[mythtv-users] Alternatives to Supporting schedulesdirect.org

[Braindead]

On Wed, 8 Aug 2007 08:49:51 -0700
Brad DerManouelian <myth at dermanouelian.com> wrote:

> On Aug 8, 2007, at 8:14 AM, Braindead wrote:
> 
> > You can still lose, they reverse the charges and 'investigate'..   
> > If someone on the other end simply claims they sent you something  
> > (no signature required on the receiving end) you can lose... I did  
> > once.  Sure it doesn't happen very often, neither does identity  
> > theft really but it can happen.
> 
> So basically what you're saying is that there's no absolutely secure  
> way of handling on-line credit card charges. So why dog on PayPal  
> specifically? Which would you use? Would your suggestion cooperate  
> with a brand new company? I'm sure they would be interested in  
> offering as many payment solutions as possible. Suggestions are  
> always welcome.

I didn't say that at all.  My main point was concern about direct ACH transfers used by PayPal (and others) to directly access your checking account.  I buy things using CC quite often over the net, from reputable companies. I had problems with PayPal when eBay bought them out, I do not trust the people that run PayPal to implement proper security.  Paying 'Joe's Online sales" with a credit card involves a merchant bank which does the actual charge.  I put much more trust in any Merchant Bank than I do in PayPal.

Funny thing is that my wife is a full time eBay seller (her original artwork, not the junk resellers ;-) and she does have a PayPal account.  But the account number that is tied to PayPal has very limited funds and no connections with any or our other accounts.

My wife takes checks and money orders too, why not accept those?

If the goal is to provide the service at the best possible price (thus the price may go down/up), perhaps allowing people to mail in a check/money-order  to 'pre-pay' for services and then debit that monthly using the current rates.  It's trivial to set up automatically, GnuCash does a fine job of scheduled transactions...  It's fairly easy to parse th GnuCash XML document format as well, allowing to automated emails when account balances get low..etc...  This would keep the hassle of handling checks/money order to a minimum.

I would much rather prepay a larger sum of money via check than be billed on a recurring basis, heck then they can collect interest on my money while it sits in an account.  Consider that a donation to the cause, I've got no problem with that.