[Keyframe]

TBH, I was amazed they didn't pull the plug sooner, considering all the negativity surrounding paypal. I haven't had any issues with paypal myself, but reading all the stories from other people having issues with them... I don't know, I would really REALLY like to have an alternative somewhere, but sadly there isn't one.

[steveklabnik]

Usually, PayPal is "evil" because of false positives on fraud. They'd know that an account for an organization like WikiLeaks is legit.

There is a YC-company alternative: https://www.wepay.com/

[Keyframe]

I'm sorry, I meant paypal alternative for payments and money transfers through internet, not as a collection/donation service for groups. Sad fact is that nothing is as widespread as paypal. And even paypal doesn't have an option to receive money here (Croatia) because national bank (governs bank policies among other things) wants them to be regulated like other banks here, so they're "talking about it".

To me, it sounds like a pretty obvious route for a startup disruption opportunity. I guess bar is set too high (financially and logistically) for a small-ish startup to make a significant entry to that market (global). There are compatible businesses that could make a significant entry/impact, but they didn't do it (Western Union, Moneybookers, Google Checkout, Amazon...) - I always wondered why (if we choose to ignore the stronghold of ebay paypal has behind it).

[steveklabnik]

What, you're not just a group of one? ;) But yeah, dunno about Croatia...

The bar is extremely high, mostly due to fraud, from what I understand. We only hear about false positives, but it's a huge problem.

[patrickaljord]

wepay and paypal would face the same issues of false positive on fraud. The only thing that could help would be the day all banks implements OpenTransact which is basically OAuth for payment http://www.opentransact.org/ with no intermediary between banks, maybe one day... I know Banksimple said they would implement it.