In other hostile takeover Tweets...
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@topspin said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
Needs more metaverse.
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@cvi said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
Besides, wasn't Musk involved in early PayPal?
On the one hand, he is associated with it because of that. But on the other hand, early was when Paypal was at its best, before they started arbitrarily locking people out of their own money and whatever other nonsense
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@cvi said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
Besides, wasn't Musk involved in early PayPal?
Yes. He made his first really big pile of money from that (selling it to eBay).
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@hungrier said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
early was when Paypal was at its best, before they started arbitrarily locking people out of their own money and whatever other nonsense
How early was that? I've filed Paypal as "avoid like the Plague" for as long as I can remember it existing.
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@topspin I've used it just to avoid giving my credit card number to every dodgy Chinese shop on the net. The Finnish credit card issuers generally take a "You got fraud on your card? Nothing we can do about it. Go cry to the police" attitude. So PayPal remains somewhat useful.
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Looking forward to Twitter enjoying all the same market synergies and brand recognition of Nitter.
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@acrow This - but being marginally less sketchy than a dodgy Chinese webshop isn't exactly a great vote of confidence.
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@acrow said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
@topspin I've used it just to avoid giving my credit card number to every dodgy Chinese shop on the net. The Finnish credit card issuers generally take a "You got fraud on your card? Nothing we can do about it. Go cry to the police" attitude. So PayPal remains somewhat useful.
This. Also PayPal's buyer protection stuff has worked out pretty well where stuff I've ordered hasn't arrived and the store hasn't been great at dealing with it.
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@cvi said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
Besides, wasn't Musk involved in early PayPal?
Yes. He started a "financial services" company called X.com, which merged with PayPal, and then he made $165 Million when PayPal was bought by eBay.
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@hungrier said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
@cvi said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
... early was when Paypal was at its best, before they started arbitrarily locking people out of their own money and whatever other nonsenseI've heard all the stories about PayPal locking people out of their accounts and taking all of their money "for no reason", but I used to use PayPal quite extensively and never had a problem.
PayPal has always been shitty in one way or another, but I've always been very suspicious of the "for no reason" part.
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@Gern_Blaanston They're much worse to sellers than buyers. Which makes sense; buyers have other options for their method of payment. But sellers lose sales if they start being picky on what they accept.
Also, the average buyer has linked a credit card, so PayPal only acts as a connecting entity; they don't hold the customer's money, and trying to grab some will draw the ire of the credit agencies. Whereas sellers actually have a balance on PayPal, which they have to then draw out to a real bank account. And PayPal freezing a seller's funds won't be something a credit agency might be coming after, since at the point where it's been exchanged for goods it's no longer credit but bonafide money.
But PayPal isn't totally safe for buyers either. It's like a government agency without public oversight; everything is peachy until you catch their attention for some reason. And once that happens they can arbitrarily seize assets they have access to. So the wise buyer links an account that never holds more than what's absolutely necessary for the purchase being made at the moment.
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This was funny in that thread
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@topspin said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
Crazy asshole by day, master troll by night.
Do you think he hired those two actors just to make this joke or are you just commenting on what kind of "classy" joke this is?
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@JBert I don’t follow, so I’ll go with “yes”.
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@topspin Context:
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@JBert yes, he hired two people for a hilarious joke, and people naively fell for it. That’s what my post was about.
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@JBert said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
One said his name is “Rahul Ligma.”
A family tireless in their charitable efforts.
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@acrow said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
But PayPal isn't totally safe for buyers either. It's like a government agency without public oversight; everything is peachy until you catch their attention for some reason.
It's the "for some reason" that I was referring to. I have always been suspicious of the claims that PayPal took someone's money "for no reason".
I can't say that it has never happened, but I suspect that a very large percentage of those people are not as innocent as they claim to be.
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@topspin said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
@JBert yes, he hired two people for a hilarious joke, and people naively fell for it. That’s what my post was about.
But note, I warn that I will abuse your trust.
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@Gern_Blaanston In a large organization, if they have no external oversight, the internal processes have to be extremely rigorous if you want to avoid human errors and certain kind of process errors. But being rigorous costs money and man-hours. So PayPal cut corners.
And then there is the element that comes from PayPal being a payment processor for physical purchases, some of which happen internationally. Customer disputes come up in a continuous stream, and some of them require more wits and professionalism than outsources South-Asian call center people can provide.
One example of that latter kind of problem, that I heard of: There was this electronics enthusiast selling kits online. Basically bags of parts that you have to solder together yourself. And he clearly stated that these kits were meant for people adept at soldering.
Of course it then happened that someone bought a kit, and then complained that it didn't work. Photo evidence showed that he was patently incompetent at soldering: Too much solder, bridging everywhere, and didn't even cut the extra off through-hole resistors. But despite the customer proving evidence of not following the "for experts only" clause when buying, PayPal sided with the buyer.
Seller got a black mark, through no fault of his own. And once marked, there's a shadow in all future interactions.
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Another story. This time personal, and involves HobbyKing, and a bit of PayPal.
I once placed an order with HobbyKing about some parts, but had trouble with their shop's pages. As a result, although I was able to order the parts, I noticed that I'd been charged twice for the same order. This was clearly visible in PayPal's payment history page IIRC. Two entries with the same amount debited and the same order reference. Bit of a WTF for a shop engine to allow doing that, but enterprise software is enterprise software.So I e-mailed HobbyKing customer support. And their rep answered me with English so broken that I had great difficulty understanding it. Something about "customers like kings and queens". I later concluded it to have been a rant about having to be polite to customers. I was at a loss on what to make of it. But I waited some time to see if the extra charge were reversed. It wasn't, so I contacted them again. This time I got a different rep, who told me (very politely) that he could not make heads or tails about his colleague's notes on the case. But he saw from their end that I'd indeed been double-debited, and the money had not yet been returned. So he reversed one of those transactions, and I got my money back.
So, yeah, recruiting random people online for handling customer complaints had gone well for HobbyKing. But the shop system debiting me multiple times for the same sale is something that probably went wrong in their interfacing with PayPal. And I'm still wondering if PayPal's interface could have been designed to not allow debiting twice for a single reference or something; half their interfacing is with Chinese shops, so home-built solutions abound...
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@acrow There's also the "counterfeit violin" story (bonus blakeyrant topic) from back in 2012. $2K+ lost due to Paypal droids and a numbskulled buyer.
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@loopback0 Cement is generally useful to solidify control. Quicklime would be better for dissolving, I believe.
Filed under: Bored of directors
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@Applied-Mediocrity come back BOfH, all is forgiven.
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Already with the stochastic terrorism! That's a solid "
NG"... your current degeneracy will be an object of fascination for future historians, IFF future historians.
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* reboots @Gribnit
You were making even less sense than usual.
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@Arantor
Soon
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@Arantor said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
* reboots @Gribnit
Can you turn him off and on and then back off again?
Asking for a friend
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@Luhmann said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
@Arantor
Soon
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@loopback0 said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
@Arantor said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
* reboots @Gribnit
Can you turn him off and on and then back off again?
Asking for a friend
There’s nothing that dictates the time between these events. You are presuming that events 1, 2 and then especially 3 happen in short order. I would propose a delay between events 1 and 2 to avoid static or thermal shock.
Preferably, I dunno, let’s say, fifty years?
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@Arantor said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
@Luhmann said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
@Arantor
Soon
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@Luhmann the difference is, one well placed “Soon” is funny, even if it shouldn’t be. But it gets old soon.
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@Luhmann said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
@Arantor said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
But it gets old soon.
Does it now
No, Soon.
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@izzion
I have the impression it might be too Soon
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@izzion said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
@Luhmann said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
@Arantor said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
But it gets old soon.
Does it now
No, Soon.
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When will then be now?
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@hungrier said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
When will then be now?
If the next word out in response to this is 4 letters, begins with S and ends in OON, imma smack someone.
How’s that for a hostile takeover tweet?
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@Arantor Hey Farva, what's that restaurant you like?
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@Arantor said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
If the next word out in response to this
is 4 letters,begins with S and ends in OON, imma smack someone.Your stipulation was a little too strict.
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@hungrier said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
@Arantor Hey Farva, what's that restaurant you like?
And that’s a from me, back to you in the studio!
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@dcon said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
@Arantor said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
If the next word out in response to this
is 4 letters,begins with S and ends in OON, imma smack someone.Your stipulation was a little too strict.
I dunno, I don’t think I’d murder anyone for making references to The Tick at this point, for example.
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Shenanigans!
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@Arantor said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
@hungrier said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
@Arantor Hey Farva, what's that restaurant you like?
And that’s a from me, back to you in the studio!
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@hungrier said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
When will then be now?
@Arantor said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
If the next word out in response to this is 4 letters, begins with S and ends in OON, imma smack someone.
A: Shortly.
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@cvi i will accept this time. I would also have accepted “presently”.
Future iterations will not be so accommodating! (Turns on heel, cape swishes behind me, as I leave the room DRAMATICALLY.)
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Sassoon?