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Top-level
 @batalanto @adam Cheques nearly never make sense (if you think bank fees for xfers are bad, you are in for a surprise wrt cheques outside of the US), and accepting cash has its own issues. 67 comments
@batalanto @simon @adam @BrianSmith950 And for remote p2p payments, how is that done? I pay my bills through my bank's website or phone app. Remote P2P can be done through the bank app or paypal or a number of other apps. @batalanto @simon @adam We tend to get a debit card directly from the bank, which can be used to draw cash from the bank ATM's (Any bank, a lot of big shops also provide them for free but smaller operators charge you to draw money. they are all linked) and can be used for purchases, the money comes straight out of your current account. @BrianSmith950 @batalanto @adam while this is all a bit OT: cheques haven't been a thing in most of western Europe for at least half a century. Essentially they died out as soon as salaries started getting paid by bank transfers/wires. I've never actually wrote out a personal cheque (and I've maybe cashed perhaps max a dozen or so, probable not even that many). @BrianSmith950 @batalanto @simon @adam Same situation in EU. For the checks, I haven't seen one in 25 years. Northern countries are almost all digital. @batalanto @BrianSmith950 @simon @adam just because you think it's shit doesn't mean it is. Lots of people use it and find it practical. Most banks in Europe that I know have almost instant if not instant bank transfers. Why would I bother with checks 😂 @matzipan Not sure you read the whole thread. Anyone who is well informed & does not consider #paypal shit is likely a piece of shit themselves. By “informed”, I mean being aware of these damning facts: https://git.disroot.org/cyberMonk/liberethos_paradigm/src/branch/master/rap_sheets/paypal.md Most people are either uninformed, or unwilling to let ethics get in their way. OSM needs to become informed about Paypal. @batalanto @matzipan @BrianSmith950 @adam the point is without paypal the OSMF would be without a payment processor, nobody has any illusions about the company as such, using them is simply a practicality.  @simon @batalanto @matzipan @BrianSmith950 This is false. If it weren't for PayPal, OSMF would still be able to have payments processed via their bank or bitcoin. Here's a link to the documentation showing this: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Donations @adam @batalanto @matzipan @BrianSmith950 there are things like credit cards that many many people prefer to use for such payments, and not supporting that would immediately eliminate a large number of potential donors. @batalanto @simon @adam @BrianSmith950 it has its advantages. I prefer paying by paypal instead of card because at least my card details can't be stolen. Happened to me before and it was very inconvenient. That I have to put up with privacy invasion because of this just shows that we don't have any strong European competitors to paypal 😓 @matzipan I used Paypal before they locked my account & kept the money -- before I became broadly aware of Paypal’s wrongdoing. w.r.t checks, what do you do in Europe if you want to pay someone who does not have a bank account? A check covers that situation. Cash is better, but because of the #warOnCash Belgium, France, & Spain have outlawed cash transactions above a certain amount. @matzipan I agree checks are rare in Europe but there are a number of factors that drive people to be unbanked which makes checks more important. @matzipan @batalanto @BrianSmith950 @simon @adam that is a good point and I would see both paypal locking people out and banks not supporting web or non-googlefied smartphones as topics for another digital banking reform in the EU. @batalanto @BrianSmith950 @simon @adam I just don't. This problem does not for me for sums that cannot be managed by some cash. @batalanto @BrianSmith950 @simon @adam I think qualifying so many people (including myself) as pieces of shit is probably not nice thing to do and maybe you need to reconsider your approach. @batalanto @BrianSmith950 @simon @adam the transfer system in the UK is either BACS or FPS, the banks themselves pay for each transaction as a cost of business. I doubt there's any sale of personal details going on as we do have data protection laws. @sarahdalgulls @sarahdalgulls @batalanto that really sucks. I've never had a problem transferring internationally within europe, but there's always fees and shocking exchange rates; with the US banking system being very different to ours I imagine there's tonnes of ways for people to make a quick buck out of it @batalanto @BrianSmith950 @adam @simon I’ve not written a cheque in about as long. However I get one in the post from my energy supplier every quarter. They won’t transfer the money to me directly. @largess In the Netherlands they are instantaneous and have been for a few years. Within the same bank it has been instantaneous forever @simon @batalanto @adam btw, just wired a donation via banktransfer, thanks for the info again, without it it would not have happened. @simon I checked out the wiki page, it mentions sending an email with donation details for processing. On the other hand https://supporting.openstreetmap.org/alternative-payment-options/ provides a web form, presumably for the same purpose. Should I use the form then? @simon @batalanto @adam Pretty sure bank transfer expenses exceed PayPal fees - that is certainly the case for memberships where people need to monitor the accounts, worry about fraudulent transactions, and do manual work for transfers. Cash is worse unless you're a business regularly handling it.  @pnorman @simon @batalanto @adam it depends. If you have a crappy local bank than yes fees are often sky high. If you use Wise, the fees are usually fairly cheap for smallish transfers. For large transfers, international wires are usually the cheapest option unless you bank is exceptionally predatory. PayPal fees are, in my experience, excessive, but it’s highly situation dependent. @ianthetechie @pnorman Of course non-SEPA→SEPA is typically a shit show. Although Paypal is always a shit show at least w.r.t. privacy & ethics. @ianthetechie @pnorman It’s a bad idea to use Paypal in the 1st place but if you do, then you should get money out of PP ASAP. Yet if you operate that way PP fees are higher. @ianthetechie @pnorman @batalanto @ianthetechie @simon Banks are the same issue with closing accounts because they don't like your transaction history. This is why the OSMF had to move banks. @pnorman @simon @ianthetechie Paypal is not a bank. Paypal escapes banking regs. Paypal can freeze your acct for countless trivial reasons such as not liking your IP address or being unable to solve a broken CAPTCHA. I got locked out of my account for a long time once because their software had a endless loop bug in the login process. Paypal can suddenly demand docs & lock your acct until you provide them. @ianthetechie @simon @pnorman I had no activity on a paypal acct for a while & logins worked fine. Then I got a payment from a family member for <$50. Paypal froze my acct & demanded a copy of my passport. ID is unnecessary because paypal relies on banks to know their customer but PP does a money grab whenever they can. I provided my passport but PP did not unlock the acct. A bank would not get away with that. @pnorman @simon @ianthetechie If a bank tries to deny you access to your money for some bullshit reason & they give you no option to remedy it, in the US you can file an FDIC depositor’s insurance claim. Even though the bank is not insolvent, your money is lost from where you sit. The FDIC does not like being pestered with this so they put heavy pressure on the bank to fix it. It’s a hack but works. @ianthetechie @simon @pnorman Since Paypal is not a bank, they have a lot more freedom to deny you access to your money. Banking regulators are useless to consumers trying to get a remedy. The best you can do is sue them like any private business. In most of Europe, that’s broken from the start because there is no small claims courts in most if not all of the EU & court fees are not awarded when you win. @pnorman @simon @ianthetechie So a lawsuit is only worthwhile for disputes over €10k. This makes Paypal a stupid risk to Europeans. Americans have better access to courts & could sue Paypal for small amounts. It’ll cost <$100 in court fees to file & serve but the loser pays that. OTOH, Paypal most likely has an arbitration clause in their ToS which neuders that option. @ianthetechie @simon @pnorman I would love to sue Paypal for ~$150 (what they took from me + court fees), but PP didn’t burn me in the US so I’m stuffed. I have no viable recourse. @pnorman @simon @ianthetechie Consider the bottom line as well- if a US bank does a money grab & that goes public, the loss of trust is crippling as consumers have ~6000+ other banks to choose from. When Paypal does that, PP need not worry because of the monopolistic stranglehold they have. Consider that PP cut off Anonymous & Wikileaks at one point. They got burnt but they continue patronizing PP anyway. @batalanto None of the expenses I called out are from the bank. They're in time spent dealing with the transfers, or in time spent dealing with the fraud consequences of publishing an IBAN on the web. I don't think anyone involved *likes* Paypal, it's just all the alternatives for dealing with small donations to a place you can't visit in person suck just as much or more. @pnorman Nonsense. You said “Pretty sure bank transfer expenses exceed PayPal fees”. If you meant to compare xfer *time* to Paypal *fees*, that wording doesn’t work. Also, it’s wrong to assume time is money. To quote RMS: “time ain’t money when all you have is time”. @pnorman IBAN numbers are not the same as US bank acct №s. An IBAN is not vulnerable. You can put it on your business cards, publish it on the web, put it on letterheads, flyers, etc. If someone gets your US bank acct № they can print their own checks & forge your sig. Not so with IBANs. |
Gregory's Server
@simon @adam I thought cheques were the norm in the UK.
In the US: paper checks are still king for sending money remotely. Wires are absurdly expensive. E-checks move slower than snail-mailed paper checks & they are subject to scrutiny. I tried to send ~$300 by popmoney (echeck) & got interrogated as to how I know the person & what I was buying. Took like 4 days.
If they need the money bad enough, they will accept cash. We have a civic duty to fight the #warOnCash.