Mutualist Political Economy: PayPal Now Accepted
For U.S. orders, anyway. The fact that S&H amounts differ complicates things. The link is on the sidebar, under "My Sites."
I may regret this, since their user agreement reminds me of the fine print in that insurance policy on Monty Python ("No claims made by you will be paid.") After reading it, I have absolutely no idea of what specific things, if any, they're legally obligated to do. And I've read plenty of horror stories about arbitrary seizures of accounts, with an appeals process that Kafka himself would dismiss as sheer fantasy.
But I've been asked by so many people whether I accept PayPal, I figured I ought to take the chance and see if it brings me some impulse sales.
I may regret this, since their user agreement reminds me of the fine print in that insurance policy on Monty Python ("No claims made by you will be paid.") After reading it, I have absolutely no idea of what specific things, if any, they're legally obligated to do. And I've read plenty of horror stories about arbitrary seizures of accounts, with an appeals process that Kafka himself would dismiss as sheer fantasy.
But I've been asked by so many people whether I accept PayPal, I figured I ought to take the chance and see if it brings me some impulse sales.
posted by Kevin Carson | 1:01 PM
12 Comments:
so what are your views on Chinese American relations in the future.
Um, there'll probably be more of 'em?
I have always refused to get a credit card because I realised that their fee structure created a Tragedy of the Commons, forcing non-credit card users to share in their operating costs by forcing merchants to pay those and spread them indiscriminately rather than applying them only to users. So, the question arises, does paypal require you to dump their operating charges on non-users? If so, you are unwittingly co-operating in a system of exploitation like people who accept credit cards.
PayPal premier requires me to pay a percentage fee for accepting credit card payments, but I don't know whether that covers all the costs. But now I feel guilty about it....
There are other e-commerce payment processors, with fewer problems that PayPal, but I don't think you're going to be able to find one that comes close to P.M. Lawrence's admirable, ethical standard.
The test is whether Paypal allows you to apply a surcharge to Paypal users so that they and only they pay the Paypal operating costs. If, as I suspect, their contract forbids this (no doubt on spurious grounds of "fairness"), they are actually constructing a trap penalising non-users of Paypal. The same goes for credit card purchases, of course.
I've been meaning to buy this - and I'd be happy to pay for the service of using PayPal. I'm loathe to take money out of your pocket, though... any way you can just tack on an extra amount to the shipping and handling? "Handling" is pretty slippery... you could probably fit it in there.
Forget it, Jeremy. It's a relatively small fee, and anyway PML's got me feeling guilty enough without making you cough up more $$.
By the way, you should see the externalities I create at an all-you-can-eat buffet.
I've been planning to get this, too, except that you only accept US currency.
However, I hear that you are doing a talk on corporatism at the next Libertarian Alliance conference in London, Kevin. I hope you will be bringing copies then? I'll try to persuade Joe Peacott to come
Richard,
PayPal handles the currency exchange stuff, so foreign currency is no longer a problem. The PayPal button at the link only does S&H for U.S. orders, but if you want I can send you a PayPal invoice with S&H to the UK.
Chris Tame kindly invited me to speak at the LA conference, but unfortunately ongoing family responsibilities make it out of the question for me to travel. I'm afraid I'm a much better writer than speaker, anyway (talk about damning with faint praise!); I tend to get that deer-frozen-in-headlights look when addressing a crowd.
A few years ago Australia made a microeconomic reform that showed genuine understanding: credit card companies ceased to be allowed to enforce merchants to spread their operating fees over all customers, but were allowed to target them to credit card users (to the expected screams of righteous outrage). But this targetting wasn't mandatory, so mostly merchants kept spreading the fees for convenience.
However just yesterday I found a book shop that had set up in a short lease building, which was doing bargain basement book sales. Their standard price was A$5 per book - but they had a A$1 surcharge for each customer paying by credit card. Competition may eventually undo the externality one day.
Paypal Accept has taken the liberty of researching the best shopping websites and combining them into a cohesive website that offers individuals a new way to spend on their Paypal account.
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