ScummVM Developers Barred From Using PayPal

lskovlund writes "The ScummVM developers have received notice that their use of PayPal for donations is in violation of PayPal's AUP. According to a forum post, the AUP bans 'Game enhancers (which enable the play of import software and/or back up versions of software).'"

So switch to another service

[Colin Smith]

Nochex, worldpay or whatever.

Boycott PayPal!

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.paypalsucks.com/ [paypalsucks.com]

News?

[BarryNorton]

That PayPal enforce some arbitrary set of rules and close accounts is not news (not for several years). That they didn't confiscate the funds for once (?) maybe is...

The alternative is $359.40 per year

[tepples]

The payment service [995merchantaccounts.com] that paypalsucks.com recommends appears to charge a $29.95 monthly fee [995merchantaccounts.com] ($10 statement fee + $19.95 Internet gateway fee). How can receivers of only small amounts of PayPal donations afford this fee?

Perhaps..

[malkavian]

Pay Pay haven't thought things through clearly. From the article, they broke the AUP by having donations for software that can "run software on systems other than it was purchased for".
Well, I bought a few games ages ago to run on my PC. Guess what. I'm running them on my PC still. ScummVM just means the games carry on working despite me upgrading the OS a little.
So, Pay Pal would like to prevent people making my upgrade path more comfortable and simple? For shame!

Choosing PayPal is a fault

[Anonymous Coward]

PayPal is not a bank. They can practically freeze your account (and money) indefinitely and no regulation can stop them from doing so.

Just go to http://www.paypalsucks.com/ [paypalsucks.com] and see how often they've done that in the past.

I really wish Sourceforge (which is also owned by OSTG like Slashdot) would stop supporting PayPal and choose a more reliable service to handle project donations

Don't trust your money to PayPal. All regulations that keep regular banks from just stealing from you do not apply for PayPal.

Re:Quick

[Ruff_ilb]

More true than you'd know, actually. Using the google suite of checkout (which, afaik, can be used for donations) and adsense can completely replace HTML for these people. Heck, they're even getting more bang for the donation buck if they use the google service.

PayPal needs to realize that they're no longer the only service avaiable - instead of instituting a boycott based on their personal morality, they're simply driving people to a competing service.

I would think that this also opens up an entirely new can of worms - although I'm sure that paypal has the right to do whatever the hell they want short of taking all your cash, if they keep making moves like this, THEY may end up liable for what their service is used for. They can't really have it both ways - either they're a common, undescriminating service, or they're suddenly accountable for everyone.

Funny that...

[Craig Maloney]

It also allows one to play regular, licensed copies of the games as well.

The horror!

Agreed

[MarkusQ]

but the only difference is that CC companies are regulated, otherwise they would be worse than Paypal.

Agreed. Thus my point about them wanting to have it both ways. I used to have friends who worked for PayPal, and have a tenancy towards "let the market deal with it" solutions, but there comes a point where you're engaging in fraudulent practices and should be reined in.

Either they aren't a bank, in which case they shouldn't be allowed to do banking, or they are, and they should have to play be the same rules as regular backs. Which, among other things, can't decide not to honor payments just because they don't like you.

--MarkusQ

P.S. I'm no fan of credit card companies either. Or loan sharks, or venture capitalists.

Very Few Options

[Kagato]

I feel bad for the guys. The problem they are going to run into is that PayPal, for all that is evil about them, does one this really well. Running donation payment processing.

While they can look for alternitive payment systems, they will run into the issue that Donation systems have extremely high fraud rates. Why? Because donations have very little anti-fraud proceedures. So they are a megnet for people who want to test stolen credit card numbers out on. Most merchant solutions will shut you down if you hit 1-2% fraud against all your transaction rate. Since PayPal was both an aquiring bank, and payment processor, they were able to side step a lot of that. As well as set up a lot of anti-fraud stuff that kicked in before the merchant even noticed.