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Bomb Explodes At PayPal Headquarters 551

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the disgruntled-customers dept.
Pooua writes to tell us that an explosive device left outside of PayPal headquarters exploded last night. The explosion was powerful enough to knock out one of their plate glass windows but thankfully that was the only casualty of the blast. Perhaps they should have offered employee protection instead?
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Bomb Explodes At PayPal Headquarters More

Bomb Explodes At PayPal Headquarters

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  • Shouldn't be too difficult.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Wednesday November 01, 2006 @01:32PM (#16675171) Homepage Journal

    Shouldn't be too difficult to find the culprit, just look for someone extremely dissatisfied with their service.

    Seriously, anyone who thought they were having a bad time of it with PayPal will find that experience pales compared to the bad time they'll have for planting a bomb.

    • Chargeback my account eh!!?

      • I imagine... (Score:4, Funny)

        by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Wednesday November 01, 2006 @01:47PM (#16675495) Homepage Journal

        Chargeback my account eh!!?

        I imagine when some saw a headline "PayPal Bombed" they thought, "They certainly have."

        • I imagine when some saw a headline "PayPal Bombed" they thought, "They certainly have."

          Nope, millions rejoiced...

    • Re:Shouldn't be too difficult.. (Score:5, Funny)

      by wizbit ( 122290 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2006 @01:33PM (#16675197)
      Shouldn't be too difficult to find the culprit, just look for someone extremely dissatisfied with their service.

      Great, that narrowed down the list by about two. Any other ideas?

      • Re:Shouldn't be too difficult.. (Score:5, Funny)

        by Frymaster ( 171343 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2006 @01:40PM (#16675349) Homepage Journal
        Great, that narrowed down the list by about two. Any other ideas?

        yeah. paypal set the bomb off themselves. now, if anyone complains about paypal's service, they instantly become a suspect in a 'terrorist' act.

        great way to guarantee customer satisfaction!

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Amouth ( 879122 )
          that my friend is very evil.. and yet wise at the same time..

        • Re:Shouldn't be too difficult.. (Score:4, Insightful)

          by malsdavis ( 542216 ) * on Wednesday November 01, 2006 @02:45PM (#16676529)
          It's scarey now that something like this - which is obviously a purely criminal act (one of vandalism and possibly GBH or even murder) - can now be called a "terrorist act". With all the negative connotations which are implied. I wonder what else our government will start declaring as "terrorism", surely any malicious act could ultimately fall under the government's ever widening definition of the word.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by tinkertim ( 918832 ) *
            >> It's scarey now that something like this - which is obviously a purely criminal act (one of vandalism and
            >> possibly GBH or even murder) - can now be called a "terrorist act". With all the negative connotations which
            >> are implied. I wonder what else our government will start declaring as "terrorism", surely any malicious
            >> act could ultimately fall under the government's ever widening definition of the word.

            Sorry, but if you look at the word .. the shoe fits. Terrorism is doing t

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by cshark ( 673578 )
          Or how about this:
          Since we're talking about hypothetical conspiracies.

          Paypal is owned by Ebay, who is largely controlled by the Saudis (don't actually know that, but it sounds good). The Bush Administration needed to demonstrate that we are still not safe in this country to the voting public (after all, it is an election year). So a call was placed to management at Ebay. Anyway, the Saudis worked with their contacts to find a bomber, who was more than happy to place the bomb (after all everyone knows there'

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by funfail ( 970288 )
          No, no... Somebody set up them the bomb. For great justice.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by ackthpt ( 218170 ) *

        Great, that narrowed down the list by about two. Any other ideas?

        While the first part of the post was in jest, that's probably exactly how the investigation will procede. Investigators will likely request PayPal turn over letters from irate customers. I certainly hope most slashdotters maintained their cool enough not to send threats.

        The news on KCBS was a bit more detailed than what the link told of. It's a four storey building in downtown San Jose. One plate-glass window was shattered, these wind

    • My understanding is that this is a significantly large number of people. I imagine they can narrow it down a bit, but I'm betting this still leaves them with hundreds of people on their potential perp list.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by amcdiarmid ( 856796 )
      I see that you have never tried to actually use "Safe Harbor" provisions. Lucky you. Paypal operates as a wire transfer service, and as a bank - with the regulations of neither.

      I actually tried to use the "Safe Harbor" once. First they told me that I had to wait for the account to be cleaned out. Then they told me to file with my credit card company. Some "Safe Harbor" I'm actually surprised it did not happen sooner, they really have screwed a lot of people along the way.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Richard_at_work ( 517087 )
        In the UK they are regulated as a 'electronic money institution' under the Financial Services Authority, so Im happy. These regulations cover Paypals entire European business arm.

        Also, I must be one of their rare happy customers - two weeks ago somehow my Paypal account was compromised and several thousand USD was transfered around, with no fuss at all every single one of those transactions have been reversed at no cost to myself. All it took was 20 minutes to a local rate number, no queues, very helpf

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by joshetc ( 955226 )
      From what I've seen a large portion of their customers are extremely dissatisfied with their service. I have been with them for ~7 years and have never had an issue yet I'm still somewhat dissatisfied simply based on what they have done to some of my friends. It seems they are always way too buyer friendly until one of your friends get scammed for nothing and left with the bill. Funny how that works I guess..
    • Shouldn't be too difficult to find the culprit, just look for someone extremely dissatisfied with their service.

      Here we go. We should look for someone extremely dissatisfied with there service and recently bought the parts to make a bomb. That should narrow it down.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by eno2001 ( 527078 )
        Yes... bought the parts to make a bomb over the internet using... wait for it: PAYPAL! ;P
      • SELECT customer_id,
                      trans_date
            FROM all_transactions
          WHERE payee_name = 'E-Bombs.com'
              AND cust_rating = 'PISSED'
    • Shouldn't be too difficult to find the culprit, just look for someone extremely dissatisfied with their service. That narrows it down to... What, 9/10ths of their customers? Anyway, it could also be the result of someone who was phished and misguidedly plamed PP, or someone who thinks PP is just an unpleasant company, even if they had never dealt with them...
    • One will find lots of them over at http://www.paypalsucks.com/ [paypalsucks.com]

      Ron
    • Please rate your experience at PayPal:

      A) Excellent
      B) Good
      C) Average
      D) Poor
      E) Want to bomb your damn company

      Thank you!

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2006 @02:28PM (#16676211)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01, 2006 @01:32PM (#16675189)
    What happen?

  • Surprised it took this long (Score:5, Funny)

    by Skyshadow ( 508 ) * on Wednesday November 01, 2006 @01:33PM (#16675201) Homepage
    Man, if I had a nickle for every time I wanted to bomb Paypal, I'd have... er... probably a real hassle getting all the money out of my Paypal account.
    • Even my Class Action experience with PayPal was dissatisfying, I only got $13US of a potential $49. But considering I only lost $6US, and some hair, it was fair for me anyway.

      They are one company I can understand someone wanting to send them an angry letter-bomb. This ties into the Slashdot story today about how best to deal with your user disputes. PayPal is the example of how NOT to.

    • Well, I just sent you a nickel through PayPal, and you now owe them 20c [paypal.com], so that's perfectly understandable ;-)

  • ... then the terrorists will have already have won.

  • Halloween parties at PayPal... (Score:5, Funny)

    by thewiz ( 24994 ) * on Wednesday November 01, 2006 @01:35PM (#16675225)
    are a blast!

    So I've heard.
  • This is the result of bad customer service. If you call the companies with bad customer service, they are not allowed to give out the location. Now we know why.

    • Really? MasterCard never speaks to any customers (they only service banks), yet their headquarters get bomb threats all the time.
    • This is the result of bad customer service.

      No, it's the result of someone planting a bomb! Let's try to find the perp and punish him for committing the crime, and not try to blame PayPal (or society, or bad parenting, or video games, or flouride, or transfats, or Bush, or Clinton, or anything else).

      If someone at PayPal got raped, would you argue that it was the result of wearing a sexy low-cut dress? Of course not!
  • I think I read somewhere that Wile E. Coyote uses Paypal to shop at ACME.

  • Not very big (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Silver Sloth ( 770927 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2006 @01:38PM (#16675297)
    From TFA
    "Whatever caused this was pretty strong,' said San Jose Fire Department Capt. Jose Guerrero. "It's tough to break one of these windows."
    Er... As someone who lived in the UK during the IRA bombing campaign I can suggest that if the 'bomb' only broke a few windows then it wasn't exactly huge. Consider this atrocity [wikipedia.org]

    Looks more like the sort of thing I used to knock up as a teenager - Sodium Chlorate and sugar anyone?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cliffski ( 65094 )
      Yet a post box survievd the blast at a distance of a few yards. Oh yes....
      If only everyone built everything the same way us Brits built our post boxes. They must be made out of neutronium or something. I reckon my great great grandchildren will still float past the same pillar boxes in their hover cars.

  • I don't get it (Score:3, Insightful)

    by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2006 @01:38PM (#16675307) Homepage Journal
    I hear people rant about how terrible paypal is, I don't understand why. Someone please explain.

    I get a better deal with an ATM card through paypal than I get through my own bank. I actually collect interest on all my money as if it were a savings account. My "free" checking at my bank doesn't give me interest on money in my checking account. And if I put money in my savings account I can get fined for taking money out of it too often.

    If you want to go around bombing finanicial institutions why not go after the ones that are actually greedy and evil. (seriously I am not recommending this, instead of a bomb why not write a nasty letter or post a rant/complaint in your blog to boycott the company)

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by dontspamme ( 1017550 )
      Your own bank is less likely to freeze all your money for a minimum period of 6 weeks and to end up keeping it all without having the possibility to do nothing about it.
    • And if I put money in my savings account I can get fined for taking money out of it too often.

      Then your bank "fucking sucks" (TM) and yeah, almost no checking accounts earn interest. Even if it did, if you keep a reasonable amount of money in there (i.e. not everything you have), what are you going to earn in interest? $10 a year?
      The paypal card is a pain, probably the most annoying is the "automatic tip rejection" and I'm pretty sure their chargeback policy is the worst out there (not that ATM cards are wo

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Detritus ( 11846 )
      How would you like it if your bank froze all of your accounts and then refused to talk to you for several months? I haven't had any problems with paypal but there are many people who have, and their customer service is often terrible.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Firehed ( 942385 )
        That was pretty much my experience with them a few years back. I couldn't even find a phone number on the site to call and bitch at them about it, much less actually get the money that was frozen (a not insignificant amount, which they're still holding).

    • Paypal's service is legendary (Score:5, Informative)

      by blueZ3 ( 744446 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2006 @02:05PM (#16675831) Homepage
      and not in a good way.

      If you're using the service to buy and sell on eBay, and everything else in the transaction goes smoothly, then PayPal workd fine. However, if you have a problem (with a buyer or seller) and you try and take it up with PayPal, you're going to get screwed. Let me explain how it works:

      If you are a seller, and you ship and you "collect" money from PayPal and ship the item you sold, if the seller complains to PayPal (they can claim they didn't get the item, that it wasn't as advertised, etc.) PayPal will take the money out of your account because the transaction was "fraudulent" -- your loss: one item (which you shipped) since you won't be seeing the money. If you are a buyer, it works the other way around. If you pay for something and it never arrives, PayPal will refuse to refund the money.

      As far as I can tell, in instances where there is a dispute, PayPal collects the money for themselves and the buyer and seller are out of luck. Some of this seems to be based on "who complains first" but generally if you use PayPal and have a problem, you can kiss your money goodbye. Add to this the fact that PayPal constantly pushes linking your PayPal account to your "real" bank account (apparently so they can clean you out in one fell swoop) and you have a recipe for... well, I'd say about 5 lbs of ammonium nitrate, some black powder, and a time-delay fuse.
      • I have not had a single instance of PayPal screwing me over the way you describe, and I've done over 500 transactions. I haven't had anyone I know complain about PayPal or had problems with them. Even on the forums that I use, when there is a mention of PayPal, I haven't seen anyone complain of losing money themselves or people they personally know. Anyone that mentions problems only refer to some web site or repeat what they heard third hand from someone they don't personally know losing money, which us

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by eric76 ( 679787 )
        I refuse to give them a bank account number. All it takes is one crooked employee to really do you in.

        I did ask a VP at the local bank about the possibility of opening up a bank account with $1 in it for the sole purpose of providing that number to PayPal.
  • Perhaps they should have offered employee protection instead?

    What's this garbage? And linking to a story about how PayPal is going to "suck less?"

    There's black comedy and there's black comedy, and the latter kind implies that your sympathies lie with the perpetrators. Do you think, maybe, this is a bad way to start an article?

    Good one, Pooua.

    • Your sympathies can lie with the perpetrators without agreeing with their actions - I know that a lot of people would bomb paypal. They wouldn't do it, and most of them wouldn't condone such an action, but at the same time since no one was hurt it's not unreasonable to take a certain kind of smug satisfaction.

      Personally, although I would never be involved (I am just NOT sneaky and even my fingerprints are the easiest kind to identify, arch+whorl) I would love to see a few more bombs go off at the headqu

    • and the latter kind implies that your sympathies lie with the perpetrators

      Bing bing bing!
    • "There's black comedy and there's black comedy, and the latter kind implies that your sympathies lie with the perpetrators. Do you think, maybe, this is a bad way to start an article?"

      You must have never been defrauded before for a SERIOUS amont of money that represents a large chunk of you time spent having worked

      Tell me have you ever been ripped off for a large amount of money? I don't care WHO you are, but when you've worked months and months for money and someone defrauds you of thousands of dollars, t

  • Funny? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Nos. ( 179609 ) <andrewNO@SPAMthekerrs.ca> on Wednesday November 01, 2006 @01:43PM (#16675403) Homepage

    I just don't find any of this funny. Planting a bomb anywhere but in strict controlled testing areas is not a joke. Obviously this was at least meant to damage the building, and possibly even to harm people. Imagine for a minute that you're a tech at this location, regardless of who it is. You're not responsible for corporate policy. Yet you're in as much, or more danger from an attack like this than those who do make the decisions.

    I'm just glad nobody was hurt, and that the damage was relatively minor. I hope the culprit or culprits are caught quickly, and dealt with harshly.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Rob T Firefly ( 844560 )
      Ethically and morally I totally agree with you.

      However, due to an odd mixture of customer dissatisfaction, slightly warped senses of drama and poetic justice, and good old-fashioned schadenfreude, I still chuckled.

      Humans, eh?
    • You're not responsible for corporate policy. Yet you're in as much, or more danger from an attack like this than those who do make the decisions.
      By working for a company, you express your approval of its policies and actions. It's that simple. See here [wikipedia.org] for a good example of why your excuse just doesn't cut it.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by TheViewFromTheGround ( 607422 )
      As an employee of the company, you most certainly are responsible for corporate policy -- at the very least, to the continuation of said policies. That alone doesn't justify the use of violent resistance against said company or its employees. Other things might, in utterly extreme and rare cases. More imaginative strategies, informed by creativity and imaginative forms of nonviolent resistance, are often far more effective and more ethically defensible. I work as an activist on the southside of Chicago,
  • Check out the first frame of that video. It's captioned "Employees evacuated after explosion at PayPal" and shows what looks to be a Borg-like figure. I'm sure the PayPal collective has gone into regeneration mode and should be back at full strength in no time.
     
  • All your accounts are belong to us.
  • The Paypal.com web site stayed online [netcraft.com] throughout, even though the blast happened near its network operations center.
  • (you guessed it) fuck a stranger in the ass!
  • "Wow. You should see that that bomb did."

    "Was that google-bomb or paypal-bomb?"

  • I miss the good old days (Score:3, Funny)

    by moochfish ( 822730 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2006 @02:19PM (#16676065)
    What ever happened to leaving flaming sacks of crap on a porch??

  • Justice (Score:3, Interesting)

    by StarvingSE ( 875139 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2006 @02:19PM (#16676069)
    While I cannot say that bombing the PayPal office is a good way to settle disputes, it still made me smile to read this article as I have recently been subjected to their horrible customer service.

    I am a casual ebay user, and probably sell roughly 10 items a year. Since paypal is the defacto standard there, I use them and have it linked to my checking account to transfer payments to myself. Well, I recently sold an old video card for $100 and was paid for it through the paypal service. Now, after hearing about people not being able to transfer their funds etc, I always immediately transfer the $$$ to my checking account. So, I have my $100. 5 days later, paypal sends me a notice saying that the payment might be fraudulent and is being investigated. 2 days later, they say it is indeed fraudulent, and that $100 is being deducted from my paypal account. Great, I already shipped the item, so I call paypal, spend an hour on hold, and finally talk to someone. The only response I get is "sorry, can't do anything about it. Sorry, can't tell you the reason it was fraudulent." Now I already have the money in my checking, so its not like I'm totally screwed, but I can't use my account becuase it has that negative balance on it. Any money into it will automatically go against it. I can't cancel either becuase of it.

    They also told me that my item was not valid for seller protectrion because it is an electronic item. Why the hell does it matter what item was sold???? I don't udnerstand why I am responsible for the fraudulent transaction when PayPal deemed this other users account valid and processed the payment in the first place. This is another example of a business who thinks that they can do business without any risk what-so-ever. Just screw the end user.

    btw... If anyone has had a similar experience and has some advice as to how I can cancel this account or otherwise solve the problem, please let me know!

  • I knew . . . (Score:5, Funny)

    by ElephanTS ( 624421 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2006 @02:21PM (#16676091)
    I knew about this. I got an email saying that all of PayPal's servers had blown up and they had lost all my personal and banking information. Luckily I simply followed the link they provided (things must be bad over there - they didn't even use the regular PayPal URL) and updated all my info. Thanks to PayPal for their quick customer service and helping me avert this little disaster.

    Were eBay affected by this? I've just got an email from them now . . .

  • For PayPal, No Sympathy (Score:4, Insightful)

    by teneighty ( 671401 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2006 @02:24PM (#16676147)

    I've been ripped off by PayPal twice, with absolutely no recourse whatsoever to get things rectified. The amounts involved are small enough that its not worth getting the legal system involved, but big enough that it's intensely irrirating. I think PayPal's business model is at least partly based on having free will to screw over individual customers in this manner.

    While I don't even slightly agree with the bomber's methods, I do understand what would drive them to do this. Individuals are powerless against PayPal, so its no suprise they will lash out any way they can. This is a classic terrorist attack in that sense - someone who felt they had no options left, so they turned to the increasingly commonly accepted equalizer: bombings.

    The very moment there is a viable alterntive to PayPal, I'll be switching (Google, are you listening? I'm getting desperate here!).

  • Negative Feedback (Score:4, Funny)

    by daveewart ( 66895 ) * on Wednesday November 01, 2006 @02:32PM (#16676291)
    "Postage was quick, but the item exploded upon arrival."

  • Sign of the times (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Rich Klein ( 699591 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2006 @02:36PM (#16676385) Homepage Journal
    This article has been tagged with "terrorism." I can remember when people would hear this news and think not "terrorism," but "nutcase setting off a bomb."

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