Negative PayPal balances

Hi Folks I'm about to rock your brains.

Don't know a thing about PayPal. OK I want to buy something online but most merchants want to get paid by credit card because they know that a credit card company will pay because the credit card account is FUNNY money. Is that correct. BUT . . . . merchants will turn up there noses at REAL money such as in a bank account. I cant use my debit card to buy online. hmmmm.

I Just google about how to put money into a PayPal account with a debit card and here is what paypal says: "You can also use a debit card that displays the Visa or MasterCard logo "

Hey PayPal I'm not talking about the funny debit cards that VISA and others issue and call them "debit cards" - what a joke

I'am talking about the meat and potatoes kind of debit card that BMO gave me when I started a bank account with BMO and am paying 15 dollars a month to keep. Now I thought that Elon Musk was trying to create an entity called PayPal that was supposed to be an intermediary between merchants and the banks - a perfect solution SO I THOUGHT.

Hey online merchants I'm gonna stuff my bank account right up your ass.

 

First of all, what does your message have to do with having a negative PayPal balance?

 

BMO = Bank Of Montreal
What does this do with a negative balance. OK maybe i should have named it "why do i have to have a credit card in today's society?"

 

Hi Sarahk

i think as a society we have become so institutionalized that we don't realize that we are being herded around just like a bunch or sheep or cattle. We have PAypal and we don't need credit cards because PayPal is acting between banks and merchants. PayPal is supposed to be very transparent. I've read a post from the CEO of VISA that they are going to go after PayPAl if they don't walk the party line. What party line? Well it seems that VISA and MASTERCARD have become what George Orwell warned about -big brother.

Again right from PayPAls own site "You can also use a debit card that displays the Visa or MasterCard logo "

see how PayPal is trying to appease VISA and MASTERCARD ! Come on Elon Musk stop wasting your money trying to form a Martian colony we need your support to squash VISA and MASTERCARD like they were little bugs. Elon before you colonize mars, please clean up the filth on your own planet.

 

Yes Sarahk I know how that works but my point is I already have a debit card which I was given when I opened an account at BMO. BMO honors that card so why do the merchants in general not honor my debit card in the same way as BMO does. There seems to be a middle man somewhere and guess who that might be

OK fair argument that VISA and MASTERCARD are making sure the merchants get paid but that is the problem in the first place. The banking industry has the interac system that uses RSA so there is no problem for a merchant to verify that I have a certain amount of money in my BMO account. HEK the CRA Canadian Revenure agency can verify my account balance over the phone so how the hek can anyone say that the merchants do not know what my account balance is at any moment. he is catching his breath now . . . . .

All i have to do is allow the merchant that I'm dealing with to query my bank account by electonic means using RSA to certify funds in my account so that the MERCHANT not VISA knows that my purchase will be covered all in a matter of less than 1/1000 of a second.

So once the funds are certified in my account any other withdraws are frozen and the freeze is on until the merchant is paid and the funds transferred to the merchants account then . . . . the freeze is lifted on my account and we are back to normal (brought to you by INTEL dual core technology)

What the F is wrong with that?

Look people it's just numbers in computers talking to other computers with numbers etc. The verification of numbers from one computer system to another is trivial. The sending of funds from one bank to another is trivial. Im sorry but when I hear people talk about how VISA and MASTERCARD are this great problem solver well i don't buy it. Talk about being institutionalized!

 

sarahk says

What is so difficult about that? The merchants trust the credit card companies and the same computer connections are used. A merchant CAN access a customer's bank account and more importantly a customers bank account balance. The Canadian Revenue Agency can determine any Canadians bank account balance with a simple voice phone call directly to the bank manager. It has happend to me twice.

So can you imagine what can be done between computer systems?

Look Apple pay works by authorizing a transaction with a finger print or face scan. In other words Apple pay works by using a feature that does not exist on any other human being. A password is also the same as a finger print or face recognition because a password is known to only one human being.

Now, in general, when you do online banking you use a password right? which starts the authorization process. Then any method that can access subsequent processes of the online session can also give the merchant access to you account balance as long as the customer is OK with that.

In other words a bank account can be set up with up with permissions, so that a customer is EXPECTING the merchant to check the same customers account balance with the approval of
A)the banks involved
B)the merchant
C) the customer
= contract

Once that is done a merchant knows that there is enough money to cover a purchase by the customer and so the merchant assumes ZERO risk, which takes the credit card companies out of the picture. What is so hard to understand about that?

Again, as a society we have been mislead to think that only those with the power of the almighty can act as middlemen between the customer and merchant.

All I hear is rhetoric from credit card companies on how they have more rights that everyone else. Hey Visa I use pink toilet paper is that OK

please Rogers can you make a 25 dollar "pay as you go" phone card because I went to the Rogers store and they wont accept my cash, they wont accept my debit card, they only take visa to pay for the 25 dollar phone plan. They have a 30 dollar phone card THOUGH that I can pay with my debit card but, again, my plan is 25 dollars r o g e r s NOT 30 dollars R o g e r s

 

It is difficult precisely because of what you said. Saying that "the same computer connections are used" is an oversimplification of how things work behind the scenes. It is similar to expecting that an HSDPA/LTE-based smartphone should be compatible with CDMA networks just because both transmit wirelessly, over the air. There are many protocols involved, many compatibility issues which do not make things as seamless as you wish.

For Canada in particular, Interac's dominance in the transaction systems leaves Visa/MasterCard as less widely accepted options.

Exactly, it looks simple because the Canadian Revenue Agency (not an individual account holder) is asking for information to a bank manager (again, not an individual account holder). Imagine how difficult it would be if things happen in a decentralized manner. Of course, technically it would be possible to do so, but what about dispute resolution/arbitration? Where would be a mutually-trusted third party in that case? And by all means, in any decentralized system, how would your idle money grow when parked with someone if there is no such 'someone' in the first place?

Yes indeed, taking the same example as above, calls can be made to/from HSDPA/LTE-compatible handsets and CDMA-compatible ones. However, that compatibility won't stop CDMA networks shutting down if the operators deem them unviable, leaving your CDMA-only handset useless. There are too many factors involved in such a decision, especially considering the scale of operations involved.

In Canada, retailers must specifically allow for Visa debit transactions, even if they already accept Visa credit cards. ( link: https://www.webcitation.org/6G1XMFI9S?url=http://www.cfib-fcei.ca/english/article/2306-credit-debit-code-of-conduct-protects-merchants-in-dispute-with-visa-debit.html )

The rationale behind lower uptake of Visa debit cards (for both online purchases and retail sales) is explained in the above link.