PayPal, but it has prompted me to look for an alternative.
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An alternative that disregards tax code isn't going to be around for very long.
 
BBN said:
I use PayPal and have no problem with it.....UNTIL I got a 1099 from them this year???!!
If you have a certain amount of $ sent to you via PayPal (in Mass it's over$600), they send you a 1099.
F*CK!!!!!!!!!!
I know it's the government and not PayPal, but it has prompted me to look for an alternative.
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All online money services will do this. Because...it’s the law.
 
yeky83 said:
And if it's mirrored after credit card resolution clauses... chargebacks can cause major headaches for small businesses.
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Indeed. That’s why we have $250 of chargeback protection per-month for our sellers at Square.

Everyone who hates PayPal, have you considered doing Invoices with Square? That’s generally how I sell gear. The buyer gets to use credit card protections. You get paid and have some assurance of how it’ll go. Plus, you can set the terms of the exchange. You’re not beholden to whatever PayPal thinks they should be.

This is where we can seriously go off topic and start talking about bitcoin and blockchain tech, how it's going to change every transaction for the better... :p (jk I have no idea)
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I do! Spoiler: it won’t. :D
 
I'm surprised that no one is suggesting applying for a Paypal card. I never use my bank card for anything. I can use my Paypal card whether a seller "accepts" Paypal or not.
 
Rane said:
I'm surprised that no one is suggesting applying for a Paypal card. I never use my bank card for anything. I can use my Paypal card whether a seller "accepts" Paypal or not.
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This. PayPal Cash Debit Card. You can use it anywhere they accept Mastercard, which is basically everywhere, and it debits directly from your PayPal account. Problem solved.
 
lauke-lux said:
G66 accepts PayPal
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I know. But G66 doesn't offer the kind of sales discounts that Americans get who can order directly from FAS. Nor can we take advantage of the exchange rate of the dollar. We could if we could order directly from FAS as well. Which we can't using credit cards, as it shows we're European. I tried to order once using a US mail address, FAS still cancelled my order. Which is why I joked that if FAS were to allow paypal, G66 would go bankrupt as Europeans would order en masse from FAS directly instead.

BBN said:
I would agree if it was income.

I bought someone a plane ticket, they repaid me via PayPal....and I now need to pay taxes on this?
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You also pay taxes on interest you earned from your bank account. From money you already paid your taxes for. You also pay VAT taxes over fuel duty tax, as the price of your average tank of gas consists of price of gas + fuel duty topped off with VAT. And you pay inheritance taxes over stuff the deceased already paid tax for in the past, be it their own money, or the stuff they bought.

When it comes to collecting money the government doesn't care that you already paid your taxes. If they can come up with more ways to squeeze you they will.
 
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BBN said:
I would agree if it was income.

I bought someone a plane ticket, they repaid me via PayPal....and I now need to pay taxes on this?
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Not if it's a "gift," right?
I guess it'd be taxable if it's considered a service, even with the $0 profit. Then you'd have to write it off to not be taxed on it... lol I have no idea, any CPAs here?

That sucks, never had to deal with that from PayPal.
 
BBN said:
I would agree if it was income.

I bought someone a plane ticket, they repaid me via PayPal....and I now need to pay taxes on this?
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It's on you to show the IRS it's not income, not for PayPal or any other service to know that. You only pay tax on gains so show net gain or loss by proving the purchase price was equal to the re-imbursed amount for a gain of $0. I.E.: submit your receipt for the purchased ticket with your tax filing and say "I'm not including this PayPal-reported money as income gains because it wasn't".
 
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AlbertA said:
Really? That's like saying back in the late 80's. early 90's... "Internet?, that's for nerds... it'll never take off"
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Bitcoin represents an interesting idea (IMHO) but not a viable non-fiat currency. That's not to say there won't, in the future, be a non-fiat currency that's not just a marketplace for pure speculative trading, but right now no such thing exists and no better thing is on the horizon. You're welcome to attempt to change my mind on that stance. I am...mostly wrong. :)

I also don't think we'll see true, self-driving cars for another 50 or more years. The computation requirements for the AI required to truly self-drive a car aren't possible to implement within the current power and space limitations of a modern automobile. What we have now are cars that drive themselves in a very narrow set of circumstances. All good, but not really "self-driving" IMHO.

I hold lots of unpopular opinions about technology, it turns out.
 
iaresee said:
Bitcoin represents an interesting idea (IMHO) but not a viable non-fiat currency. That's not to say there won't, in the future, be a non-fiat currency that's not just a marketplace for pure speculative trading, but right now no such thing exists and no better thing is on the horizon. You're welcome to attempt to change my mind on that stance. I am...mostly wrong. :)

I also don't think we'll see true, self-driving cars for another 50 or more years. The computation requirements for the AI required to truly self-drive a car aren't possible to implement within the current power and space limitations of a modern automobile. What we have now are cars that drive themselves in a very narrow set of circumstances. All good, but not really "self-driving" IMHO.

I hold lots of unpopular opinions about technology, it turns out.
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When you say "not a viable non-fiat currency," do you mean that it is fiat and cannot be non-fiat but it should, or that it's non-fiat and therefore will not work?

And self-driving cars, I wouldn't say it really has to be full on AI "self-driving" to be functionally self-driving -- if it can sufficiently cover the narrow set of circumstances, it doesn't need to really "self-drive." And the industry seems to really believe that the narrow set of circumstances can be worked out very soon. Getting laws changed on the other hand...
 
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yeky83 said:
When you say "not a viable non-fiat currency," do you mean that it is fiat and cannot be non-fiat but it should, or that it's non-fiat and therefore will not work?
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I mean: there are currently no currencies that are not backed by governments that are anything other than speculative trading markets. They aren't useful for anything other than holding and saying, "hmm, this might be worth something because other people might also think it's worth something". For a currency, that's the lowest bar it has to cross. To be truly viable, it has to be desirable to others in exchange for something other than currency. Can I pay my mortgage with Bitcoin? What about buy a sandwich? Get a haircut? Not really. The test of a currency's usefulness is in how willing people are to accept it in exchange for goods and services. Bitcoin, and all the facsimiles, haven't figured that part out yet. Validating it is a very, very slow process for example.

Where I think a non-fiat, blockchain currency could possibly change the world is as a standard "universal" currency for doing money exchanges. Of course, you have to break up a seriously lucrative existing system to make this happen, but maybe within a walled-garden like PayPal or something like that, a blockchain currency could make currency exchange a very low-cost or even zero-cost operation. Maybe.
 
iaresee said:
Bitcoin represents an interesting idea (IMHO) but not a viable non-fiat currency. That's not to say there won't, in the future, be a non-fiat currency that's not just a marketplace for pure speculative trading, but right now no such thing exists and no better thing is on the horizon. You're welcome to attempt to change my mind on that stance. I am...mostly wrong. :)
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I think it the idea already surpassed the "interesting" phase. The core idea of bootstrapping a currency from nothing, not only achieving parity with the USD but surpassing is in itself incredible. The fact that this has been repeated multiple times already is also incredible.

Speculative trading already exists in existing currencies (see FOREX).

Yes, the current volatility of crypto-currency exchange rates makes them hard to use as a currency you use on a normal day. But blockchains and smart contracts ain't going nowhere, just like the idea of the internet didn't go nowhere
The current speculative bubbles in cryptocurrencies don't seem all that different than the .com bubble of the early 2000's.

I also don't think we'll see true, self-driving cars for another 50 or more years. The computation requirements for the AI required to truly self-drive a car aren't possible to implement within the current power and space limitations of a modern automobile. What we have now are cars that drive themselves in a very narrow set of circumstances. All good, but not really "self-driving" IMHO.

I hold lots of unpopular opinions about technology, it turns out.
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I don't know about "narrow" set of circumstances; I worked on the field for just a bit, but you'd be surprised actually the huge... and I mean HUUUUUGE databases of scenarios (multi sensor + multi camera video and other descriptors) you have to pass before you are considered a candidate solution and this was years ago now.

I feel the main pain will be legislative, not tech. Liability is always a huge debate.
 
iaresee said:
To be truly viable, it has to be desirable to others in exchange for something other than currency. Can I pay my mortgage with Bitcoin? What about buy a sandwich? Get a haircut? Not really. The test of a currency's usefulness is in how willing people are to accept it in exchange for goods and services. Bitcoin, and all the facsimiles, haven't figured that part out yet. Validating it is a very, very slow process for example.
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Wouldn't the other side of the argument say that it's already fiat-like because of inbuilt tech, and that it just has to become more popular? It seems somewhat quite popular for the exchange of nefarious goods and services, wouldn't the argument be that it just needs to be more popular so I can use it to pay for sandwiches?

(Ignoring for the moment the slow validation process (10 minutes, you're talking about?). I do speculate that BitCoin will probably not be the thing that lasts (arguments I hear seem to be too much computation & time, as well as not anonymous), but blockchain tech seems to hold promise for fiat-like currencies and beyond.)
 
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