posted on October 9, 2000 03:46:37 PM
All sorts of messages are everywhere about the alledged seller who alledgedly took payments for someone alledgedly from Roumania and alledgedly there is alledged FRAUD alledgedly associated with the entire matter.
In other words, some of us see a whole number of complaints about Paypal, for which we can only see alotta HEARSAY and alotta SURMISALS, and as we are NOT, obviously, privy to any FACTS, and because the issue could presumably (??) involves alledgedly criminal activity -- it's not like ANY spokesman from ANY company can comment on any such matter.
There are lots of matters where company spokesmen are not simply free to comment about, their legal staff can't let them.
Thank you for the understanding. I could not comment on individual cases or account specifics due to those same reasons. It makes it a weakness for me in public.
posted on October 9, 2000 03:54:18 PM
Paypaldamon:
I think it is great you've read the book etc. I did a similar stint here and on some other message boards for a now closed online venue.
I was essentially an ombudsman in that role. If people had a problem that couldn't be solved through channels, I jerked some chains. I also communicated about the industry in general much as I am now.
Still, I had issues with management. From what I've read recently about paypal/x.com, you too are in some choppy water
While fixing the system for this person or that (vocal) person's issue will be helpful -- squeaking wheels do get grease -- the real test is how responsive paypal will be to other suggestions.
For instance, it appears to me that paypal is going to be carry the weight of consumer transactions and x.com is going to convert the bonuses given months and months ago into to fees and therefore recover millions they paid in bonuses.
The net sum of what is being done is "injun giving" (Not a reference to native Americans, please!) as the only alternative is to fedex checks and demand transfer before the $12/mo fees begin being collected. It would be much cleaner if one could just transfer x.com balances to a persons alternative pay pal account ... easily. I tried to do that but I'm looking at losing the $20.23 balance in my x.com account.
That doesn't make me happy but unless there is a solution offered, I can only assume that what what x.com gives, x.com will con a way to get back.
Radh:
There is nothing illegal about what paypaldamon is doing as s/he has identified him/herself as a paid employe pulling this often thankless detail.
Indeed, companies, whether they are sole proprietorships or mega-corporations have the responsibility and duty to communicate with their markets and also to have a presence where their goods are services are discussed. Why? Well there are a variety of reasons but among the more selfish, is simply to help keep the record straight.
Where such a spokesperson could run into legal difficulties is they start hyping their communications ... suggesting superior market performance in relation to or in preparation of a IPO or in an another effort to influence the financial or equity markets.
That will get them nailed but a real conversation designed to engage users of the service and empower and instruct them on how to use the tool, discover internal programming blunders, etc. and also discover how to improve it is to me fair game as long as the hype is left behind
Thank you for sharing your experiences, as I think it is tough to convey what happens on my end.
I can't disparage competition, but I can point to the differences in the services.
A user could bring forward a case and accuse us of lying, but I could not do the same thing back if it was actually a role-reversal.
A user could call me the worst name in the book, but I can't respond in kind.
I can, however, guarantee, that your voices are heard more than just in this forum. And changes do happen as a result of it, but not always in the timeframe that people expect.
As for Romanians and Fraud and Allegations and etc. etc. etc...
We talk about all kinds of things in our lives. We talk about politics, we talk about world issues, we talk about social issues. Often we don't have all the facts and often those that do are never gonna tell us! What really happened at the mideast peace talks when Clinton left and all of a sudden they were on again? What is going on behind the scenes in Israel right now? What was possibly set in motion by the talks that is playing out now?
Why did the coach of such and such football team make such and such call?
Why did NASA lack the oversight to get the lens on the Hubble Telescope ground to the right specifications the first time out?
What really happened with the secrets that were leaking from Los Alamos?
Are there flying saucers at Area 51?
We likely will NEVER know the answers, but if we had access to someone who either DID or could FIND OUT, we would ASK THEM over and over again because we want to KNOW! Why? Because we are NOSEY! We like to hear a story, we like to know what's going on, especially when it effects us, but when it's interesting, even when it does not.
It is our nature to ask questions and seek answers, it is our nature to be nosey, we want to know and we want to know NOW and we want someone to come and tell us and even if they won't tell us we want them to give us some snippet of something that rings true so we can make a better guess!
posted on October 9, 2000 04:26:46 PM
I'm happy PP Damon's read Cluetrain. I knew he was a smart guy.
I've been in his exact same situation when I worked for a startup myself, and it was horrible. Caught between people with legitimate complaints and bosses who are trying desperately to get the company into the black, and it's veeeeeery hard to get the two areas resolved to anyone's satisfaction. To be honest, I was grateful when we burned through our money and everyone was let go with a good reference. No more divided loyalties. But I think Paypal will do better than that.
Markets are conversations....letting the customers talk freely to each other and *also* to to employees can ONLY be a positive experience...for the customers. Having Damon here is not like having Damon in our living rooms enjoying a cocktail and telling us what he REALLY thinks (the good, the bad, and the ugly) about Paypal/X.com, but it's still a positive thing. I think we all wish the conversation could be a little freer....but not everyone has read the manifesto yet.
posted on October 9, 2000 04:33:38 PM
Didja know that when MEG was at Hasbro doing the Mr. Potatohead thing that she was one of the pioneers of what is called VeRO on ebaY and is called DMCA everywhere else?
See, Mrs. Meg saw that various FANS of Mr. Potatohead had put up HORRID HORRID WEBSITES using Mr. Potatohead as the subject of all kinds of FUNNY PICTURES! These were not commercial websites, oh nooo... They were people who thought Mr. Potatohead was FUN and FUNNY!!! These were not porno Potatohead sites or anything like that, they were just SILLY ones!
Mrs. Meg felt that her 'intellectual property' formerly known as Mr. Potatohead, a child's toy was being exploited and abused and she SUED and SUED and SUED until she put a STOP to that! And pissed off all the people who really loved Mr. Potatohead enough to make him a website.
This is not the ONLY reason I say she doesn't GET IT but it is merely one of many. Meg Whitman, Pioneer of Intellectual Property Suits on the web. I am sure she is very proud of that, and it is very likely on her resume.
posted on October 9, 2000 05:38:39 PM
toyranch: sorry, u got me wrong.
I am deeply appreciative that YOU brought this situation to my attention and posted it here, where another poster emailed me about it.
However, now I've read and read and read and read and read posts all over the OAI messageboards, LOTSA posts, and although damon is able to interface with the pp userbase, there simple are things that spokesmen cannot discuss -- and I'd find it very odd were pp, itself, or any of its spokespeople to EVER enlighten us any further on that specific case.
That's confidential info, I think.
Particularly if legal authorities are investigating, which frankly, I presume they are.
toyranch, I found your posts VERY interesting. I was speaking to damon that having read several hundred other posts, many of which are claiming for ANSWERS, now, well -- after the first dozen....
AND see, I knew that pp would start charging, so I never believed that ALWAYS-FREE --- that was *hype*, buzz, just typical communications on the ecommerce side of the Net, LOL.
So, because I never believed their hype, I cannot get angry when it comes out that their hype WAS hype, lol -- in the olde sense of the term, where it had a negative connotation, where it = lies.
So, please I wasn't referring to anything YOU've posted, but in fact about the general TENOR alla over the place, lol.
posted on October 9, 2000 05:43:12 PM
paypaldamon commented, "I could not comment on individual cases or account specifics due to those same reasons. It makes it a weakness for me in public."
~ ~ ~ ~
Precisely! There are privacy and confidentiality agreements which apply to YOU, which do not necessarily apply to individuals using your service, who are free to comment upon their accounts, and frequently, there are legal imperatives where you CANNOT.
No, I didn't take it personally at all. I was just saying that I understand the inquisitors asking the questions that will never be answered even though I personally try to pose questions that have at least a chance of being answered.
You know what, I really LOVED the OLD Mr. Potatohead because you could make him into anything you wanted to make him into. He came with Farmer sets and Circus sets and Alien sets and everything else you can imagine and there were so many little plastic pieces you could use to turn your potato or cucumber or squash or whatever fruit or veggie you wanted to customize into whatever you wanted it to be.
Now he has an assigned 'personality' and can only be the same thing and the rotting fruit factor never even comes into play. The old Mr. Potatohead was really great and I miss him. This new one is like some kind of alien imposter. Heck, he isn't even SHAPED like a potato and he is all the same color and everything. He doesn't even have any fruit or veggie friends to put on his little trailer and pull behind his car.
I dunno but somehow the gentrification of Mr. Potatohead from something inventive and fun and full of surprises and creativity into something bland and staid and 'produced' does remind me of the Whitman influence on ebaY. The early days when it was a party and people were having FUN to today where it's just boring old business as usual daily grind of list and pack and ship and pay and never in the middle is much time for play for sellers and it's really not nearly so much fun for bidders either because it all flows downhill and in that flow chart, bidders are on the bottom and it all lands right down on them. The frustration and angst and sadness and all that, no matter how much we try to make it stop before it goes to the bidder, it does and they leave.
Check the numbers, they show it happening.
But wait! We are in for a cultural renaissance on ebaY! Meg has invited her old pals DISNEY over to play and TOPPS too and if they have fun then all the other bland and boooring commodity producing marketing whizzers that Meg can pull in will come and now THAT is a party! Boy, a big corporate shindig guaranteed to empty your pockets at the door.
But just like the new Potatohead, it's all contrived and boooring and blah and people will see it and leave. At least, that's what I think.
posted on October 9, 2000 08:33:07 PM
bobby: i'm worthless, absolutely w0rthless -- i can't do this thread no more. i keep envisioning Meg being confronted by the Hidden Masters of the Hierarchy of Himalayan UFOs, and being forced to give full account and documentation to their query: "MEG WHITMAN!! Did YOU defendthe honor and integrity of Mr. Potatohead?"
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
i'm sure you don't find this funnee, bobby, and i really apologize that I (lol) can't even read the title of this (lol) messagethread anymore without a rollicking LOL, and could not even attempt to seriously answer any of the questions or comment on any remarks. sorry, but i am having a RUTHLESS attack of the giggles, and they ain't going away.
Say? do you have any idea what is going on with amazon.com?? one of my news alerts has a story that they partnered up with HOOTERS, and so thusly that Mr. Jeff Bezos is not really a geek, but whenever I click on the link, it don't work; it's located at UPSIDE.com, and I can't get that to work either. do you know anything about a partnership between *Hooters* and Amazon.com?
That, indeed, is almost funnieR than Meg & Mr. Potatohead, whadda couple, that, heY???
posted on October 9, 2000 09:11:30 PM
There is an article there called 'Bezos with Hooters' and it talks about the newly launched amazon.hooters.com website where Bezos and Hooters partner to create a giant online sports book with sex appeal.
At the end of the article it mentions that the whole thing is satire and a spoof and not a word of it is true
As to your fit of giggles over the title of the thread, one thing you should know about me. I may spew skepticism and even pessimism on an ongoing basis but I am essentially an optimist. I am a skeptical optimist. If I did not believe there was a reasonable likelyhood that things WOULD work out in the end, I would not even waste another MOMENT thinking about it. As it is, the future of the OAI and the hope that ebaY will be all that it can be is at the top of my thoughts far far too often.
I will push, cajole, entice, and use every possible means to get that gorilla up and headed toward the banana tree. I see progress and I see him moving that way but there's a lot of other stuff over by the tree and I don't know if he'll climb that tree or another one.
posted on October 9, 2000 09:27:41 PM
thanks, bobby.
i FINALLY got into upside.com, and saw the word SATIRE, and lemme tell ya, these news letters should be more careful - as that liddle itty bitty quote did NOT state 'humor' or 'satire', but i guess it was kinda *cute*, and I am real glad that it is NOT for real.
Now, Bobby! You'd bedda watch out, ya bedda not crY, i'm tellin' ya whY -- PoTaToHeAd is comin' to toWN. He's knows if you've been nauGhty, s0 for g00dness sakes......
Be very werry resPectful to him, defend his honor and integritY...
0r else U might be a victim of a
Mr.PoTaTo.HeAd a-b-d-u-c-t-i-o-N,
And boyoHboy, dat's sKeery!
Meg is the one on the lower right. Like the night of living dead, they came and they conquered, growing, not from pods, but from Mr. Potato head toys.
Fearful their secret will be discovered, they've neutered and changed Mr. Potatohead from his original form, capable of taking vegatables and converting them to living, breathing alien creatures, to the plastic-only items of today.
And who is the head of this diabolical threat to all of mankind?
posted on October 10, 2000 09:53:49 AM
toyranch: i really wish you'd been there last Tuesday night for chapter one, as you see, near the end of tha chapter what happened was that Meg took a flashlight and shined it in the dark marketing department.
Really, I don't think that even Margaret Whitman can "shine a light on modernday marketing..."
i don't think ANYONE appreciated my rollicking LOLs, much less understood them, but I'm sure you would have, lololololololol...
posted on October 10, 2000 05:27:15 PM
Bobby: It occured to me today, when I went to a book sale, and could find nothing, ah - except a FIRST EDITION Mint Condition, "Mr. Potato Head Across America, that you, Bobby, this lifetime have never been a *Mother*, much less a mother who has traumatized her children by having to dispose of an olde rotting potato head, and ever thereafter her kidz wouldn't eat veggies, and thought that she hated their creations because look what the archetypal evil mama had done to their smelly, but individualized creation, Mr.Potato.Head.
Indeed, health departments throughout America probably laud this new Mr.Potato.Head, which as a 20th Century plastic can NEVER decay and rot away and reduce liddle children to tears, and create communication problems between them and their parents.
AND, better yet, forty years from now, one can go to eBay and bid on a Mr. Potato Head that L@@KS exactly like the one from your own childhood.
Yep! We are on the eve of the 21st Century and PLASTICS are here to STAY.
posted on October 10, 2000 06:01:00 PM
Well, I am a father and I have had to take toys that broke soon after my son got them because they were cheaply made away from him so he would not hurt himself with the broken sharp plastic parts and that has reduced him to tears and created communication problems between us.
He doesn't eat his veggies very well anyway.
And as a toy dealer I know that the things people often are most interested in replacing from their childhoods are those toys that caused some strife in the family and as adults they cherish those toys that made their parents upset. The ones "Mom" didn't like. Those toys generally command HIGH PRICES from people who just want to play with rotting food or dangerous plastics made in China (like the NEW Mr. Potato Head).
And as a toy dealer, surveying the broad expanse of toys through the ages, from the blocks and cast iron banks of the 1880's to the action figures of the 1980's to the computerized toys of today... I do know that toys requiring imagination are being replaced with toys that think for you and tell you how to play with them. And I think that is sad.
posted on October 10, 2000 06:14:26 PM
i always give the kind of toys that require PLAY and imagination upon the part of the child - lotsa my presents look realllllllly PLAIN when ya open 'em up but they are engrossing and played with for hours upon hours, all the SIMPLE arts & crafts, puzzles, chalk, jacks, balls, books, alla that olde fashioned SIMPLE stuff is what kids actually enjoy, not the expensive high tech stuff they BEG for, after too much exposure to teevee.
posted on October 10, 2000 06:31:07 PM
You are smart. Beyond what kids say they WANT because they are told to want it, the $75 Streets of Fire Action Set with real 9-1-1 emergency call recordings lasts for about 6 total hours of play while you can get a good 20 hours out of some cheap plastic beads and string or a couple of coloring books or just some construction paper, glue, scissors, and crayons. You should see what my kiddo did with a bag full of popsicle sticks and a bottle of glue LOLOLOL!!!
<I like this little blue guy!
