[Coco] Re: Wikipedia in trouble

[Roger Taylor]

At 05:15 PM 12/29/2003 -0800, you wrote:


>Steve Ostrom wrote:
>
>>I agree.  I've used PayPal flawlessly for two or three years now.  It has 
>>been a great tool, especially when transferring money to our friends 
>>across the pond or when you don't want to wait 7-10 days for your check 
>>to clear.  I think you'll find that at least 80% of the people selling on 
>>eBay use that as their primary method of collection.  I've found no 
>>negatives to using PayPal yet.  I think Gene voiced some strong 
>>objections to PayPal and I'd be interested in hearing the opinions of any 
>>others using it.

Gene's comment about PayPal was short, and not really strong.  Doesn't make 
a difference.  PayPal is not going away.  They'll just keep on merging 
until they are 100 times bigger than they are today.  The PayPal/ebay 
merging was a blessing, but along with that comes more potential victims 
for scam artists.  Keep in mind that a scam artist doesn't need PayPal to 
be any more or less secure.  They don't even need PayPal.  If they pose as 
another person and use stolen credit cards, etc. nothing can stop 
them.  There was a very long article on MSN that explained what some 
foreigners (in Russia) have been doing using PayPal and ebay to bring mega 
dollars and products right to their front door over there before somebody 
caught on.  While some would say, "gullible Americans"... it's also 
Americans doing it to foreigners, so think again.

Since PayPal/ebay has so many users, it's a walk in the park for the 
average scammer.  Any time you have this many people handing money and 
products to each other all day long, every day, it becomes very easy for 
this kind of stuff to occur.  Your local banks go through the same 
crap.  It's not just PayPal, or just because PayPal is a growing business.


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Roger Taylor